POVERTY: SOMALIA: Border town in a fix over water

HARGEISA, 27 March 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Mohamed Amin Jibril/IRIN
Water is getting costlier in parts of Somaliland

Water scarcity in Tog-Wajale, a town straddling the border between northwest Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland and Ethiopia, is threatening the health and livelihoods of locals who cannot afford to buy it.
"One barrel of water [200 litres] was only 20 [Ethiopian] birr [US$1], but the price has now reached about 50 Ethiopian birr [$2.5]," said Ahmed Jama Weirah, a father of seven in Tog-Wajale. "We can't provide for our families... because our earnings are not enough to provide food and water."
The Somaliland side of Tog-Wajale has had no official water supply since 1995, following the closure of the town's only well, which had fallen into disrepair. The town's main water sources are a seasonal river that acts as the border between Somaliland and Ethiopia, and expensive pumped water from Ethiopia.
"Now the [river] water is over and we can't afford to buy imported water," said Weirah.
"While livestock have been moved further north where they can find water, townsfolk face water scarcity," said Abdillahi Omar, a resident. "Some families use less than 20 litres per day to cook meals, and they don't take a bath for several days."
Local officials told IRIN they hoped the rains would start soon, but were focusing on long-term solutions.
The dysfunctional well used to supply less than 2,000 litres of water a day, so repairing it would not provide sufficient water for the town’s estimated 40,000 people (up from 10,000 in 1995), said Hashi Mohamed Abdi, the mayor of Tog-Wajale.
Currently about 20,000 litres are pumped from Ethiopia every day, “which is not enough", he said, adding that water was also trucked in from Kalabiat and Gabiley to the northeast of Tog-Wajale.
However, the future looks brighter as the European Union (EU) has agreed to fund a water project in the town.
The EU is funding water projects in several Somaliland towns, including Hargeisa, Burao, Erigavo and Tog-Wajale; the Tog-Wajale water project is due for completion in 2015.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95177/SOMALIA-Border-town-in-a-fix-over-water

POVERTY: Southern Africa: Majority Still Lack Access to Safe Water

MBABANE, Swaziland, Jul 12, 2011 (IPS) -Charles M. Mushizi
 Drawing water in Lusaka. Credit:Kelvin Kachingwe/IPS

 Only two in every five people in the Southern African Development Community has access to safe water for drinking and household use. Three quarters of those lacking access, live in rural areas and the majority of these are women and children.
Chrispin Sedeke, head of the Transboundary Water Management Division of the Ministry for the Environment of the Democratic Republic of Congo, believes that even these discouraging figures are likely understated.
"The statistics from certain countries - like the DRC - are not up to date. The numbers are approximate; those from other countries are only partial. And all the numbers do not cover the same period; that's what makes the global statistics presented less than reliable," Sedeke told IPS on the sidelines of the Fifth SADC Water Dialogue, held in the Swazi capital, Mbabane, on Jun. 28 and 29.
"If we refer just to some of the large countries in the region, like the DRC where more than 75 percent of the population lacked access to potable water at the end of 2010, one can readily see how the reality for SADC is worse than the statistics show," he added.
"More than 60 percent of the population without access to water in DRC is made up of women and children; to put it another way, more than 35 million Congolese women and children do not have access to potable water," Cyrille Masamba, another Congolese delegate in Mbabane, told IPS.
According to a report published in March 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme, the DRC possesses half of the water resources in Africa, but more than 50 million Congolese do not have access to water.
"With the support of development partners like the United Nations Development Programme, the Congolese government could extend water to only [an additional] two percent of the population between 2005 and 2010," Masamba said.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has just provided two million dollars from its Africa Water Supply programme to strengthen the efforts of the DRC and other SADC member states to address weaknesses in the water sector.
According to Phera Ramoeli, head of SADC's Water Division, "This amount will help to support member states in conceiving and implementing national policies that can help people to access water for drinking and household use."
He said the funding from AfDB would cover project expenses for 27 months.
"Despite the assistance provided," Ramoeli said, "the question of finance for water projects remains a political and social engagement that states take on individually. It is above all a political commitment that decision-makers must take for their own citizens," Ramoeli told IPS.
"It's in this sense that each state has a national policy to finance access to water as well as to guide sustainable management of water in the context of climate change," said Jonathan Kampata, a Zambian expert in water finance. According to him, "water is becoming a big asset for adaptation to greenhouse effects and in the struggle against food insecurity through agriculture."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56443

POVERTY: AID POLICY: 10 facts and figures from the 2011 MDG report

NAIROBI, 7 July 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Kenneth Odiwour/IRIN
One in 10 people may still be without access to safe drinking water by 2015, according to the latest MDG report (file photo)

 The 2011 Millennium Development Goals Report was released on 7 July with a generally upbeat assessment accompanied by some caveats. Here are some statistics:

1. The poverty reduction goal can be met by 2015, with the number of people in developing countries living on less than US$1.25 a day expected to fall below 900 million (from 1.8 billion in 1990).

2. Sub-Saharan Africa has made the greatest strides in primary school enrolment, from 58 percent in 1999 to 76 percent in 2009; however, 32 million children are still out of school in the region, almost half the global total of 67 million.

3. The number of women in parliament is at a record high - 19.3 percent from 11.6 percent in 1995; Rwanda, Sweden, South Africa and Cuba topped the list. Belize, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Oman, Palau, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu have no female parliamentarians at all.

4. In all regions, a mother's education is key to determining whether her children will turn five, with a child's chances of survival rising markedly with a mother's secondary or higher education.

5. While the demand for family planning will likely increase, in line with rising numbers of women and men of reproductive age, funding for such programmes has actually declined over the past decade, to 2.6 percent of total aid for health in 2009.

6. The use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets has surged, particularly in Africa: between 2008 and 2010, 290 million nets were distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, covering 76 percent of the 765 million people at risk.

7. Water resources are no longer sustainable in Western Asia and Northern Africa, which have exceeded the 75 percent limit on sustainable use. Southern Asia and the Caucasus and Central Asia are at rates of 58 and 56 percent respectively, compared with 3 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

8. Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and Southeastern Asia have met the target of halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to potable water. Coverage in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 49 percent in 1990 to 60 percent in 2008.

9. By the end of 2010, global mobile phone coverage was 76 percent, with mobile penetration at about 68 percent in developing countries. However, internet penetration was as low as 3 percent in least developed countries, compared with 21 percent in developing countries and 72 percent in developed regions.

