The buying up of farmland by international investors is viewed highly critically. However, sweeping judgements could be inappropriate, as our author demonstrates with survey results from Ethiopia and Uganda.
This reports summarizes and synthesizes activities and achievements of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) through the end of 2007. The CPWF is an intiative of the CGIAR designed to take on the global challenge of water scarcity and food security.
National governments across East Africa are in the process of formulating and implementing adaptation and mitigation strategies to assist farmers cope with climate change. These include formulating actions, frameworks and programs to address climate change and embedding these within the long-term national development plans.
The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) is a multi-institutional research for development program
that seeks to create and disseminate international public goods to improve the productivity of water in river basins in
ways that are pro-poor, gender equitable and environmentally sustainable. In doing so, CPWF contributes to efforts by
the global community to ensure that global diversions of water to agriculture are maintained at the level of the year
2000.
The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) brings together scientists, development
specialists, and communities, in nine river basins across Africa, Asia and Latin America, to address
challenges of water scarcity, food security and poverty.
Some CPWF projects seek to develop innovative technologies, new institutional arrangements, or
improved policies. Other projects strategically aim to better define issues and challenges,
understand processes and principles, and develop more appropriate research tools and methods.
The CPWF was designed to be different. Developed in response to a call for change in a previous round of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system
reform, the CPWF was intended to foster cross-CGIAR cooperation and find ways to bring in new partners. Over time the CPWF has successfully broadened the CGIAR’s sources of
innovative research on water and food. Through its broad partnerships, the program conducts research that leads to positive impact on the poor and to policy change. The CPWF does this by
This paper describes an action research process undertaken with four African agricultural carbon projects—CARE’s Sustainable Agriculture in Changing Climate Initiative in Western Kenya; World Vision’s Assisted Natural Regeneration Project in Humbo, Ethiopia; Vi Agroforestry’s Western Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project; and ECOTRUST’s Trees for Global Benefits in Uganda—to explore their institutional changes as project managers and communities work to build local capacity for project management.
Livestock use and degrade much water in the Nile River Basin. New research suggests that integrated development and management of water and livestock resources will conserve water and increase the profitability and environmental sustainability of investments by governments, development agencies, and farmers.
Practical opportunities exist to enhance food security, reduce poverty, and foster benefit sharing. Institutions responsible for water resources may benefit from partnering with the livestock sector when developing water resources.
Remote sensed imagery in combination with secondary agricultural statistic was used to map crop water productivity (WP) in the Nile River Basin. Land productivity and crop tandardized gross value production (SGVP) were calculated at administrative level using the agricultural census data. Actual evapotranspiration (Eta) generated from remote sensing was used to assess crops consumptive water use. WP was then calculated by dividing SGVP by Eta in the cropped areas. Results show land productivity has a huge variation across the basin.
A través de nuestro sólido motor de búsqueda, puede explorar cualquier elemento de los más de 64.800 recursos rigurosamente seleccionados en la Biblioteca de la Tierra. Si desea obtener una visión general de lo que es posible, siéntase libre de examinar la Guía de búsqueda.
