2021: A year to remember (Part 1)

As the year comes to a close we’re looking back on another busy twelve months across the RECIRCULATE partnership, in the first part of this review we look at the stories and news we’ve brought you.

As you may already know The FLOW was developed as a collection of short, non-technical articles written by those closest to the work of the project and to the challenges and solutions associated with the circular water economy. The authors of the blogs are not just our researchers but also those from the network of those who have contributed to the project in many different ways.

In 2021 we published 47 FLOW blogs and spotlight interviews from unique authors. Many of the FLOW articles have seen viewed hundreds of times, providing updates on the project’s research and often highlighting relevance to UN International days and weeks. On World Water Day 2021 in March we asked some of the RECIRCULATE family in Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, United Kingdom and Zambia to tell us how important water is to their home and family life, livelihood, cultural practices, wellbeing or local environment. For World Africa Day 2021 in May we asked the RECIRCULATE family across 7 countries to tell us the benefits of being part of our pan-Africa network. On World Toilet Day 2021 in November, members of the RECIRCULATE Water for Sanitation and Health team reflect on this year’s theme “Valuing toilets” and what that really means in practice.

Additionally in 2021, we have regularly posted news stories reporting on our events (such as our PARTICIPATE webinars and our attendance at COP26), engagement and partner activities. A particular highlight was the project’s involvement at COP26 and the digital engagement in November through the PARTICIPATE programme. We held two webinars in November focusing on the challenges and opportunities of the objectives outlined by COP26, you can find recordings of the webinars on our PARTICIPATE page.

In a year marked by continued travel restrictions due to COVID-19 the project teams were unable to come together in one venue for our Annual Meeting se we developed a ‘hybrid’ format, with 3 venues for our phase 1 partner countries – one in Lancaster (UK), one in Akosombo (Ghana) and one in Abuja (Nigeria). These three in-person meetings were joined remotely across three days. The first half of the meeting saw individual workpackages delivering reports of activity over the previous year and with the latter half spent on interactive activity to develop proposal beyond the RECIRCULATE and ACTUATE projects. In total, across the 3 days, 80 delegates across the four RECIRCULATE partners and other invited contributors attended the meeting. We recorded the meeting to put together a short film of the event which you can find below.

To our team, partners, wider network and followers we thank you for your partnership, collaboration and engagement. From the RECIRCULATE team we wish you all safe and happy holidays!