10. Donor aid is likely to increase, but at a much slower pace - 2 percent between 2011 and 2013, compared with an average 8 percent per year over the past three years. Aid to Africa is expected to rise by just 1 percent in real terms, against an average of 13 percent over the past three years.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93171

POVERTY: Afghanistan's water crisis

KABUL, 6 July 2011 (IRIN)


 Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN
Workers clear out the Kabul river in Afghanistan’s capital

 Only 48 percent of Afghanistan’s population have access to safe drinking water and only 37 percent use improved sanitation facilities - with serious health implications, especially for children, according to the UN Children's Fund.
While some parts of the country are physically water scarce, most people lack access to safe water because of inadequate infrastructure and poor management rather than insufficient resources, says a report published by the Centre for Policy and Human Development at Kabul University.
“During three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, water supply infrastructure has been neglected or destroyed, while the relevant institutions responsible for management and service delivery have collapsed," said the report entitled Afghanistan Human Development Report 2011.
"Around 73 percent of the population relies on improvised and inadequate facilities to supply water, while water sources are becoming increasingly polluted and overexploited in places like Kabul."

View the Slideshow : http://www.irinnews.org/photo/Default.aspx?id=22

Some 70 percent of the urban population live in unplanned areas or in illegal settlements, while 95 percent lack access to improved toilets. In Kabul 80 percent of the population live in unplanned settlements where poor sanitation and lack of access to safe drinking water are common.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93156

MALNUTRITION: Somalia: MSF is Denied Access to Drought-Affected Areas

8 June 2011
After weeks of negotiation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says it has been blocked last April by the local authorities from conducting emergency medical activities in Buurhakaba district in the Bay region of South Central Somalia, where drought affected population needed nutritional support and clean water.
MSF's planned emergency response included water trucking, nutrition screening for children under the age of five, and food distribution for malnourished children. However, the authorities have not allowed MSF to access the area.
Buurhakaba district is highly populated, with estimated 125 000 people. At the moment, there is no other actor providing nutrition support to this population.
MSF is an independent medical organization with projects in eight regions of Somalia. Over 1,500 Somali staff, supported by approximately 100 staff in Nairobi, provide primary health care, malnutrition treatment, health care and support to displaced people, surgery, and water and relief supply distributions in some locations.
MSF offers assistance to people based only on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender, political or clan affiliation.
MSF does not accept any government funding for its projects in Somalia, all its funding comes from private donors.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201106081186.html

POVERTY: SRI LANKA: Women "key" to water projects

POLONNARUWA, 27 May 2011 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN
Women bear the brunt of collecting water

Women could prove key to the success of Sri Lanka's rural water and sanitation projects, experts and villagers say.
As a five-year project to reduce time spent collecting water and to ensure safe drinking water jointly launched by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Sri Lankan government comes to a close, its leaders are reflecting on the lasting benefits of their decision to incorporate women in an unprecedented way.
"Usually women are in the backseat, but in this [project] we were right in front," Indrani Silva, who heads the women's association at Lanka Pokuna village in the north-central Polonnaruwa District, one of five rural areas involved in this US$263 million undertaking, told IRIN.
Projects took place in eastern Batticaloa and Trincomalee, north-central Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa and southern Hambantota districts.
Upon completion at the end of 2011, an estimated 900,000 people will have benefited, and those involved say it is largely because the project's policies took into account the importance of gaining the trust and involvement of local women.
"[Women] understand the value of safe water. On top of that, they bear the traditional responsibility of collecting water, cleaning and cooking. You need them to be involved for any such project to have a chance," Mookiah Thiruchelvam, ADB's senior project officer overseeing the project, explained.
At the level of initial discussions with potential beneficiaries, 50 percent of participants and at least 25 percent of the government officials from the Water Supply and Drainage Board were women. This is not usual, Silva said.
"Usually these types of big projects will have no major involvement from the community, except for taking part in meetings. Even then the lead role is taken by men. Now this is our project; without the village women, this will not succeed," she said.
Attanayke Mundiyanse Senevirathana, chief sociologist working on improving access to water in the Polonnaruwa District, says the men were primarily farmers and did not have the time to play a big role, let alone collect water.
"It is the women who used to spend hours and walk miles to collect the water," Senevirathana said.
In Talpotha, a village in Polonnaruwa, the women's association is central to managing water distribution from a new pumping station and water-tank.
A member of the association does a monthly round of the 172 new connections, tabulating usage and collecting payment. But during the dry season their role becomes even more important.
"We go around requesting users to limit usage," said Sheila Herath, the chairwoman of the association. "All of them are our members and we can easily convince them."

Economic benefits
ADB's Thiruchelvam feels the next step is to use the time saved on collecting water to increase the income of the beneficiaries.

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN :
A woman draws water from a well in Batticaloa

"The women have regained three hours every day that were spent on collecting water," he said.
Among some rural villages, women's associations have also proven to be effective in promoting new income generation.
A loan from a local women's association has helped Liyaduruge Siriyawathie, 45, to earn an additional Rs10,000 ($100) every month. She uses the time freed from walking kilometres to collect water to draw portraits and other designs that are sold. "For over two decades I did not have time to draw," she said.
Thiruchelvam said future water projects should take advantage of women's roles and, importantly, the freed hours that used to be spent on collecting water. "We don't calculate the productivity [gained]. It is time we started doing that."
Meanwhile, experts believe similar water and sanitation initiatives involving women could prove instrumental in the conflict-affected north, where access to piped water after two decades of war remains problematic.
On average, only three out of 10 people have access to piped water in all the districts that fall within the Vanni, an area encompassing the two districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu and parts of Mannar and Vavuniya districts in the north, according to the National Water Supply Board.
The ADB and the Sri Lankan government are implementing a comparable project, with a high focus on women, in the Vanni and Jaffna valued at $164 million, Thiruchelvam says.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92833

