Welcome to the 21st Issue of Water and Food Monthly

Note from the editor

In this Issue of Water and Food Monthly,we experiment with a new look! We feature news about the International Forum on Water and Food, and CPWF’s participation at Stockholm World Water Week. You’ll also find updates on capacity building, the Mekong fisheries management project and more..

A Very Different Forum: CPWF International Forum on Water and Food

The CPWF is about to embark on something very different. This is about the half-way point in the first phase of the CPWF. Given our preoccupation with improving livelihoods by getting more food for less water, we're organizing a forum to debate and discuss our progress and our directions into the future.

This forum, however, is very, very different. We were looking for a forum that could both powerfully address the continued problem of food insecurity due to lack of access to water, and also provide a fun and lively platform for interaction. There will be no paper presentations.

"There will be no paper presentations"

But there will be vibrant debate, encouraged by professional facilitators who know how to keep a discussion alive, moving and relevant. Lack of access to water is one of the biggest crises facing poor people in poor countries; it is a serious issue and requires serious solutions. We think the best way to reveal these is to bring together people passionate about this topic, and to debate solutions to this problem. Should you have field experience or policy experience or any kind of experience that has given you solid ideas about the ways people can get better access--or make better use of the access they have--then we are looking for your input. Maybe you have seen (or been part of) the implementation of a water-productivity program that yielded brilliant and exciting results, that has taught you something other people could use. The Forum is keen to learn from this experience: come tell us about it. Maybe you've had an experience with a program that went wrong, or that could have been done better--and you think you have some ideas of how. Come tell us about that, too. And hear about other people's experiences.

The CPWF is passionate about identifying ways to provide people with the access and the means to grow more food with less water. The Forum will reflect the urgency of both the debate and the desire to achieve the project's goals. We'll have people flying in from all over the world to join us in figuring out where the CPWF is going to go from here. Submit an abstract online and have your project ideas become part of our official discussion questions. Or just register to come and join in the exchange. This is a conversation you don't want to miss and we'd like to have your voice be a part of it. Hope to see you in Lao PDR this November.

Kim Geheb, IFWF Coordinator and Mekong Basin Coordinator
Kaitlin Mara, Forum Liaison, kaitlin.mara-alumni@lse.ac.uk

CPWF Master's Students in Animal Science at Makerere University, Uganda

It is the end of April, and final exams have just finished for the term. Emmanuel Zziwa and Swidiq Mugerwa are first year Master’s students in Animal Science at Makerere University, Uganda, serving as field site guides for the CPWF capacity building officer. The term may be over, but field work is about to begin.

Field site, Uganda

These students will be doing more than just sampling—their research provides the backdrop for an integrated partnership between Makerere University, local government, NGO’s, community leaders and farmers. Together, they form a knowledge sharing team that will enhance community understanding of livestock water productivity. If their efforts are successful, land, pasture, and water management for livestock in the field site communities will have potential basin scale impacts on water productivity.

The Nile basin livestock water productivity project contributes to research objectives within the CPWF’s Integrated Basin Management research theme by recognizing , that livestock is a key entry point for influencing water quality and quantity at farm, catchment, and basin levels. The project’s goals are to develop concepts and tools to account for livestock use, as well as depletion and degradation of water in river basins, to assess livestock-water productivity, and to use this knowledge to improve overall allocation and use of water and land resources for all users at scales ranging from the household and community to the basin level. These two students, and four others in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Sudan, are part of that effort.

CPWF asks Emmanuel Zziwa how his research contributes to poverty alleviation in the Nile river basin:

Emmanuel Zziwa

“In the dry season, the scarcity of water leads to death of a lot of livestock within this area. A person with 100 animals in the wet season, by the time the dry season goes out, 40 have died, he has 60 - that counts alot on his income. Improving quality and quantity of water supply helps farmers get through the dry season with out death of animals and improves productivity factors like growth rate means that farmers will have consistent market for their animals. Good body condition means minimization of death, that means the income of farmers.”

