Water Equity through Applied Science and Stakeholder Cooperation

It has been recognized that poor water management, rather than a lack of water resources, is the greatest obstacle to sustainable water access in the developing world. Water for People (WFP) envisions a world in which all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation through the development of locally sustainable delivery systems. But if water supplies are to be available to poor people in the developing world 50 years on, then Water for People –and the sector as a whole—faces the strategic necessity to incorporate improved water resources management into its programs.

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) shifts the paradigm from a traditional political approach to a focus on coordinated decision-making across sectors and scales. Key to this approach is data: stakeholders negotiate their needs in light of technical information about their common watershed. But ensuring that that data is timely, relevant and transparent poses one of the greatest challenges to the IWRM process itself.

The disparity between the type and timing of information needed to make scientific conclusions and those needed to make management decisions is real. What data are available and allow us to make urgent management decisions, while ensuring that those decisions are grounded in credible science? How can the data-gathering process be adapted to communities with no means of sophisticated scientific observation?

This presentation will explore these questions through a case study now being developed in the Water For People - Rwanda program.