POVERTY: Canada: Why Poverty Should be an Election Issue

2011/05/01 - Krystalline Kraus

According to the Harper government, poverty isn't an election issue because poverty doesn't really exist in Canada.
On March 17, 2010, during a forum on poverty, Conservative candidate Chris Alexander (MP Ajax-Pickering), said that Canada had wiped out "third world" levels of poverty. That's funny since, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1.5 million Canadians remain unemployed, nearly one in ten people live in poverty, and according to one recent survey one-third of Canadians can't afford basic expenses.
Alexander -- when pressured -- did later clarify his comments stating he makes a definition between, "World Bank definition of poverty and the Canadian definition of poverty."
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo has called out Alexander to retract the claim that no "third world" poverty exists in Canada, stating his comments reflect an "underlying, deep misunderstanding about the real issues" and that these types of comments blind Canadians to the real economic and social pressures that affect First Nations communities.
For example, as of February 28, 2011, 116 First Nations communities across Canada were under a drinking water advisory. Let me remind you that access to clean drinking water is a human right [though not one recognized by 'the Harper Government' - MW].
Speaking on the definition of poverty, Atleo said he has travelled to poverty-stricken places around the world and he did not see much difference between a child hauling water with a bucket in Africa and "a child doing the same in a northern First Nations community."
The CCPA and the Assembly of First Nations are not alone in trying to put poverty on the public agenda this election.
Canadians Without Poverty (CWP), thinks, "it is shameful that in a wealthy country such as Canada, poverty is rampant, and has been on the rise. What makes this worse is that there [has] been repeated calls to adopt a federal poverty strategy by individuals, civil society, and government groups (2009 Senate Report, and 2010 HUMA report both call for a plan to eliminate poverty), and yet the Conservative government barely acknowledged the growing need."
Regarding real solutions to poverty and not political semantic debates, the CCPA's Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), in contrast, "makes poverty reduction one of its central objectives.
"The need for a federal plan is clear: In 2008 (the latest year for which we have statistics), the national poverty rate was 9.4% (up from 9.2% in 2007). That's over three million Canadians, about 600,000 of whom are children (and in First Nations families, one in four children lives in poverty). The 2008 numbers also show the number of elderly people living below the poverty line spiked by 25%, the first major increase in decades."
The AFB proposed the following key targets:
-- Reduce Canada's poverty rate by 25% within five years, and by 75% within a decade.
-- In two years, ensure every person in Canada has an income that reaches at least 75% of the poverty line.
-- In two years, ensure no one has to sleep outside, and end all homelessness within ten years by ensuring all people who are homeless have good quality, appropriate housing.
http://mostlywater.org/why_poverty_should_be_election_issue

POVERTY: India: Left unshaken in red earth, so is poverty

May 7 , 2011 : MANINI CHATTERJEE
Bankura: As you turn off the expressway just before Durgapur and then cross the long bridge spanning the Damodar and enter the district of Bankura, the landscape changes completely.
The lush green of Hooghly and Burdwan give way to a harsh and arid topography — fields are few and far between, herds of bedraggled sheep graze on the scrubland, patches of sal forests appear and the undulating red laterite terrain gets more rocky and hilly the further inwards you go.
Politically, too, it had been different in Bankura, parts of which go to the polls tomorrow. Bankura, famous for its iconic terracotta horse and baluchari sarees, kept at bay the “poribortoner hawa” that began blowing through Bengal since 2008 and that is why the CPM’s district headquarters wears an air of smug complacency.
At the reception, we overhear an elderly comrade telling former MP Shamik Lahiri with boyish glee: “Kono chinta nei, ekhane chhoy hobe, chhoy.” He later explains to us: “Here, we don’t score in ones or twos, nor even fours, here we only hit sixers.” In other words, the Left will win all 12 Assembly seats in the district as it almost always has.
A little later, CPM district secretary Amiya Patra says much the same thing. Is Bankura, too, up against the winds of change? “Poriborton hobe — margin aaro baarbe” (There will be change — we will increase our margin), he says, absolutely confident that the Party will do even better than before this time.
He has history on his side. Since 1977, the CPM has made a clean sweep of Bankura in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections seven times in a row. Before delimitation, Bankura had 13 Assembly constituencies and the CPM had lost the Bankura seat — thanks to its urban areas — in 1982 and 2001. In 2006, it hit a “sixer” again and bagged all 13 seats.
In the 2008 panchayat polls when much of Bengal reeled under the Singur-Nandigram effect, the CPM and its allies managed to win 144 of the 190 gram panchayats, all 22 panchayat samitis and an overwhelming 41 of the 43 seats in the zilla parishad. In 2009, the CPM won both the Lok Sabha seats — Bankura and Bishnupur, the former represented by the CPM’s parliamentary party leader, Basudeb Acharya. Acharya led in 11 of the 12 Assembly segments, trailing only in Bankura town by 6,500 votes. “We will make that up in this innings,” says the grey-haired comrade at the reception who revels in cricketing analogy.
Left sympathisers, in search of a bit of Red hope, may find succour in these glorious electoral statistics. But if they travel through interior Bankura, the more sensitive among them may also be driven to deep despair — because the stark truth is that even after 34 years of Left Front rule and uninterrupted CPM dominance, the levels of poverty and under-development are staggering.
According to the West Bengal Human Development Report published in 2004, in terms of income Bankura ranked second from the bottom, outranked only by neighbouring Purulia, also a CPM bastion.
Bankura, however, beat Purulia in having more than 50 per cent people living below the poverty line in both rural and urban areas. In Bankura, the number of households living below the poverty line in rural areas was 59.62 per cent and in urban areas 52.38 per cent. In Purulia, rural poverty figures are much higher (78.72 per cent) but in urban areas just 6.47 per cent. Contrast this with another neighbour — Burdwan’s figures were 18.99 per cent (rural) and 17 per cent (urban.)
These figures are almost a decade old, but if things have improved in Bankura there is little to show for it on the ground. In Guruputua village that falls under the Chhatna seat, all the 50-odd houses barring two are mud hovels inhabited by agricultural workers who make Rs 50 a day when they get work at all. Some of them have “job cards” and get MNREGA work — mostly digging ponds — but only get work for 15 days a year, not hundred. A group of villagers, thinking we have something to offer, tell us they desperately need a tubewell. The only one around is in disrepair and others, far away, are also running dry.
“Money comes from above but it never reaches us,” one of the villagers complains, refusing to give names. And yet despite their dismal lives, they tell us they know no other party but the CPM, no other symbol but “kaaste hathuri tara” and cannot think of giving up what they have always done — vote for the CPM.
But elsewhere things are changing. In Chhatna town, where there is less abject poverty, we listen in on a raging debate between Trinamul and CPM supporters, centred on the issue of development. Bankim Mitra, who has stopped for a cup of tea, has bagfuls of Trinamul posters and is confident that the CPM will lose half a dozen seats in Bankura this time because people are finally rising up against the deprivation that has clung to their lives for so long.
“The people of Bankura are very hard working. They can turn this land into gold if only there was irrigation in these parts. But the government has done nothing all these years, we are still dependent on the monsoons, and that is the main cause of so much poverty,” he says.
Shibdas Rai, the chai shop owner and local CPM worker, butts in. “We have done a lot. We have built colleges, schools,” he says, but before he can complete the sentence, Mitra says: “What’s the point of schools, when the teaching is so bad? Half the time, the teachers have to go off to join CPM michchils. Even a higher secondary pass cannot read and write properly in the villages.”
Rai soldiers on. In the face of a chorus of voices backing Mitra, Rai admits that “lack of irrigation and absence of industry” have kept the region poor but lists other achievements of the government --- building ‘pucca” houses for the poor under the Indira Awas Yojana, providing work under the “100 day scheme”, mid-day meals in schools. He is entirely oblivious of the fact that they are all central government schemes.
And what is more ironic is that it is these very schemes that are fuelling a very vocal rage in many parts of Bankura today. Since poverty here is so widespread and even the best government schemes cannot reach everyone, all those left out feel doubly deprived and accuse the CPM of partisanship in choosing the beneficiaries.
As we crisscross through half a dozen Assembly constituencies --- Barjora, Bankura, Chhatna, Saltora, Sonamukhi, Bishnupur --- in the district, this is one recurring complaint, a complaint we have heard often enough in other parts of Bengal but never as forcefully as in these parts where under-development is endemic and sources of income few.
In Jambedia village of Barjora, an area where water is scarce and rampaging wild elephants routinely destroy the meagre crops that the parched land yields, Shanti Karmakar cannot contain his anger against the CPM. His main ire is that “CPM cadres corner all the benefits” --- they are the ones who get houses under the Indira Awas Yojana even if they are rich while the “real poor” are bereft of BPL benefits. Everyone around him agrees.
In Bondolhati village that falls under Sonamukhi, Sheikh Niyamat Ali says the same thing. “The government has so many schemes but it never reaches us. The only people who have gained are members of the Party.”
In Sonamukhi town, a large group of men surrounds us and there is only one man who insists that the CPM will win all 12 seats. All the others are vociferously rooting for change. “The CPM thinks nothing has changed. But take it from me, this time they will lose six and win six,” says 21-year-old Ganesh Shaha, giving a new twist to the “sixer” metaphor.
And why will the CPM win six seats if the Party’s dolotontro (cadre raj) is so widespread? “That’s because they still have complete hold in the most backward seats, dominated by Adivasis and Scheduled Castes, seats such as Kotulpur, Indus, Ranibandh and Raipur,” he tells us, admitting that the Trinamul has yet to make inroads among the most wretched of this bit of red earth.
In Deohati village which is part of Saltora constituency, Narayan Mondol agrees. “The CPM keeps winning here because the people are too poor and illiterate and lack political consciousness.
“Things are changing now and there are many people like me who have seen through the CPM’s false promises. But do you know what --- I am not sure even my wife will listen to me. I have been telling her about dui phool but she is so used to the CPM symbol, she might end up pressing it.”
He goes on to say: “Look at Kerala -- the people there are educated and that is why they keep changing their government every five years. The CPM cannot take them for granted.”
He has a point. Bankura’s backwardness stems partly from its inhospitable geography but the CPM’s repeated victories and resultant complacency have certainly added to it.
The Kerala model, then, might be the best thing for Bankura --- and indeed Bengal --- from the point of view of both development and democracy.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110507/jsp/frontpage/story_13951263.jsp#