CPWF capacity building promotes integrative learning across disciplines and scales
Upstream and downstream riparian countries in the Nile river basin have different livestock production systems, each of which has its own impacts on basin level productivity. Within each system, a number of variables must be measured and tested to understand how water productivity can be improved. The research approach of the study forms the basis from which to develop integrative research skills for the group of graduate students recruited for the project.

Upstream rainfed areas are represented in the Makerere University studies. In these systems, inappropriate grazing aggravates downstream flooding, sedimentation and water scarcity in lower portions of the basin.

Degraded pasture

Mr. Mugerwa is looking at the range management aspects of the system, to derive a better understanding about how livestock land use practices affect pasture productivity and animal nutrition. Mr. Zziwa is approaching the system from a hydrological point of view, assessing the impact of land degredation on the quality & quantity of water and its affects on livestock productivity and watershed function. Together with other Makerere University students, they will derive an understanding of how Ugandan systems influence water balances in the system as a whole. Through linkages with students looking at other pasture production systems and basin level impacts in Ethiopia and Sudan, the project forms a cross disciplinary and transboundary student cohort and synthesis team.

Marcia Macomber, Capacity Building Officer, m.macomber@cgiar.org

CPWF Launches IDIS

IDIS Website

On June 16th the CPWF launched the Integrated Database Information System (IDIS). IDIS is an on-line data and information portal that provides access to shared scientific data in water, agriculture and environment. The main goal of IDIS is to help CPWF scientists, as well as their research partners, easily access and share data through the internet. IDIS contains over 4 billion time series records with geographical focus in the CPWF river basins.

Access to shared data in IDIS is organized similarly to accounts in a bank. Access to any dataset can be assigned to a single user, shared between multiple users or open to the general public. Access and usage of IDIS data is provided under strict compliance with intellectual property rights, copyrights and data sharing agreements. All data shared on IDIS is described through its associated metadata – through this users are able to identify key information such as the exact source of the data (contact), the data collection method, its unit(s), the geographical and time coverage, its limitations, etc.

The IDIS website also provides access to water and climate data covering the world through a simple and easy to use web map. The available data consists of 102 years of monthly time series data as well as monthly averages based on 30 years of observations. By far, this service is the most popular section of the IDIS website which accounts for over 60 % of all page views.

Finally, the template section of the IDIS website provides guidelines and examples of the free Microsoft Excel based approach to consistently and efficiently store and archive scientific data across CPWF research projects.

Since its launch the IDIS website was visited by over 2 500 Users out of which 489 are registered as IDIS Users.

Visit the IDIS website http://dw.iwmi.org/dataplatform/Basin_Kits.aspx
Pierre Marchand, Data Warehouse Architect, p.marchand@cgiar.org

From Assessment to Action: The CA and CPWF at Stockholm World Water Week 2006

The Comprehensive Assessment on Water Management in Agriculture (CA) was conducted to bring together diverging views about water, food and ecosystems to answer the question: How can water for food be developed and managed to help end poverty and hunger, ensure environmentally sustainable water-agriculture practices, and find the balance between food and environmental security? The CA was launched in 2001 to critically assess the current situation and to provide policy-relevant recommendations on the way forward over the next 25 to 50 years. It aims to inform people who make investment and policy decisions in the field of water management for agriculture as well as practitioners and researchers.

Over the past five years, the CA has critically evaluated the benefits, costs, and impacts of 50 years of water development, the water management challenges communities are facing today, and solutions people have developed. The overarching picture of the water-food-livelihoods-environment nexus offered by the CA enables the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) to put results into action by investing in research that leads to better management and investment decisions in water and agriculture and aims to address both human and environmental water needs.

