Sewage flooding into the streets creates health issues for pedestrians, says 62-year-old villager Sayed Mahmoud, adding that water from broken sewerage pipes mixes with tap water.

Hayam, a homemaker who lives less than 100 meters from an open sewer, is concerned about the health risks poor sanitation poses to her three young children.

“The sewers are in a bad state,” she says. “It’s not natural and has negative effects on children and the elderly. The smell causes breathing problems and I’m worried one of my children might fall into the sewers.”

College student Mohamed Helmy works in a pharmacy located next to the sewers. “Farmers use sewer water to irrigate their lands,” he says. “We need a new sanitation system and the open sewers need to be closed.”

Sakakra is not an exception. With an estimated 80 percent of households in rural Egypt not covered by public sewerage, improvements in the sanitation system are badly needed.

AIIB is financing both the physical infrastructure and improvement programs for institutions responsible for sanitation.

The projects will run till September 2023. In total, 178,000 households in 133 villages in the governorates of Dakahliya, Sharkiya, Damietta, Menoufya and Gharbiya will receive sanitation services.

Technical studies to determine the most suitable and highest priority locations for a new drainage system are underway. Sanitation projects in Egypt used to be conducted top-down by the government, but this one takes a more community-based approach.

Abdel Naby, Hayam, Mahmoud and their neighbors’ participation will help Sakakra get a new pump station, a new network of pipelines and a new wastewater treatment plant serving five villages. And hopefully along with that, newfound safety and peace of mind.

The newly constructed roads have caused hope to ripple among the villagers and lessen cynicism. Women, senior citizens and those in need of health care are hoping the project would provide last-mile connectivity to social services. The project has also sparked volunteerism in some of the villagers. Braving the heat wave, farmers attend to their crops in the vast fields of the largely agrarian state of Andhra Pradesh. The rural roads project has given them a reason to hope, with some of them voluntarily contributing a small part of their lands for the road construction.

“We sow crops like groundnut, millets, chilies and even cotton, which need great care,” says Bala Venkat Reddy, a farmer in Moolapali village. “With the roads, getting to our fields every day with our bullock carts is much easier now. Transporting our harvested crops to the nearest market yard now costs us half the price, with tractors and three-wheeler auto rickshaws easily accessing our village.”

Roads are lifelines to socioeconomic development. They embolden women to travel farther distances for education, trade and health. They enable people like Bala Venkat to transport and trade his crops. They empower teachers like Sujatha to educate the young. And they help Navya get to school safely.

“If water is not distributed in time, crops would be affected and I won’t be able to harvest on time,” says Suhada.

Irrigation is pivotal in Indonesia where 30 percent of the total land (about 55 million hectares) is agricultural. Agriculture is the main source of employment for more than 33 percent of the country’s labor force and contributes 14 percent to gross domestic product. Modernizing the irrigation system could distribute water equally to all farms.

“Irrigation scheduling is still manual but will later use an automated system of operating irrigation gates to ensure real-time water distribution for farmers who could then directly irrigate their farms when needed,” says Iman Ramdhani, head of program of project executor Balai Besar Wilayah Sungai (Citarum River basin organization).

Irrigation modernization is key to wet rice cultivation in a country that is one of the world’s largest rice consumers. It allows farmers to harvest high-quality crops, explore crop diversification, decrease the cost of pumping water and minimize crop failures—ultimately leading to more stable incomes for farmers like Kendo and Suhada.

The project uses a process called solution mining. Ultrasonic scanners reveal salt deposits beneath the earth, which engineers then drill into. The resulting cavern—large enough to fit the Eiffel Tower—is filled with water from the nearby Hirfanlı Dam. Dissolved in water, the salt deposits are extracted then returned to the lake. Once the underground cavern is sealed, it can be used to store natural gas year-round. The project could expand Türkiye’s overall underground gas storage capacity from 3.4 billion to 10 billion cubic meters.

The project supports sustainable development and brings social benefits to the community. Fresh water for agricultural irrigation could be transported from the Hirfanlı Dam after the leaching process. This enhances the feeding and breeding conditions of the flamingo population and contributes to the revival of the Salt Lake ecosystem. Planting thousands of trees would balance the project’s carbon footprint. Renewable energy could be produced by a solar power plant for electricity consumption.

More importantly, the project ensures reliable and year-round gas supply and contributes to hedging winter consumption. More storage capacity means greater ability for BOTAŞ—Türkiye’s largest natural gas import company—to absorb market fluctuations in demand and prices. With more supply storage, natural gas can be purchased when prices are low. It also leaves room for planning when demand is high. This ultimately passes savings to the consumer.

Among these potential consumers are the 10 members of Bayram’s family, where a coal-fired stove continues to burn round-the-clock at the center of their home.