POVERTY: SUDAN: North Darfur water project helps protect women from sexual violence

NAIROBI, 27 April 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran
A woman in El Fasher, North Darfur, using a Hippo Water Roller

A water project supported by the UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) in eight villages of North Darfur will not only facilitate residents' access to water but also help to reduce sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the region, local residents and UNAMID officials said.
“For years we have been afraid of being attacked while fetching water and collecting firewood; it is not always possible to move in groups and we are often escorted by men or UNAMID peacekeepers,” a resident of Kuma Garadayat village, who declined to be named, told IRIN on 27 April.
Kuma Garadayat, 60km from El Fasher in North Darfur, is one of the villages where the water project was launched on 26 April. The eight villages host at least 3,000 returnees.
About 30,000 rolling water containers, with a capacity of 75l each, the equivalent of four jerry cans, were distributed to women in the villages, all with poor access to water and severely affected by drought during the dry season. “I hope through the water carriers, things will become easier for us; we’ll be less exposed,” the villager added.
According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), most SGBV cases in Darfur still occur during water and firewood collection.
Because of generally poor access to justice, a sense of impunity, and the social stigmas attached to SBGV, the international community in Darfur has launched several prevention, protection and response activities, including firewood patrols.
The water project is part of broader UNAMID-backed recovery projects, which include training midwives and helping to improve health and education in villages. Several thousand water hippos will be dispatched over the next two weeks, mainly to women heads of households, the vulnerable and people living far from water points, says UNAMID.
The barrel-shaped water carriers are designed to reduce the physical burden of carrying water and would benefit women and children who are mostly in charge of water collection in Sudan.
“One of the major sources of conflict in Darfur is access to water,” said Ibrahim Gambari, the Joint Special Representative and head of UNAMID, in a statement.
“This project is to make life easier and safer for women, and also to underscore the fact that water hasn’t only been a source of conflict, it is also the solution,” he said. “It is our hope that their [the barrels’] use will not only support former displaced persons but also help protect civilians as they return to resume their lives.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92597

POVERTY: PAKISTAN: Unsafe water kills 250,000 children a year - government

19 April 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN
Garbage floating on stagnant water. Such garbage dumped in standing water promotes disease

After several weeks of severe sickness, with unrelenting diarrhoea and high fever, Shamshad Ali, aged five, from a village near the town of Sheikhupura in Punjab Province, finally feels strong enough to venture out of his house again.
“For a few days, when he was really sick and weak and could not even keep liquids down, we thought we might lose him. We were terrified because last year my cousin lost a four-year-old daughter to diarrheoa,” Shamshad’s father, Muhammad Akhtar, 32, told IRIN.
Shamshad, who is now back in school, has been fortunate. According to a new study by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), a government body, details of which have appeared in the media, 82 percent of water sources tested in 24 (of the country’s more than 100) districts across all four provinces, provided water that is unsafe to drink.
The report, which has yet to be formally released, is based on a five-year study and notes that 250,000 children die in the country each year as a result of diarrhoeal disease originating from impure water.
PCRWR Chairman M. Aslam Tahir told the media the study was “comprehensive” and that he did not need to make further comments. Previous studies have also found poor water quality in urban centres.
“The findings seem to be accurate. Due to policies over past years, there has been widespread contamination of water sources. Poor governance adds to the problem and people are basically helpless,” Khalid Hussain, an Islamabad-based expert on water issues, told IRIN.

Water filtration
He also said the problem could be solved only by “adopting indigenous methods”.
Indigenous methods have been devised and are being used, but on an extremely small scale. Sindh-based NGO Association of Humanitarian Development, has been using a simple filtration system using two clay pots in the province.
Khursheed Bhatti, head of the organization, told IRIN: “We have developed this method as a cheap, indigenous way to filter water. Up to 15 litres of water a day can be cleaned in this way.” Larger NGOs have shown interest in the unique filtration technique, which has been used for over three years in Sindh.

