Enabling poor rural people
to overcome poverty
Download PDF version: English | French
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a specialized agency of
the United Nations dedicated to eradicating poverty in the rural areas of developing
countries. Seventy-five per cent of the world’s poorest people, 800 million women,
men and children, live in rural areas. Most depend on agriculture to survive.
The IFAD team working on agricultural water management and rural infrastructure is developing its operational approach to water and rural poverty (WRP), under the aegis of the project for Learning and Knowledge on Innovations in Water and Rural Poverty (InnoWat). In light of the changing rural context within which poor rural people find themselves, the overall goal of InnoWat is essentially twofold:
- strengthen IFAD capacity as a knowledge management broker for developmentpartners interested in WRP, in accordance with IFAD’s mandate; and
- provide IFAD country programme managers (CPMs) and their design teams with practical tools for project development, implementation and pro-poor, waterrelated interventions.
The team has created the present kit – InnoWat: Water, innovations, learning and rural livelihoods1 – with the expectation that it will be useful to IFAD CPMs and will enhance IFAD’s comparative advantage with respect to rural poverty reduction and water issues.
The ‘Synthesis of strategic approaches’ document summarizes two approach papers that together provide the rationale for the project. In addition, the kit contains a series of topic, fact and tool sheets and case studies. Details of each component follow.
Synthesis of strategic approaches
Enhancing pro-poor interventions in water
and rural livelihoods
This text serves as an introduction to the
InnoWat kit and presents the essence of two
strategic approach papers that together
provide the rationale for the InnoWat
project. Specifically, it combines an overview
of The new rurality and a discussion of the
Coping with complexity guidelines that will
enable IFAD to improve rural water-related
interventions and ensure that they mesh
with the changing context in which poor
rural people increasingly find themselves.
Case studies
Fact sheets
Quantitative and qualitative overviews of how IFAD invests in water and the potential for poverty reduction through water interventions.
Tool sheets
Syntheses of findings of the operational manuals
- Knowledge profiling
- Influence network mapping: Mapping power asymmetry in water user groups
- Concursos: Competitions, dialogue and learning for improved water management
Topic sheets
The topic sheets are the backbone of the kit.
Each is essentially an executive summary of a
detailed, technical background paper on the
same subject. They
cover a variety of water-related thematic
areas, with case studies to provide IFAD specific
examples and concrete institutional,
technical and investment approaches to guide
interventions. Specifically, the topic sheets
address water issues in the following areas:
- Agriculture, livelihoods and farming systems
- Water and livestock for rural livelihoods
- Inland fisheries and aquaculture
- Rural water, sanitation and hygiene
- Water retention and harvesting
- Managing green water: Soil moisture management
- Spate irrigation
- Water user groups in the new rurality
- Payments for watershed services
- Reinforcing gender equity
1/ Cleveringa, R., Kay, M. & Cohen, A. (Eds.) (2009) InnoWat: Water, innovations, learning and rural livelihoods, Rome, IFAD.