At Stockholm World Water Week in August 2006, the CA will present its findings in the opening session. On 24 August, a joint CA and CPWF session will feature experts discussing how to move from ‘assessment to actions’, with practical examples from CPWF research. A draft version of the CA’s “Summary for Decision Makers: Influencing What Happens Next”, will be available for feedback. In that document, the CA suggests a new policy agenda on water, starting with a change in our current thinking about water management by linking across disciplines and sectors and focusing on water for food security, environmental protection as well as poverty reduction. The CA urges investment where it pays: strategic management of soil moisture, supplementing irrigation, increasing the productivity of irrigation schemes, enabling multiple use systems, while also targeting the access to the poor and reaping what we sow – acting now to avoid the avoidable negative environmental impacts. Finally, it suggests investing to reform public action and get multiple stakeholders on board to rethink our strategies and implement them, through dialogues, capacity building and empowerment.

CPWF has picked up on many of the CA-identified priority issues for research, especially evident in the second call for proposals: groundwater and poverty reduction, political drivers in water rights and allocations, water resources in diverse production systems, aquatic ecosystem valuation for improved water policy, small-scale agriculture and land and water degradation, and policies and methodologies to enhance fisheries management.

For the complete schedule of CA-CPWF activities and events, please see www.waterandfood.org

Look for the CA results synthesizing book entitled “Water for Food, Water for Life: The Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture”, to be published by Earthscan at the end of 2006.

Visit the CA website http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Assessment/
Contact Domitille Vallee, Water, Food, Environment Specialist/Assessment Facilitator - Comprehensive Assessment on Water Management in Agriculture, d.vallee@cgiar.org

Issues of scale in Mekong fisheries management (Project 52)

Loading smoked fish Siem Reap Province

Scale issues play a large role in the management of aquatic resources. Especially in an ecosystem like the Mekong Basin, where water flows from China to the sea, species migrate great distances, international agreements are made to protect locally-harvested species and locally accessed habitats, and centralized management systems work to manage and co-manage resources harvested at local levels, scale levels and the communication and information sharing across these scales must be taken into consideration for planning and decision-making.

The CPWF project, Strengthening fisheries management institutions in the Lower Mekong river basin through collaborative research and data synthesis across multiple scales (project 52), led by the Institute for Fisheries Management and Coastal Community Development (Denmark) is drawing to a close at the writing of this newsletter. The overall objective of the project was to provide input for the design and implementation of Lower Mekong river basin (LMB) fisheries management systems founded on local-level natural resource management institutions scaled upwards to national fisheries management, research agencies, and to the basin-level via the Mekong River Commission. Five case studies were undertaken in Thailand, Lao PDR, and Cambodia. Scale issues addressed included the formation of co-management groups, local management when migratory species are involved, and information sharing for co-management.

Regional, national, and global influences also influence the capability of users to govern and manage local resources. The project undertook empirical research which would provide results for strengthening the fisheries management system in the Lower Mekong river basin.

Two cases studies from the research are highlighted here: the formation of local co-management institutions and the scaling up of such local groups to a district or national level; and transboundary cooperation where local species (such as the endangered Irawaddy dolphins) are of international interest.

Case 1: The scaling up of Community Fisheries in Cambodia

CF members in Kandal Province

Case 2: Localized transboundary fisheries management

Among Lao and Cambodian fishers, there is a general perception that fishing practices in neighbouring countries, to some extent, hinders the yearly up or downstream migrations of commercially important fish species. Due to the spatial scales associated which these threats to the Siphandone fishery, local managers advocate for improved trans-boundary fisheries management. Co-management, with participants from higher level government authorities as well as representatives from local fishing communities, from both countries, is arguably the management setup required for this transboundary fishery.

Overall, the project was a success. Useful and interesting information on the scale issues at hand were uncovered. Results are set to be published in the Mekong River Commissions’ (MRC) “Catch and Culture” newsletter and in an MRC Development Series brochure. Results are also being disseminated in presentations at professional meetings such as the Society for Applied Anthropology (www.sfaa.net) in April 2006 and the International Association for the Study of Common Property (www.iascp.org) in Bali in June 2006. It is hoped that the findings be useful for fisheries managers in the Lower Mekong basin, and that they will also serve as a springboard for further study in phase two of the CPWF small grants research call.