Water boiling
Poverty and a lack of awareness on the part of people add to the issues involved in accessing safe water. “We know we should boil the water we collect from a hand-pump for at least 15 minutes, but how can I manage this when all I have is a tiny kerosene stove with one burner?”, asked Uzma Bibi, who lives in a village 50km from Lahore.
A mother of four, she added: “I must also prepare food daily for a household of nine on the same stove, and fuel prices are rising so sharply we can barely afford to keep the flame burning except when it is essential for cooking.” The prices of petroleum products have risen several times over the last few months triggering angry protests earlier this year.
“Even now there are people who do not boil water because they are unaware it is a principle source of disease. I see people suffering from conditions caused by unsafe water almost every day,” said Rubina Ijaz, a paediatrician in Sheikhupura. She said infants and small children were often the worst sufferers, as mothers who were not breast-feeding frequently “mixed dry formula with water that was not safe” resulting in sickness.
According to experts, growing water scarcity adds to the problems associated with the availability of safe water in the country.
“All my three children suffer from diarrhoea every now and then. Doctors say water is responsible, but it is not easy to locate safe water, or to boil and then cool it in summer. After all, we have no refrigerators,” Shamshad’s mother, Sadiqa Bibi, said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92518

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Crisis could hit drinking water supply

20 April 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN
Children in front of the western regional office of water company SODECI

Hundreds of thousands of urban residents in Côte d’Ivoire could be hit by drinking water shortages in the coming weeks, as the post-electoral violence interrupted the supply of chemicals used at treatment plants throughout the country.
The risk of shortages is particularly worrying given the cholera outbreak in neighbouring Ghana, with more than 6,000 cases to date, said François Bellet, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) specialist in the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) West and Central Africa regional office.
Between January and March Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan saw at least 515 cases of cholera, with 12 deaths, according to Kadjo Yao of UNICEF’s WASH team in Abidjan. It is unclear whether cholera is still infecting people, as surveillance systems are down, the agency says.
“The situation [of drinking water supply] is extremely uncertain - we’re on a razor’s edge,” said Bellet, who is currently in Côte d’Ivoire.
UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are working with the water company SODECI - which provides water in urban centres - on immediate and mid-term solutions to avoid shortages. ICRC helped SODECI deliver treatment products to parts of Abidjan during the severe violence which has paralysed the city in recent weeks, and is helping move needed chemicals to plants around the country.

Treatment chemicals running out
The main western town of Man is one of the urban centres facing shortages. The current stock of treatment chemicals will last till the end of April, according to SODECI’s western regional office.
Man has about 14,000 households connected to the water supply network, but for each household one must reckon on at least 15 users, according to Tondossama Broulaye, SODECI regional director for the west. Beyond that, tap water is resold, UNICEF water experts noted.
“Our supplier in Abidjan closed when the crisis hit and the banks closed in January,” SODECI’s Tondomassa told IRIN. Normally treatment chemicals are shipped to Côte d’Ivoire from Europe and distributed throughout the country via the Abidjan-based supplier.
Tondossama said SODECI’s logistics base in Abidjan’s Adjamé District was ransacked during the post-electoral violence. “There is not a single computer left,” he said.
SODECI’s Tondossama said if chemical supplies are not replenished in time the company would have to start rationing water, so consumers would have piped water for about six or seven hours a day instead of the normal 22.
UNICEF is looking at how to expedite the needed products - primarily chlorine and sulphates - through the newly opened port in San Pedro, but transport and security problems remain significant challenges.
Recently a truck driver delivering a cable for a water plant in the western town of Duékoué was highjacked en route.
Chlorine is highly flammable and so the large quantities needed cannot be transported by aircraft.
As in immediate measure UNICEF has begun regular treatment of household wells and education campaigns to show people how to treat water at home with locally available means, including bleach and solar disinfection. UNICEF treated wells in Bouaké at the end of March for some 250,000 people, Bellet said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92533

POVERTY: ZIMBABWE: Threat of waterborne disease from unsafe water

HARARE, 15 April 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: IRIN : Raw sewage flows in a Harare township in 2007 and was seen as the catalyst for the cholera outbreak the following year

Jennifer Madongonda, 43, shares a seven-roomed house with three other families in the low-income suburb of Budiriro, about 15km southwest of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Seven months ago the municipality cut off water supply because they couldn’t pay the bill.
"Water supplies to this suburb are very erratic. People get running water at most four times a week and for short periods, but for us who live at this house, it means nothing because we accumulated a huge bill that we are struggling to pay," Madongonda told IRIN.
"We used to rely on the boreholes that were set up in 2008 but most of them have broken down and no one has come to repair them. Our neighbours don't want to share their water because they are afraid they will accumulate huge bills too."
Budiriro was regarded as the epicentre of the cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 and lasted for a year before it was officially declared at an end in July 2009. The waterborne disease killed more than 4,000 people and infected nearly 100,000 others, and all water sources were found to be contaminated in the working class ssuburb.
Many neighbourhoods had dug shallow wells after the collapse of water and sanitation infrastructure in Zimbabwe’s economic implosion, creating ideal conditions for the proliferation of cholera, which infects the gastrointestinal system, causing vomiting and diarrhoea that can lead to acute dehydration; left untreated, it can kill within 24 hours.
To combat cholera, donor organizations, including the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Zimbabwe, drilled scores of boreholes, but many have since fallen into disrepair and at night it is not uncommon to see long queues at the few remaining working boreholes as residents jostle to get water for the next day.
We now cook at all sorts of times - sometimes at midnight or early morning - when we manage to get water
"We now cook at all sorts of times - sometimes at midnight or early morning - when we manage to get water. We can hardly spare any to wash clothes because we don't have containers big enough to store it," Madongonda said.
A stream about 5km away is used for laundry and bathing. "Many women complain of skin problems and we suspect it is because the water is polluted with sewage and dangerous chemicals dumped in the stream by factories. It will not be long before there is another cholera outbreak," she warned.
UNICEF Zimbabwe's head of communications, Micaela Marques de Souza, told IRIN the boreholes drilled "in response to the 2008/09 cholera outbreak were handed over, and are being maintained by Harare City [municipality]".
UNICEF had "also supported training of the staff of Harare City in the operation and maintenance of these boreholes. In order to ease the water shortages in these areas and Harare City, UNICEF has recently provided spares and tool kits [for the boreholes] to the Director of Health Services,” De Souza said.
In 2010 UNICEF drilled 43 additional boreholes in Harare, and is assisting in the rehabilitation of the capital’s main source of water, Morton Jeffery Water Works, where the pumps regularly break down because the municipality does not have enough money to buy spares.
"I am aware of the fact that most of the boreholes, even some drilled last year, have broken down because there are too many residents using them and some of them are careless, but I am surprised that we are supposed to be repairing them," a senior health official in the municipality’s public works department, who declined to be named, told IRIN.

