CPWF updates

Call for Abstracts- Nexus 2014: Water, Food, Climate and Energy Conference

Ilse — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:28:10 +0000

The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will host the Nexus 2014: Water, Food, Climate and Energy Conference on March 3-7. The Conference will bring together researchers and practitioners working in government, civil society and business, focusing on the nexus approach. Building on the Water, Food and Energy Nexus Conference held in Bonn, Germany in 2011, this Conference aims to address the connected, but distinct, relationships between water, food, climate, energy, security, sustainability and development.

Abstracts for poster and verbal presentations can be submitted through the Conference website. The submission deadline is September 27, 2013.

The themes for the 2014 Conference will be:

Economics and Finance of the Nexus
Politics, Policy and Regulation
Ecosystem Approaches and Resilience
Resource Scarcity and Security
Remote Sensing and GIS Approaches

Through the Conference, participants will be able to examine cutting-edge research, debate emerging solutions, and explore the link between science and policy. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to build new, or strengthen existing, networks as well as join the Nexus Academic-Practitioner Network.

For more information visit: http://nexusconference.web.unc.edu

Information is beautiful

CPWF — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:49:20 +0000

CPWF Mekong Communications Coordinator Terry Clayton reviews a recent publication and finds it—beautiful.

When was the last time you picked up a beautiful book? I don’t mean a book with beautiful pictures, there are lots of those. I mean a book so beautifully laid out and illustrated that it seduces eye and mind into turning the pages to learn more. Such a book is the recent publication from a Mekong Challenge Program project titled: Guidance Manual on Agroecosystems Analysis in Cambodia.

Judging by the title, you would not be expecting anything out of the ordinary. In terms of content, you would be right. What is extraordinary is the presentation of the content.

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Volta capitalisation workshop: time to reap what we’ve sown

Mahamoudou Sawadogo — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:57:53 +0000

There are no translations available.

The Challenge Program on Water and Food’s Volta Basin Development Challenge (VBDC) research began in December 2010. In December 2013, the Challenge Program will end and it will be integrated into the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems programme. It is time to reap what we’ve sown! It is time to reflect on our main achievements and their determinants, to synthesise and package these results in suitable formats in order to tell our unique story. (…)

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COMPANDES project delivers water management results in Peru

CPWF — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:54:00 +0000

Last month in the city of Huaraz, Peru, the COMPANDES team held a scientific seminar to disseminate the project findings towards the Development of Benefit Sharing Mechanisms to improve management of water in the Santa river basin. The highly glaciated basin has a number of conflicts over water use and its dependence on snowmelt means that water resources are likely to respond significantly to climate change (see http://goo.gl/xkzg5)

Local students of the project presented their research on sub-basins of the Santa and a comprehensive study of the basin using the AguAAndes Computational Policy Support System (www.policysupport.org/aguaandes) and SEI’s WEAP tool was delivered. (…)

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A call to transform irrigation programs

CPWF — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:34:40 +0000

A call to transform irrigation programs: shifting the focus from increased food production toward becoming an integral component of poverty-reduction strategies.

Irrigation interventions may have differential effects on different members in the household and in the community, such as irrigators, non-irrigators, children, and women. Photo: IWMI

A recently released review paper by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) stresses the impact of irrigation on nutrition, health and gender with insights for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

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Water4Crops: exploring the opportunities of wastewater use

CPWF — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:11:07 +0000

Agricultural growth and industrialization together with the rapid growth of urbanization has not only impacted the availability of water but also put increased pressure on both food security and energy.

Current and future freshwater demand could be met by harnessing the potential of rainfed systems by enhancing water use efficiency and demand management. More recently, wastewater use has also entered the sphere as a potential source for demand management after essential treatment.

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Putting Water Issues in Perspective: CPWF Water Dialogue Posters to Spark Debate

Ilse — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:57:30 +0000

by Larry Harrington, CPWF Research Director

We hear a lot about water scarcity. We hear that we are running out of fresh water, that food security is threatened, and that the grim consequences are already upon us. While there is some truth to this, it is easy to over-state the nature of the problem and to underestimate what we can do about it. Water problems are serious, complex and multi-faceted but not impossible to comprehend. Solutions may not be simple, but they are attainable.

photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT

Consider for a moment this enigma: agriculture in dry areas is often crippled by drought – but in these areas only a small fraction of rainfall is actually used by agriculture. Water as such is often less scarce than the ability to capture and make use of it.

It is important to place water scarcity issues in perspective, for example, that access can be as important as physical availability; that institutions can be as important as technologies; that equitable sharing can be as important as improved productivity; that water is essential to ecosystems as well as food systems; that water generates cooperation as well as conflict; that water and food systems are dynamic and can change rapidly in a short time; that solving water problems is a social process in which credible and relevant information can be a powerful asset; but whether and how this information is utilized typically depends on networks of partners and patterns of engagement.

A set of water dialogue posters was recently released by the CPWF. These aim to help place water and food issues in perspective. The posters portray the diversity and richness of insights achieved by CPWF projects. Each poster is designed for brevity, clarity, and accessibility of message. At the same time, each poster is backed up by in-depth research (which you can access through the supporting documentation box accompanying each poster). Some posters focus on the nature of water scarcity while others point out areas of opportunity to make things better, through technologies, institutions, policies, or patterns of engagement.

The purpose of the posters is to stimulate dialogue as much as to inform. They aim to show that water and food issues are indeed complex but that we do know a lot about them and we have learned a lot about how to address them. We are not helpless. We can act, and dialogue is where action can begin.

Browse the posters.

Confronting Unequal Worlds of Development: The Crisis of Public Knowledge

CPWF — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:58:29 +0000

Is there a crisis of public knowledge? Learn more in this highly readable and informative report from the conference on Confronting Unequal Worlds of Development.

The conference “Confronting Unequal Worlds of Development: Crisis of Public Knowledge, and the Transnational Social Science Agenda” was held at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. 25-26 October, 2012. (…)

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We asked, you answered: Does farm size really matter in Africa?

CPWF — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:09:14 +0000

The debate about farm size in Africa, kicked off by Stephen Carr’s blog post “African Agriculture: Does farm size really matter,” has sparked discussions far beyond the “size” issue. With over 100 comments generated on LinkedIn groups, we’d like to share some of the prominent points made with our larger blog audience.

Smallholder farmer in East Africa. Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT

Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD)

Commenters in the AIARD LinkedIn group engaged in a vibrant debate on rural-urban migration and its effect on farm size.

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Will this year be a turning point for African agriculture?

CPWF — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:13:33 +0000

Will 2013 be pinpointed as the year in which Africa’s ‘Green Revolution’ finally took root? It marks the tenth anniversaries of the 2003 Maputo Declaration and the resulting Africa-led Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)—which aim to reverse decades of underinvestment in agriculture and eliminate hunger and poverty through agriculture, respectively. It also marks 50 years of the African Union.

Bean market in the North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo Credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT

At this pivotal time, grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization ONE has set out to quantify progress made by African governments towards meeting the specific Maputo pledges, which include allocating 10% of budgets towards agriculture and seeking 6% annual agricultural growth by 2008. In its report A Growing Opportunity: Measuring Investments in African Agriculture, it seeks to hold governments and donors accountable to their past commitments on agriculture, as well as make recommendations for accelerating change in future.

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