Resources

Jordan: greywater treatment and use for poverty reduction in Jordan (English)

This case study by Shihab Al-Beiruti of the The Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources Development and Management (INWRDAM) presents research to treat wastewater at household level for reuse within gardens, contributing both to water savings and poverty reduction

India: rural water supply publication

A recent book from Unicef reflects upon some of the problems of a narrow focus on drinking water supply.

Presentation from PLAN - East and Southern Africa

A powerpoint presented by Amsalu Negussi, Plan International, South Africa on effective water use for livelihood improvement in East and Southern Africa.

Plan.ppt

Presentation from Colombia

A powerpoint presented by Ines Restrepo, Cinara, Colombia in june 2005 on multiple uses of water: three case studies in Valle del Cauca, Colombia.

Colombia.ppt

20. Water for livelihoods: bringing equity and opportunity to the rural poor in South Africa

A paper presented by Dirk Versfeld on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

South Africa is a water scarce country with a history reflected in deep inequities in the distribution of both land and water. The available water resource has for the most part been allocated to existing users - primarily agriculture, mining, industrial and urban. The country has a good record in providing basic minimum supplies of water to the rural poor and this effort is continuing. Only now is more thought being given to making larger volumes of water available for sustainable livelihoods, making this symposium on water for productive use particularly timely. The available runoff is now almost all utilised or captured and redistributed through dams and canals. There is little opportunity for further exploitation of the resource, and new users are now in competition for the existing available water. Irrigated agriculture is the key user, taking up 56% of the available resource with a contribution of only 4.7% to GDP. This makes it an obvious target for resource redistribution, yet the benefits are shown to be far wider than this primary contribution. It is ironic that the one way of easily redistributing water into the historically disadvantaged sector is through irrigated agriculture, yet this will only worsen the shortages experienced and will do little to resolve the fundamental issue – which is to make water 0really useful to a significantly large proportion of the rural poor. [authors abstract]

proceeding_20.pdf

18. Changing the water paradigm for poverty reduction, Zimbabwe

A paper presented by Peter B. Robinson on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

At independence in 1980, the new government inherited a highly skewed economy with the majority of the population living on racially demarcated subsistence farming areas known as 'communal areas'. In rural water and sanitation programmes, the focus was on clean water for household use. It was anticipated that improved health would indirectly contribute to reduced poverty through higher levels of agricultural productivity. In fact, as a result of many factors, poverty in the communal areas increased markedly in both extent and depth, reaching alarming levels during the 1990s. The mainstream government water programmes have been based on community boreholes or deep wells. Although some are used to water vegetable gardens, there has never been more than a passing interest in providing water for productive uses. Instead, under the responsibility of a different ministry, the approach has been to build capital-intensive formal irrigation schemes, with water supplied from dams. By 1999 the total number of beneficiaries of these formal irrigation schemes were no more than 20,000 households, or 2% of the total number in the communal areas. [authors abstract]

proceeding_18.pdf

16. Transforming village water access into profitable business opportunities

A paper presented by Paul Polak, Deepak Adhikari, Bob Nanes, Dan Salter and Sudarshan Surywanshi and Jack Keller on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

Although Colombia is rich in water resources, scarcity increasingly affects water supply in various regions of the country. This is mainly a scarcity of adequate water quality. This is also the situation in the
Department of the Valle del Cauca. The environmental authority of this Department (CVC) has contracted Cinara to contribute to resolving water use problems in a specific micro-catchment and at the
same time to develop methodologies that allow the replication of the work in other areas under jurisdiction of the CVC. The area selected for this project is the ‘Ambichinte’ micro-catchment located on the western slopes of the Andes, in the Municipality of Dagua. This paper presents both the methodology and results of the first phase; a participative appraisal of the water situation in the micro-catchment. The appraisal was done with the participation of both the community and institutions. It looked at the impact of water in all its aspects on the lives of people in the catchment, and drew out gender and poverty differences. Besides, the appraisal has tried to identify the demand and value people have for management and protection of the micro-watershed and for access to water for both domestic and productive uses. The demand was assessed by a Willingness To Pay (WTP) study in combination with the collection of other demand indicators. [authors abstract]

proceeding_16.pdf

13. Chilwa catchment area in Southern Malawi

A paper presented by Wapulumuka O. Mulwafu on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa

Domestic water supplies are used not only for the traditional purposes of drinking, cooking and washing but they are also utilized for a variety of ‘non-domestic’ uses. In the Lake Chilwa Catchment area in southern Malawi, domestic water is increasingly being used for dry-season gardening, brick-making, livestock watering and small-scale business enterprises. These activities constitute an important element in the livelihoods of both rural and urban communities. Understanding the importance of multiple uses of water, in the lives of people in developing countries, has implications for how water supply systems are
developed and how water resources are managed. This paper reports on these issues from a wider research study on water resources management conducted, in southern Malawi. It is based on data collected through focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field observations. [authors abstract]

proceeding_13.pdf

11. Evaluation of the water supply situation in the western Highveld area, South Africa

A paper presented by R.S. Mckenzie, H. Lombard, G. Constantinedes, N. Meyer and N. Adams on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

Participatory approaches to development are increasingly being advocated by development organizations and NGOs. However, putting these methods into practice is difficult, particularly where beneficiaries have
to contribute in kind and in cash. This presentation discusses the experiences, constraints and achievements in a participatory project, where beneficiaries were involved, in identification of problems, design of solutions and equity investment in the improvement of charco dams. A university research unit and an NGO were involved in providing technical backstopping with costs covered by a small grant from a regional programme. The project targeted agro-pastoralists who own private charco dams for harvesting and storing rainwater to supply water to livestock. However, although the group of agro-pastoralists was expected to be homogeneous, with common interests, it was very difficult to achieve common understanding. Had the charco dams been communally owned, it would have been difficult to implement the project. Only 50% of the targeted agro-pastoralists participated in the first year. However, nearly all have signed for the second year. It is important to identify their differences in objectives, interests and problems in-order to ensure a cross cutting participation in project planning, design and implementation. [authors abstract]

proceeding_11.pdf

09. Linking water supply and rural enterprise: issues and illustrations from India

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]

proceeding_09.pdf

07. Wastewater reuse for urban and periurban agriculture in Yaounde

A paper presented by D. Endamana, I.M. Kengne, J. Gockowski, J. Nya, D. Wandji, J. Nyemeck, N. N. Soua J. N. Bakwowi on 21-23 January 2003, Muldersdrift, South Africa.

Studies were conducted in three urban and two peri-urban sites in Yaounde to highlight the importance of food production in urban and peri-urban settings and the associated public health hazards. In each site, the physico-chemical, microbiological and parasitological properties of irrigation water were analysed and a socio-economic survey of urban and peri-urban agriculturalists conducted. The results show that water used for crop irrigation in the urban domain exceeds WHO bacterial and parasitic standards for unrestricted crop irrigation, in contrast to the peri-urban domain which met the standards. In the urban area, faecal coliforms and faecal streptococci are > 103 bacteria/100 ml and at least 33 % of the samples contained helminth eggs and cysts of protozoa. These wastewaters constitute therefore a potential source of health risk both for farmers of and consumers of the food produced in these milieus. Slightly less than half of the farmers interviewed attributed a health problem to their working environment. Among these farmers malaria, skin ulcers, bilharzia, typhoid fever and diarrhoea were the most frequently cited illnesses and the health expenses attributed to associate illness were estimated at approximately 62 Euros per year for each farmer. Furthermore, approximately 11 days of work are lost per year due to these illnesses. [authors abstract]

proceeding_07.pdf