World Environment Day, celebrated every year on June 5, reminds us to care for the Earth’s resources now to ensure the future wellbeing of the planet and future generations.

This year, World Environment Day focuses on the importance of water as the source of all life. The theme is Water: Two billion people are dying for it! At IFAD, we understand the importance of water to rural poor people, who account for 75 per cent of the world’s 1.2 billion extremely poor people.

Too often they have the least access to water to grow food and earn an income. In many places, the water they do have carries debilitating and life-threatening water-borne diseases. The lack of access to safe drinking water close to home particularly affects women and girls, who sacrifice time and earning power to fetching water from distant wells and rivers.

As the Earth’s human population continues to grow and more water is required for food production and at risk of being diverted to people who can afford to pay for it in cities and towns, the water crisis for poor rural people will only worsen.

The challenge is to find sustainable solutions that meet the unique needs of poor rural people and communities. Some ideas include reducing water losses on farms and in cities by introducing low-cost technologies, promoting re-use of water, and rethinking public policies that encourage over-consumption or misallocation. Promoting water-economizing crop varieties is also high on the agenda. Special attention must be given to the poorest people who live in rural communities, especially in Africa.

Wherever viable, irrigation schemes, particularly micro-irrigation programmes that are sustainable and can be controlled directly by farmers themselves, will also be part of the solution.

IFAD and the environment

Improving access to safe water, land and other natural resources is one of the ways that IFAD enables poor rural people to overcome poverty. IFAD works with impoverished communities in some of the most remote and harsh environments in the world, linking global environmental initiatives to sustainable water and land management and poverty eradication. IFAD also provides policy and technical assistance to national and regional programmes in its Member States.

As an executing agency of the Global Environment Facility, IFAD works with governments to develop and implement projects that address global environmental concerns. IFAD also hosts the Global Mechanism, which implements the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The Global Mechanism is the hub for a dynamic network of partners that work together to stop desertification. IFAD’s relationships with both the Global Mechanism and the Global Environment Facility enables it to assist countries affected by land degradation in meeting their obligations under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. IFAD also hosts the secretariat of the International Land Coalition that seeks to increase access by poor rural people to land and other natural resources, by building alliances between development partners, including non-governmental organizations, civil society groups and international organizations. By combining the strengths of these partners, the Coalition can help to empower the rural poor to have better control over the policies and decisions that affect their lives.