Lien Environmental Fellowship

Launched in 2010, the Lien Environmental Fellowship equips Asian scientists and researchers from select South and Southeast Asian countries with the skills and resources to tackle challenges related to water and sanitation in their home countries. Successful programme applicants receive mentorship as well as technical and financial support to transform their ideas into viable solutions.

More than a million people in six countries – Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Sri Lanka – have benefitted from improved access to clean water and sanitation, skills transfer and education as a result of the Fellowship. Major projects conceived and implemented by the Lien fellows include the clean up of Kandy Lake in Sri Lanka, linked to an important source of drinking water, replicating waste-to-energy technology in India and boosting access to clean water in parts of Indonesia which are particularly vulnerable to contaminated groundwater. In Sri Lanka, the team commissioned a wastewater treatment plant and also devised a simple water purification system by placing floating platforms filled with a native plant to filter and treat the lake water. More than 720,000 people have benefitted. In India, a team has developed technology to turn food and vegetable waste into bio-energy which is being used to light up villages that are still off the grid in rural Maharashtra. The project also reduces the sanitation hazards that come from landfill waste. Meanwhile, in parts of Gunungkidul district in Indonesia affected by karst topography – a geological occurrence which leads to contaminated ground water.