| Providing
reliable access to water for productive purposes is
one of the key opportunities in the water sector to
alleviate poverty for a considerable share of the
three quarters of the world's 'dollar-poor' that live
in rural areas. What is needed is an assortment of
interventions that combine technology, institutions
and social marketing, implemented through decentralized
organizations closely linked to or directed by the
users.
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| ACTIONS
:
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| Target
geographic areas with high concentrations of
poverty and focus on pro-poor project design |
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While specific targeting of poor groups has
run into implementation difficulties, targeting
areas with high incidence of poverty and design
of projects that are explicitly pro-poor, have
been found to be effective.
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Photograph by Sanjini de Silva, IWMI |
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| Gender-equitable
development boosts productivity
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Women form the majority of the agricultural
labor force. In addition, in significant parts
of Africa where men migrate to find work elsewhere,
female headed households can imply that the
majority of farmer decision-makers are women
as well.Gender-equitable water development projects
have a higher productivity and genderequity
is therefore not only a welfare issue. Where
acceptance of women's roles remains problematic,
affirmative genderaction can increase the success
of water development projects.
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Photograph by Frank Rijsberman,
IWMI
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| Require
ex-ante poverty impact assessments for water
resources investments.
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Assessments ought to be conducted for proposed
investments that determine: (a) whether they
are strongly pro-poor, pro-poor, neutral or
anti-poor; (b) the direct and indirect benefits
and dis-benefits, particularly impacts on wage
labor; (c) the beneficiaries/affectees; and
(d) constraints and opportunities for enhancing
poverty alleviation at micro, meso and macro
level.
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Small
scale technologies have proven
successful for helping poor
farmers- but these
must be carefully evaluated
in the context of conditions
and contraints of those areas
where technologies are introduced
Photograph by Sanjini de Silva,
IWMI |
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These women in Ethiopia
are winnowing tef but as the graph below
shows- while land area for cultivation
has increased in sub-Saharan Africa,
the yield has not increased greatly.
Improving yield without major expansion
is one goal of water resources developments
towards alleviating poverty.
Photograph by Frank Rijsberman, IWMI
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Graph
showing the poverty headcount
(%) in irrigated and non-irrigated
settings shows greater poverty
in non-irrigated settings, highlighting
poverty alleviation role of
irrigation
Source: IWMI, Pro Poor Study
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Annual Percentage Change
in Cereal Production
Source: World Bank |
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FACTS AND FIGURES
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The
multiplier benefits from irrigation-induced
economic expansion can be large, with
estimates ranging from 1.22 to 6, and
an average for India estimated around
2.
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In South-Asia poverty among tail-enders
in irrigation systems is 5-10 percent
higher than among head-enders, but in
China and Vietnam this difference is less
than 2 percent, due to more equal access
to land and water resources
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DEBATES
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Irrigation
reduces poverty; while poverty
is still high in irrigated areas, it is
much higher outside irrigation systems
in non-irrigated areas. |
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Poverty
alleviation can occur through irrigationbut
how? Poverty alleviation of irrigation
for the poorest of the poor is more likely
to be through wage labor than through
increased crop productivity, as the truly
poor are often landless. |
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