Contact Alyne E. Delaney, Project Leader, IFM, ad@ifm.dk

CGIAR Gender and Diversity Women’s Leadership and Management Program in Lima, Peru

Participants of the CGIAR Women's Leadership Workshop

In May, two members of the CPWF secretariat, Priyantha Jayasuriya and Marene Abeyesekere, traveled to Lima, Peru to attend the CGIAR Gender and Diversity Women’s Leadership and Management Program. Hosted by Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), the purpose of the course was to “reinforce the skills needed to enhance the leadership capacity and managerial effectiveness of women leaders, scientists and professionals who work in the Future Harvest Centers of the CGIAR system, or with its international and national partner organizations.” http://www.genderdiversity.cgiar.org/

The course is held two or three times a year and this time included participants from four CGIAR centers (ILRI, ICRAF, CIP, IFPRI), FAO, USAID, University of Ghana, and the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Nigeria, among others. Through the use of practical sessions – facilitated discussions, role plays, games etc. – participants learned to use skill and style inventories and communication skills to strengthen their leadership and managerial inventories. Team building, managing interpersonal conflict, networking, and awareness of gender implications in personal and professional development were among the course objectives.

“There were women from all over the world, but what was amazing was that many had faced [personal and professional] difficulties because they are women. It was motivational for us to see how their determination and dedication helped them to achieve their present status.” – Marene Abeyesekere

Dates for your diary

20 -26 August 2006: Stockholm World Water Week

31 August 2006: NEW deadline for abstracts and posters, CPWF International Forum on Water and Food, Vientiane, Lao PDR

Refer to the forum website http://forum.waterandfood.org for details

4-7 September 2006: 9th International River Symposium, Australia

Find out more about this year’s symposium on ‘Managing rivers with climate change and expanding populations’ at http://www.riversymposium.com

11 - 29 September 2006: Wageningen International course on multi-stakeholder processes

Wageningen International will be conducting a course on “Facilitating Multi Stakeholder Processes and Social Learning”. The course introduces the latest developments and approaches and will give particular attention to issues of governance and participatory democracy, power and conflict. For further information please contact simone.vanvugt@wur.nl. Applications forms can be requested at training.wi@wur.nl

18 - 22 September 2006: 2nd Regional Workshop on Agricultural Water Management (AWM) in Eastern and Southern Africa, Maputo, Mozambique

‘Water for the Millennium Development Goal on Poverty and Hunger’. More information available here (PDF download) .

12 – 17 November 2006 CPWF International Forum on Water and Food, Vientiane, Lao PDR

The forum will highlight research achievements in the field of water productivity in agriculture, expand on this knowledge, and recommend future areas for research and development investment. Visit the website http://forum.waterandfood.org

Recently released publications

Sugunan V.V., Prein M., & Dey M.M (2006) Integrating Agriculture, Fisheries, and Ecosystem Conservation: Win-Win Solutions. International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 32 (1), 3 - 14

The following are available on the CPWF website:

Agricultural Water Productivity: Issues, Concepts and Approaches, Simon Cook, Hugh Turral and Francis Gichuki, Working Paper on Water Productivity Paper 1, 2006.

Estimation at plot, farm and basin scale: Simon Cook, Hugh Turral and Francis Gichuki. Working Paper on Water Productivity Paper 2, 2006

Working Paper on Water Poverty Paper 1: Simon Cook, Francis Gichuki. A working paper, explaining the conceptual linkages between water, agriculture and poverty and potential methods of representing these linkages over entire basins at sufficient detail to enable analysis of livelihood impacts of agricultural water management. 2006

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The Editor, Water and Food Monthly
CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food

For further information about the program contact the CPWF secretariat at cpsecretariat@waterforfood.org