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Water
to combat rural poverty
Water is central to meeting all but foremost the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015. Global attention is mostly focused on the MDG regarding safe drinking water and sanitation. Given that approximately 70 per cent of the world’s mobilized water resources are used for agriculture, and that about half the world’s population will be suffering water scarcity by 2025, it is surprising that the international community has hitherto spent relatively little time or energy on these issues. Attaining other MDGs improves the prospects of success in water. However, MDGs are a set of outcomes that do not represent all processes of development. There are, for example, no MDGs for peace and security, economic growth or governance. Yet these and other factors bear significantly upon prospects of success in water. This complexity means that water is not always the main point of entry into development. Poor rural people face an intricate web of deprivations. Improvements
to lives and livelihoods will place water resources under increasing,
and in some cases, unsustainable pressure. These twin challenges set
the scene for the need to look at water in all of its contributions
to development – in health, in food, in livelihoods, in energy and
industry – through development that does not jeopardise the integrity
of the environment, both in developing and developed countries. |
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