ROME, Italy – For 20 years, World Water Day has been held annually on 22 March to focus attention on the importance of sustainably managing freshwater resources, which are essential for food production, energy, and industrial and domestic uses. In 2013, the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation, World Water Day highlights the need for cooperative water-management efforts at the local, national and global levels.

For IFAD and its partners, water cooperation is one of the keys to improving agricultural production and reducing rural poverty. Some 80 per cent of the available water supply in developing countries is used for rainfed agriculture, irrigation, livestock, and fisheries and aquaculture. IFAD’s priority in the water sector is to support community-driven development of the infrastructure, skills, institutions and governance required for these agricultural uses.

“The most effective form of water cooperation is to cooperate with rural poor people themselves,” says Audrey Nepveu, technical advisor on water and rural infrastructure in IFAD’s Policy and Technical Advisory Division. “It is an efficient entry point to reducing poverty in direct and indirect ways.”

Nepveu adds that IFAD-financed programmes and projects tend to tackle water management at the grassroots level, empowering rural communities to plan, implement and maintain their own water systems. To that end, she says, IFAD consistently works with smallholders and their organizations on the same issues that are at the heart of World Water Day 2013 and the International Year for Water Cooperation.

Stability and sustainability
Such cooperation is more critical than ever. Even as the need for water grows along with the global population, this precious resource faces mounting threats – in terms of both quality or quantity – from urbanization, pollution and climate change. Since water is unevenly distributed within and between nations, water scarcity can also lead to conflict.

But cooperation offers brighter prospects. On an issue as practical and vital as water management, cooperation can help overcome cultural and social tensions, build trust, facilitate rural development and promote environmental sustainability.

One common source of conflict in many regions, notably the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, is competition for water between smallholder farmers and poor livestock keepers. Tensions between these groups often rise during the dry season, when pastoralists migrate through agricultural areas with their livestock in search of pastures and water points. To avert conflict and protect livelihoods on both sides, IFAD supports projects that bring farmers and herders together in order to negotiate the location of water points along livestock migration corridors.

Through the North Western Integrated Community Development Programme in Somaliland, for instance, IFAD is working to strengthen livestock corridors with financing provided by the OPEC Fund for International Development. This effort builds on an existing programme supported by a grant from the Belgian Fund for Food Security, which aims to build community and household resilience to crises.

Indeed, cooperation between pastoralist and farming communities can go a long way towards strengthening their resilience to environmental challenges such as frequent droughts. The IFAD-supported Butana Integrated Rural Development Project in Sudan is one example. It works in a semi-arid region where open access to range and water resources has caused severe environmental damage and acute water shortages. Through a participatory process involving smallholder farmers and pastoralists, the project has fostered the development of a legal framework governing sustainable uses of both water and land.

Gender equity and economic benefits
Water cooperation is also an effective means of increasing women’s productivity and economic status, because water collection is one of the most difficult and time-consuming household chores performed by women and children in the developing world.

Experience shows that improving water services for both domestic and agricultural uses – through protected wells, rooftop rainwater harvesting and other simple technologies – eases the burden of water collection. In turn, it enables women to take part in productive activities, agricultural development efforts and training opportunities. IFAD has funded projects that provide such support in Brazil, India, Kenya and Sri Lanka, among others.

By enhancing equity and productivity, in fact, water cooperation can unlock economic benefits for poor rural households as a whole. Cooperation can foster more efficient water use, and thus higher incomes, through joint management plans developed and implemented by local communities. It also underlies agreements on watershed protection. These agreements, including so-called green water credits used in Kenya, reward upstream farmers and herders for adopting environmental practices that ensure water quality for downstream consumers.

IFAD is involved, as well, in the Participatory Group for Microfinance in Africa (PAMIGA), a network of rural financial institutions that is working with smallholders who want to use more productive water technologies such as micro-irrigation, and renewable energy sources such as biogas. Members of the network have found that most of their rural clients know how these technologies could improve household food security and agricultural production. Very few have access to financing, however. Together with the MasterCard Foundation and the Swiss Development Cooperation, IFAD is co-financing PAMIGA to bridge that gap through microloans.

These are just some of the many IFAD-supported initiatives that are enabling poor rural people to work together and manage water resources, which are so central to their lives and livelihoods. In the end, cooperation is crucial to preserve those resources, ensure their sustainability and protect the environment – today and for generations to come.