WHiRL: Water, Households and Rural Livelihoods

The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) is currently running a Water,Households and Rural Livelihoods project (WHiRL) in India and South Africa. Through research on livelihoods, water supply and water resources management in the two countries, WHiRL aims to promote better water security for the rural water supply sector through catchment management reformsin South Africa, and watershed development programmes in India. Through case studies, research in both countries is being based upon an improved understanding of the links between resource availability, water services delivery and livelihoods in the study areas. Productive uses of household water supplies emerged as key issues in both study areas and
draft tools have been developed to help focus rural water supplies on their wider contributions to livelihoods.

www.nri.org/WSS-IWRM

Nyamarimbira Integrated Water Supply Project:

This paper is a review of an ongoing integrated water supply project run by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. The project started in 1995 and now encompasses the water supply, agriculture and energy sectors. The outcomes of the project are discussed using a livelihoods perspective. The discussion points to the need for cross-sectoral planning and implementation in development projects, since cross-sectoral approaches are much more effective in mirroring and improving the complex livelihood strategies of the target populations than pure sectoral approaches. The project has made effective use of the existing social and human capital in the community. It has also focused strongly on institution building. Challenges that remain are to ensure women’s participation in project planning and an equitable distribution of future benefits that does not bypass the poorest segments of society.

www.livelihoodtechnology.org/home.asp?id=csNyam1

Rainwater Harvesting in Turkana:

Rainwater harvesting is the collection and use of runoff rainwater from any catchment, whether natural or artificial. This paper reviews the lessons from an Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) project in northwest Kenya, which aimed to demonstrate the potential for increased sorghum cultivation through the use of rainwater harvesting technologies. The project beneficiaries were the Turkana herders, a community of semi-nomadic pastoralists who were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their nomadic lifestyle due to the growing paucity of natural capital. An evaluation of the new technologies introduced by ITDG shows that, while there was no impact on sorghum yield levels in good rainfall years, yields in years of medium and poor rainfall were considerably higher. This had a positive impact in terms of mitigating the vulnerability of the community to drought. In terms of policy-making, the processes tended to be dominated by the external agencies, pointing to a lack of emphasis on building local capacity in the long run.

www.livelihoodtechnology.org/home.asp?id=csTurkana1