Sanitation
Reticulated water is also becoming scarce In Glen Norah, the suburb next to Budiriro, where boreholes were also sunk to combat the cholera epidemic.
"A lot of people use the bush and buckets to relieve themselves because of the water shortages. Toilets are overflowing and our children suffer from running stomachs most of the time." The tap water was "suspicious", because whenever supplies returned briefly, it was dirty, Glen Norah resident Trymore Purazi, 28, told IRIN.
"We have been advised by health officials to leave the water to settle, but it is difficult to heed this advice because, in most cases, we would have waited the whole day to have water to cook and we would be very hungry," he said.
Chris Magadza, a researcher at the University of Zimbabwe, told participants at a recent workshop that "clinical studies carried out on Harare's water supplies, and the results obtained, revealed that the water bodies carry a significant amount of pollutants, which pose a potential health risk."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92487

POVERTY: “Magic tree seeds” to purify dirty water

 Photo: Courtesy of Educational Concerns For Hunger Organization
Water before being treated and afterwards

BANGKOK, 10 February 2011 (IRIN) - One solution to the water woes of many of the world’s poor may lie in the pea-sized seeds of the widely grown Moringa oleifera tree, experts say.
“The Moringa oleifera [seed technique] can be an important, sustainable and affordable method towards waterborne disease reduction and can improve the quality of life for a large proportion of the poor,” Micheal Lea, author and researcher with Clearinghouse, an Ottawa-based organization researching low-cost water purification technologies, told IRIN.
According to Lea’s 2010 publication, seeds from the Moringa, a tree (also described as a shrub) which grows in Africa, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, can be crushed into a powder and mixed with surface water to produce a 90-99 percent bacterial reduction, making untreated water safely drinkable.
The technique is not new. Communities in Sudan have been using the multi-purpose Moringa tree as a source of food and as a water purifier for centuries.
The plant is fast-growing, nutritious, edible and drought resistant, and can be grown in your backyard. Its seeds are soft and can be crushed using everyday tools, such as a spoon and a bowl. (see video)
The ability to purify water using such accessible techniques, and others has significant life-saving potential.
Globally, approximately 1.1 billion people do not have access to drinking water and diarrhoea remains the leading cause of illness and death, according to the latest UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report.
With the number of people without access to safe water expected to rise to two billion by 2025, several independent Moringa tree cultivation projects have started in the past few years.

Moringa plantations in Ghana
In the Breman Baako village of Ghana, the Moringa Community organization has cultivated Moringa plantations which several thousand people live off as a food source.
“The Moringa is protein and vitamin rich, so people eat the leaves and use the seeds as a spice on food,” said Abu Bakkar Abdulai, Ghana country director of the Moringa Community. “But there is a need for clean water so we are trying to inform the communities about this other technique as well.”

Limitations
While the technique has potential, Kebreab Ghebremichael, a water purification expert with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Water Education, says it would be best used at the household level.
“The technique is easy and inexpensive and many people already have this tree in their backyards,” said Ghebremichael, who studied the Moringa tree seed purifying technique for his PhD. "However, non-processed Moringa cannot be used in centralized large water systems… because the organic content from the seed may give taste and odour problems if it stands for a long time before consumption.”
The Moringa seed purification technique works best for purifying surface water, such as rivers, streams, lakes and ditches, but not for underground water sources. So it would not be able to resolve the problem of natural arsenic poisoning that afflicts many populations in Asia.
“This method is not a silver bullet, but could be used during emergencies and where people have no resources to treat the water they drink from,” Lea said.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91879

MALNUTRITION: Somalia: Oxfam says drought worsens civil war crisis in Somalia

David Musyoka


Oxfam says drought worsens civil war crisis in Somalia. More than two million people are dependent on
humanitarian aid for survival and one in six. Somali children suffer from acute malnutrition

NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- A global international aid agency, Oxfam, warned on Monday that Somalia is suffering its worst drought in years and failed rains are already devastating half a million lives.
An ongoing conflict in the country together with the drought has pushed hundreds of thousands of Somalis beyond their ability to cope, the agency said.
"The region has been hit very hard. Drought and hunger are so severe that thousands have fled the relative security of their villages and headed to Mogadishu.
"They are desperate enough that they will risk the fighting and shelling there, in order to find food," said Zachariah Imeje, program officer for Oxfam.
In a statement issued in Nairobi, the aid agency said the new catastrophe should be the final "wake-up" call for the international community as millions are at risk of hunger.
The central and southern regions are suffering the worst effects, where some areas have received 0 to 15 percent of their usual rainfall.
In the Gedo region of the south, the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) is reporting 25 per cent of the population to be acutely malnourished.
In the nearby Juba regions, that number rises to 30 per cent.
Livestock herds have been decimated, forcing destitute pastoralists to migrate to towns and villages in search of aid.
The failure of the Deyr rainy season, normally from October to December, has left severe food and water shortages that are expected to get worse in the coming months.
"More than two million people in Somalia were already living in crisis. Additional support will be needed for them to cope, or this drought could push them over the edge into an even more acute catastrophe," said Imeje.
Oxfam called upon all local authorities to allow the safe and secure passage of humanitarian aid and personnel to those populations in need.
It also called upon donors to continue to provide generous support for emergency needs, and long term development in order to strengthen the livelihoods sector to prevent Somalis from falling into poverty.
The ongoing conflict makes access to the worst hit regions difficult.
In some areas, access for humanitarian organisations seeking to reach those in need continues to be severely restricted due to the security situation.
"We are getting desperate. There isn’t any grass available for the animals and the shallow wells have dried.
"Buying water is expensive and out of reach for most of the pastoralists like me, we simply do not have money to buy the water," said Osman, a pastoralist in Hiraan Province, north of the capital.
"The worst part is this is expected to continue for the next three months.
"We used to move to the neighboring regions before, but this time the entire country is the same, there is no better place."
With little government support to depend on, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest countries.
Two decades of conflict have left infrastructure in tatters, and an entire generation has grown up without peace.
More than two million people are dependent on humanitarian aid for survival and one in six Somali children suffer from acute malnutrition.
"The animals are dying of hunger and so are the people because they were our source of survival. We can’t sell (our livestock) as there is no market. We can’t feed them, we are in a predicament," said Osman.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government since 1991.
There are currently 1.4 million displaced people in Somalia, as well as more than half a million Somali refugees in neighboring countries of East Africa.
The Food Security Network and Analysis Unit is a network in Somalia that gathers and analyses essential food security, livelihood and nutrition data that informs both emergency and development interventions.
Somalia has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, with more than 230,000 children that are acutely malnourished. One in every seven children in Somalia dies before the age of five.
http://www.coastweek.com/3404_somalia.htm

