As governments across Asia are searching for ways to increase water security for rural and urban water uses, the need to articulate water rights and improve water allocation practices is rapidly becoming a priority issue to them. The process is made more complex by rapid urbanization, climate change, and other drivers of change. With the support of the Network of Asian River Basin Organizations (NARBO), practitioners are discovering what role they can play in avoiding and solving problems among stakeholders, and in building an enabling environment for integrated water resources management in river basins.
As governments across Asia are searching for ways to increase water security for rural and urban water uses, the need to articulate water rights and improve water allocation practices is rapidly becoming a priority issue to them. The process is made more complex by rapid urbanization, climate change, and other drivers of change. With the support of the Network of Asian River Basin Organizations (NARBO), practitioners are discovering what role they can play in avoiding and solving problems among stakeholders, and in building an enabling environment for integrated water resources management in river basins.
This paper analyses these links and outlines the different ways in which improvements to water management can advance the cause of poverty reduction. Indeed, improving access to water is in some cases an essential pre-condition to the attainment of other MDG targets: there is little prospect of many health, environmental or income targets being achieved unless action is taken to address water problems. The paper also gives a clear and optimistic message for the future. It illustrates that improving the contribution of water management to poverty reduction is not just achievable: it is affordable. In many cases, it is a good investment that generates growth and gives rates of return comparable with investments in any other sector. And these benefits are directly targeted to the poor, and especially to women who bear many of the burdens that a lack of investments in water creates. Investing in water, in reforms to the institutions that govern water management and creating more effective partnerships to focus international support to water and environmental sustainability are all essential. The agencies that have worked together to prepare this paper are all committed to supporting these changes. The paper demonstrates that affordable and sustainable actions are 12 possible, and in many places are already happening. The international community faces a critical challenge in building on and supporting these actions so that the existing role that water management plays in poverty reduction can be enhanced in the future.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has supported development of small-scale freshwater aquaculture in a number of countries in the region and accumulated considerable experience in interventions that have as their objective poverty reduction as well as increasing fish production. This special evaluation study (SES) was designed to identify and assess the major channels of effects through which selected practices of small-scale freshwater rural aquaculture can generate livelihoods and reduce poverty, and to recommend steps to make ADB operations in aquaculture development more relevant for poverty reduction.
This paper analyses these links and outlines the different ways in which improvements to water management can advance the cause of poverty reduction. Indeed, improving access to water is in some cases an essential pre-condition to the attainment of other MDG targets: there is little prospect of many health, environmental or income targets being achieved unless action is taken to address water problems. The paper also gives a clear and optimistic message for the future. It illustrates that improving the contribution of water management to poverty reduction is not just achievable: it is affordable. In many cases, it is a good investment that generates growth and gives rates of return comparable with investments in any other sector. And these benefits are directly targeted to the poor, and especially to women who bear many of the burdens that a lack of investments in water creates. Investing in water, in reforms to the institutions that govern water management and creating more effective partnerships to focus international support to water and environmental sustainability are all essential. The agencies that have worked together to prepare this paper are all committed to supporting these changes. The paper demonstrates that affordable and sustainable actions are 12 possible, and in many places are already happening. The international community faces a critical challenge in building on and supporting these actions so that the existing role that water management plays in poverty reduction can be enhanced in the future.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has supported development of small-scale freshwater aquaculture in a number of countries in the region and accumulated considerable experience in interventions that have as their objective poverty reduction as well as increasing fish production. This special evaluation study (SES) was designed to identify and assess the major channels of effects through which selected practices of small-scale freshwater rural aquaculture can generate livelihoods and reduce poverty, and to recommend steps to make ADB operations in aquaculture development more relevant for poverty reduction.
T he Global Water Partnership (GWP) has prepared a background paper addressing this theme entitled Poverty Reduction and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The basic premise of the paper is that, in order to construct water management policies and institutions so that the interests of poor people are not only protected but also treated as a priority, it will be necessary to adopt IWRM as the underlying principle of water governance1 .
T he cases presented here are drawn from "best practice" case study papers produced for the Water and Poverty Initiative, a partnership of leading international organizations intended to create a greater awareness for advocacy and the development of strategies to achieve the potential of water as a key element in poverty reduction. The focus of these case studies is the link between water and poverty reduction.
This paper draws together the lessons learned from 30 "best practice" case study papers produced for the Water and Poverty Initiative.1 The focus of these case studies is the link between water and poverty reduction.
A multidimensional view of poverty will provide a basis for the development of integrated approaches that have poverty reduction as an explicit goal. This reflects the perspective that poverty reduction is not something that happens indirectly or coincidentally. It is something that must be directly targeted, with specific and focused steps to address particular aspects. The need to target more effectively the needs of the poor is one of the central themes that emerged from the Water and Poverty Initiative and runs through this report. We must not assume that actions that are good for water management or economic development in general will necessarily contribute to poverty reduction. We must be clear and explicit as to how they will contribute and, where necessary, adapt our actions to maximize their poverty impact. Poverty reduction should not just be the general but vague goal of water management; it should be the explicit and targeted purpose of these actions. This paper articulates some ideas on how this can be achieved.
This paper aims to stimulate debate on and promote a better understanding of the importance of water security in the lives of the world's poor. The goal is to set out a basic conceptual framework to help explain the relationship between poverty and water security. The paper primarily targets the international water community: water resources experts and policy makers who are part of the ongoing debate on how to sustain and improve our management of water resources and the delivery of the different services these resources provide.
Several hundred participants attended these sessions. The ADB Water and Poverty Initiative sessions alone attracted over 1,500 participants. The presentations and discussions in the sessions provided a dynamic picture of the contemporary debates on water-poverty relationships and numerous examples of actions to reduce poverty through water management. Many varying views were expressed, and in a few cases, strong arguments emerged over controversial issues. Overall, however, there was a strong consensus that emerged from all sessions on the core issues that water management should be a major factor in poverty reduction strategies and that this potential is not being realized in most parts of the world
T he Global Water Partnership (GWP) has prepared a background paper addressing this theme entitled Poverty Reduction and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The basic premise of the paper is that, in order to construct water management policies and institutions so that the interests of poor people are not only protected but also treated as a priority, it will be necessary to adopt IWRM as the underlying principle of water governance1 .
T he cases presented here are drawn from "best practice" case study papers produced for the Water and Poverty Initiative, a partnership of leading international organizations intended to create a greater awareness for advocacy and the development of strategies to achieve the potential of water as a key element in poverty reduction. The focus of these case studies is the link between water and poverty reduction.
