A paper presented by A.J James on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

Improving domestic water supply has the potential to promote rural enterprise, reduce poverty and enhance rural livelihoods, but may not do so on its own. The term ‘rural enterprise’ refers here to household-based enterprise activity, like pottery, brick making, toddy tapping, salt-making, gum collection, livestock rearing, handicrafts, etc. While the link between water supply (irrigation) and agriculture is clear enough, the links between domestic water supply and rural enterprise are not always apparent. This paper explores two such links, using illustrations from rural India, before discussing the policy issue of
promoting rural enterprise and enhancing rural livelihoods through better domestic water supplies. The first link is that breakdowns in regular domestic water supply can impose (monetary and nonmonetary)
costs on those engaged in rural enterprise. Data from rural enterprises involving women in rural Gujarat are used to calculate the costs of temporary breakdowns in water supply. The second link is that improved domestic water supply can reduce household water collection time, and thus ‘create’ time that can be used for rural enterprise. This paper uses data from rural Gujarat to estimate the benefits of improved water supply, for the hypothetical case where it takes a household only one hour per day to collect domestic water. This case also illustrates how women augmenting household income through rural enterprise have a greater say in household decision-making over the use of their time and money. These links make a strong case for improving domestic water supply not only for the traditional reasons of reducing women’s drudgery and improving health and hygiene, but also to enhance household income, empower rural women, reduce poverty and thus improve rural livelihoods. [authors abstract]