MALNUTRITION: Food Worries Rise in China

Mitch Moxley
BEIJING, Jan 19, 2011 (IPS) - In China, a country with a history of famine and where rural dwellers still use the greeting "have you eaten?", food is close to sacred. Feeding the country’s massive population remains one of the biggest threats to future economic growth and social stability, experts warn.
Since 1997, China has lost some 8.2 million hectares (20.2 million acres) of arable land to urbanization, industrialization, re-forestation and damage caused by natural disasters. Thirty-seven percent of China’s territory suffers from land degradation and the country’s per capita available land is 40 percent of the world average.
"China has made remarkable economic and social progress over the past three decades, lifting several hundred million out of poverty, and food security has benefited significantly from this overall progress," said Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, when he visited China in December.
"However, the shrinking of arable land and the massive land degradation threatens the ability of the country to maintain current levels of agricultural production, while the widening gap between rural and urban is an important challenge to the right to food of the Chinese population."
The right to food requires people to have incomes that allow them to purchase food, and that food systems be sustainable enough that satisfying current demands does not jeopardize future needs.
"It’s obvious that these two conditions are facing important challenges today," De Schutter said.
Recent food price increases may be a sign of things to come, the UN Rapporteur added, urging China to make the shift to more sustainable types of farming. Without mitigating actions, including a shift to low carbon agriculture, climate change will cause agricultural productivity to drop by five to ten percent by 2030.
In 2010, China recorded its seventh consecutive record grain harvest with production of 546 million tons, according to state media reports. The government has said current grain stocks exceed 200 million tons and that grain self-sufficiency has stood at 95 percent for the last decade.
China has pledged to maintain a grain self-sufficiency level of more than 90 percent in the decade to come by developing agricultural technologies and improving land use, He Bingsheng, president of China Agricultural University and one of the country’s leading economists, told China Daily.
But He warned that shrinking farmland and an imbalanced use of land pose challenges for the country’s grain producers.
"A certain amount of imports are necessary. But for the whole country, food security has to be ensured, because for a country as big as China the international market falls far short of our demand," He said.
Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Rural Development Institute, says China’s food security remains stable for now.
Li says China has pursued a food security policy that is mostly autonomous, with only a small percentage of agricultural products coming from abroad, meaning China is only marginally affected by rising food prices worldwide.
"We’ve had record grain harvest for seven years in a row, with a growth rate of 3 percent in 2010," Li tells IPS. "Although international grain prices grew over the past year, in general the grain price in China remained stable. Most people’s lives haven’t been impacted."
Li admits that threats to China’s food security remain, including soil degradation and desertification. He notes that the government has taken steps to tackle the issue, such as increasing the share of fixed capital investment allotted to agricultural areas and increasing agricultural subsidies. In 2010, the central government invested about RMB 800 billion (120 billion dollars) on the agricultural sector, a number that is expected to reach 900 billion RMB this year.
But Li says the government still has much to do, including protecting farmland and improving agricultural productivity and water infrastructure.
"Food is the most powerful political weapon," Li says. "There is no substitute for food consumption. No one can live without food, so food security is the basis of national security. A lack of food security will hinder social development and trigger social unrest."
Zhao Xiaofeng, a researcher at the China Rural Governance Research Centre at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province, says drought – often the result of large-scale dam building – continues to be a major threat to China’s food security.
Places such as Henan province, one of the country’s core grain producing regions, have been severely impacted by droughts, Zhao says, adding that the government needs to improve water infrastructure around river ways and reservoirs to protect nearby agricultural land.
Zhao tells IPS that China’s risk to food security will reach dangerous heights if more than 10 percent of the food supply comes from imports. It currently stands at five percent.
"China is the most populous country in the world. You can imagine what it will be like if its people don’t have enough food."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54170

POVERTY: SRI LANKA: From pipe dreams to piped water

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN: Water used to flow here --a toppled water tower in Kilinochchi District

COLOMBO, 17 January 2011 (IRIN) - Widespread flooding in Sri Lanka has grabbed the headlines, but in the north of the country a more long-term problem is the absence of pipe-borne water for tens of thousands of civilians returning to the former conflict zone, known locally as the Vanni.
Flood waters that have affected about one million people across Sri Lanka have started to recede since 16 January, but for residents in the Vanni, their longstanding water-access problems are only growing.
Piping water there is now a top priority for the government, say experts, noting how decades of civil war have left water infrastructure in the Vanni in near or total disrepair.
The last wave of fighting between government forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam separatist rebels from mid-2007 until May 2009 damaged or destroyed almost all the water facilities, said Samantha Wijesundera, water and sanitation expert at the World Bank Sri Lanka office. "You have to begin everything anew," he said.

Starting over
The coverage of piped water in the former conflict zone remains well below the national average of 34 percent as of early 2009, according to the government's National Water Supply Board.
On average, three out of 10 people have access to piped water in all the districts that fall within the Vanni: Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu, Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mannar, which has the lowest rate of coverage at 2 percent.
"There are areas of concern over the quality and safety of currently available water sources and resources," said Abdulai KaiKai, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Sri Lanka.
The agency has helped fund the cleaning and disinfecting of 3,500 hand-dug wells in the region hard hit or neglected in years of fighting.
The main sources for drinking water in the Vanni are streams, unprotected wells and closed hand-pump-operated wells, the only one of the three considered relatively safe, or an "improved" drinking water source, according to water experts.
Sources other than piped water considered safe for drinking include boreholes, covered wells and springs, public standpipes and some forms of rainwater collection.

Projects under way
Water repair or reconstruction projects have already begun or funding has been allocated to increase the availability of piped water in the region, according to donors and public officials.
Imelda Sukumar, the top government official in Jaffna District, said US$1.8 million worth of projects were under way in Jaffna District and parts of adjoining Kilinochchi District.
"Over 350,000 people [out of an estimated total population of 850,000, excluding 50,000 military, according to government] will get access to pipe-borne water from these projects," she said. The first recipients are expected to have piped water by the beginning of 2015.
The World Bank's Wijesundera said water projects needed more time than roads or school construction due to the heavier workload involved. The World Bank has pledged $12 million for eight piped water projects in the Vanni and has also assisted in digging new wells and cleaning existing ones.
As the population resettles, water worries are only likely to grow. "Where there is high population density, there is bound to be concern because septic pits are also located on the same ground as wells [in the Vanni]," said Wijesundera.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91643

POVERTY: NEPAL: “Dismal” irrigation system worsens crop shortages

  Photo: Suman K. Shakya/ENPHO 
Even in irrigated parts of Nepal's traditionally fertile Terai region, access to water is problematic

KATHMANDU, 7 January 2011 (IRIN) - The government of Nepal needs to improve irrigation management to achieve higher agricultural productivity and overcome “dismal” water and crop shortages, experts say.
Most of the country’s 1.2 million hectares (ha) of irrigated land is in the fertile Terai (southern Nepal) or other easily accessible areas, but very little in the hill regions of the food-insecure far and mid-west.
According to UN World Food Programme (WFP), the 600,000 people living in the far and mid-west regions at the base of the Himalayan mountains - also referred to as the hills - have the most problems growing and accessing enough food to survive.
Food security is increasingly problematic even in the fertile irrigated districts of the Terai, including Saptari and Siraha, where paddy production was reduced by half due to late rains in 2010, according to a yet-to-be-published report by WFP.
Just because there is irrigation does not mean it works, according to FMIS-Promotion Trust, a local NGO that works with centuries-old farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS).

