Drylands cover around 40% of our earth, containing 74% of the poor population, 50% of the world’s livestock and more than half of the arable land. Excellent Development, a British charity, has developed a solution in the form of sand dams that store the water securely from disease and evaporation. In total, more than 1000 such sand dams have already been built in 10 countries, benefiting around 1 million people. This has led to improved water security, improved methods of managing harvested land and increased revenues. Their active involvement has significantly improved women's rights.

In South Africa, as in many poorer countries, there are around 4500 schools, in which there are hardly any sanitary facilities such as toilets. This is a massive problem for teachers and students, and especially for women and girls. Very often the cause is not enough water. Enviro Options, a South African company, has faced the problem and developed a special dry toilet. A total of around 80,000 such toilets have now been installed with the support of the SAFE programme. This saves around 420,000 litres of water per school, generates 5.5 tonnes of dried waste as dung and creates hygienic conditions for everyone as well as jobs for maintenance.

Especially in the dry areas of our earth, the efficient irrigation of agricultural crops is an extremely important issue to be able to guarantee the nutrition of the population. Dr. Bellachheb Chahbani is a scientist and has developed a special system for this purpose. For irrigation, so-called diffusers are buried, which slow down the flow of water. This can significantly improve productivity in agriculture. With the same amount of water, the use of the diffuser can improve productivity by 2 to 3 times. Even dry years can now be survived without damage to the trees.