Regenerative Camps and Settlements

Since 2022, Re-Alliance has be working on a ‘Regenerative Camps and Settlements' project. The project has piloted regenerative interventions within formal and informal camps for refugees and IDPs across the world, in partnership with Re-Alliance member partners. The learnings from the projects are informing our wider research into regenerative responses to disaster and displacement, and forming the basis of content for learning materials and knowledge sharing aimed at promoting grass-roots, community led interventions and influencing mainstream INGO activities.

In May 2022, Re-Alliance held our first round of funding and selected eight projects from the 41 applications received, and then hosted a second round of funding in 2023. Our local partner organisations have implemented change-making regenerative programmes to trial innovations which benefit community and ecologies. The projects aim to enhance multiple systems, increasing the health of social, ecological and economic systems together. These projects work in an integrated way to break down the traditional silos between sectors.

Our partnerships have included work on projects such as:

• Integrated Sanitation Projects

Although the concept of dry and compost toilets is now more understood and has been adopted in some camp settings, widespread uptake is limited because, in part, the benefits of resource creation are not appreciated and therefore systems are not maintained and valued.

We have partnered with local groups with a focus and understanding of soil health, nutrient cycles and food growing. By integrating various designs of composting toilets with amending soils for plant growth we aim to create projects which thrive at the intersection between WASH and Livelihoods sectors, creating multiple benefits to both areas.

• Urban Agriculture Projects

Urban agriculture increases access to healthy, affordable, fresh food and gives communities a chance to learn about nutrition and growing food. More than this, it gives people who have been uprooted from their homes purposeful, therapeutic activity. By growing and cooking favourite foods, a taste of home can be created in a new place while tiny green spaces enrich the environment and biodiversity of cities. Reducing the amount of food that families have to buy increases resilience and reduces the amount of food that needs to be imported into cities at high carbon costs. The projects supported also integrate the use of up-cycled and recycled materials and seed saving to reduce inputs and create regenerative cycles.

• Lime Stabilised Soil Construction

If concrete was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of CO2 in the world. Lime Stabilised Soil (LSS) is a viable alternative to concrete with similar cost, strength and adaptability benefits but with a fraction of the carbon footprint.

Following disasters, huge rebuilding programmes often utilise concrete for rapid rebuilding, but lime stabilised soil has been shown to have greater benefits as it allows for the use of on-site materials (soil) and reduces the need for imported materials. It therefore minimises costs, carbon and resource demands and reduces construction traffic by avoiding transport of excavated and imported materials.

Lime stabilisation is an established practice with a proven history of successful use internationally but cement is still the first choice by many engineers in part because of the knowledge gap of use.

In some contexts, concrete is prohibited by the authorities for political reasons, so LSS could be a viable alternative to concrete without compromising on strength and safety.

• Community Composting

Closing the nutrient cycle by converting food waste into compost is a fundamental tool in turning human activity from an extractive to regenerative process. Our partners worked at the intersection between waste management, livelihoods and health. Composting schemes reduce waste management costs, enrich soils to enable healthy food to be grown and increase the health and biodiversity of the soil. Healthy soils sequester more carbon, absorb more water during heavy rainfall and facilitate organic food growing due to increased nutrient content. Find some of the educational materials that we have co-created with partners here.