Farmer managed irrigation
FMIS mostly uses traditional canals made of wood, boulders, shrubs and logs, whereas government constructed systems are concrete, and include tube wells, shallow wells and groundwater.
Because of neglect and lack of maintenance, only two-thirds of the nation’s entire irrigation network works during the monsoon season and only one third of the land is irrigated year-round.
To adapt to changing rain patterns and longstanding food problems in remote mountainous areas, the government needs to give more support to FMIS, said Pradhan.
“There is clear evidence that there has been higher agricultural productivity through FMIS than the irrigation system managed by the government,” she said.
She explained how, in FMIS, farmers take responsibility for water acquisition, allocation, distribution and overall management on a continuous basis - but lack critical government financial backing, especially to operate in difficult terrain.
So far, 1.2 million ha of the country’s irrigable land has watering systems, out of which FMIS covers 70 percent, with the rest government-managed, according to the Ministry of Irrigation.
Until the 1970s, Nepal was as a food exporting nation, but in the past decade it has become a net food importing country, producing less than 2.5 tons of grain per hectare annually, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
But the country could boost cereal production six-fold with better irrigation systems, said Pradhan.
Rapid population growth and migration put a squeeze on the region’s food supply. Until the 1970s, two-thirds of the population lived in the hills and one-third in the Terai, but low agricultural productivity in the hill regions encouraged more people to move to the Terai.

Revamp?
Since almost all of the country’s arable land is under cultivation and there have been few technological improvements for Nepal’s rain-fed crops, the best solution is irrigated agriculture, according to the government’s Irrigation Management Division (IRM).
“We cannot say that the poor irrigation system alone is to be blamed for food insecurity but it does play a major role,” Uttam Raj Timilsina, IRM’s deputy director general, told IRIN.
The government is conducting surveys to start inter-basin river projects to boost irrigation management, said Timilsina.
The hope is these projects can transfer water from big rivers (Bheri, Kali, Trishuli, Koshi) to tributaries in the country’s interior to ensure year-round irrigation, working towards a 10-year government strategy of revamping irrigation
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91556

POVERTY: Aid and fairer trade crucial to boost Africa's poverty reduction efforts

4 September 2010 – Africans need both foreign aid and fairer trading terms with other regions to achieve the poverty reduction and social development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today.
“Far more than that, they need the tools with which they themselves will create jobs, generate income and unleash the continent's own potential,” Mr. Ban said in a message to the two-day Africa Consultative Forum on the MDGs in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
Mr. Ban said Africa had seen remarkable success in combating hunger, reducing child malnutrition and mortality, improving school enrolment, expanding access to clean water and HIV/AIDS treatment, as well as controlling tuberculosis, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases.
He gave the example of the forum's host, Rwanda, which he said had made impressive efforts in achieving almost universal primary enrolment, including gender parity at the primary school level.
With nearly 60 per cent of children sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets aimed at keeping out malaria-spreading mosquitoes, the country has registered the largest increase in the use of the nets in Africa, Mr. Ban said in his message, delivered by Jeffrey Sachs, his Senior Adviser on MDGs.
Rwanda also made history in 2008 when the representation of women in parliament reached the highest level in the world, Mr. Ban noted.
Progress has, however, been uneven across the goals, as well as from country to country and within nations, the Secretary-General noted. Moreover, Africa remains the continent facing the most severe challenges in achieving the MDGs, and progress has been especially slow in improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality, he pointed out.
The MDGs provide concrete benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty and include goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality and environmental degradation.
Overall, and despite the recent food security crisis and global economic upheaval, the developing world remains on track to halve extreme poverty from 1990 levels by 2015, Mr. Ban said.
“Encouraging progress has also been made in a significant number of least developed countries. This is no small feat; it shows that the MDGs are achievable,” he said.
The high-level summit on the MDGs bringing together nearly 150 world leaders later this month will provide the strong political impetus needed to address the remaining gaps and accelerate progress, the Secretary-General noted.
“For my part, I will continue to press hard for a successful summit. We need the strongest possible outcome document – a results-oriented action plan, with concrete steps and timelines, and with mechanisms for holding all partners accountable.
“The summit will also showcase success stories, with the hope of scaling them up and creating partnerships that will allow us to do even more in Africa and around the world. I will continue to be your close partner in this effort,” Mr. Ban said.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35831&Cr=MDG&Cr1=

MALNUTRITION: Pakistan, water

MSF video on clean water for Swat Valley in Pakistan floods

http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Medecins%20Sans%20Frontieres

MALNUTRITION: Pakistan heled by Merlin

12 Aug 2010
Now into its second week, the Pakistan flooding emergency has already affected more than 14 million people and claimed the lives of 1,600. The floods may only be the start of the crisis, though.
Our health workers in Pakistan are already reporting more cases of diarrhoea, caused by people drinking dirty water. Reports also state that 80 per cent of Pakistan's crops have been destroyed by the floods. In Upper Swat, the figure is thought to be closer to 100 per cent.
The last harvest took place before the monsoon season, so all the crops for the year were picked immediately before the floods hit. Since then, all these food stores have been washed away.
Where diarrhoea and food shortages combine, widespread malnutrition results.
Patrick Parsons, Merlin's Country Director in Pakistan, says:
"There are huge issues with access to safe, clean drinking water. The increased reports of diarrhoea make malnutrition look more and more likely."
No end in sight
The situation in Pakistan has been significantly worsened by further heavy rainfall and flash flooding across the country over the last few days. Worryingly, the monsoon rain season has only just begun.
Since Merlin's emergency response began we have treated over 30,000 patients. To tackle the growing needs, we are operating 28 health clinics and 16 mobile health teams in three of the worst-affected districts.
Our medical experts are treating survivors and delivering much-needed emergency food supplements and distributing water purification tablets to combat the risk of malnutrition, as well as basic hygiene kits to help stop the spread of infectious diseases.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/218926/722e18a740bd1a6038e18439ad3fec30.htm