Seasonal water fluctuations both in quality and quantity negatively affect livestock production and subsequently reduce livestock-water productivity (LWP) in rainfed pastoral production systems. This study aimed at assessing the effects of improved catchment and surface water management on LWP and to establish whether the effects of integrated catchment and surface water management are additive, synergistic or counteractive.

In October 2011, project partners and team members in the Nile Basin Development Challenge (http://www.nilebdc.org) met in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia to reflect on project progress and directions. Here, Fantahun Mengistu, Director of the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI), shares some lessons and take home messages from the meeting.

Rural-urban migration is playing an
increasingly important role in shaping the economic and
demographic landscape of Chinese cities. Over the past two
decades, China has transformed itself from a relatively
immobile society to one in which more than 10 percent of the
population are migrants. China's mobility rate is still
low compared with that of advanced industrial economies, the
sheer size of the migrant flows and their dramatic economic

The analysis of the cost of
environmental degradation conducted as part of the country
environmental analysis (CEA) shows that the most costly
problems associated with environmental degradation are urban
and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply,
sanitation, and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding
and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these
costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the

Irrigation has made a major contribution
to poverty reduction in the past decades, enabling higher
yields and better nutrition. Despite these achievements,
large-scale irrigation schemes have usually yielded low
returns and attracted negative publicity because of their
adverse environmental and social impacts. As a result, the
Bank has largely switched its support for irrigation away
from new construction toward rehabilitation and policy

Water policy is an important topic on
the agenda of the international community, and efficiency
and equity in the allocation of water have emerged as
important factors to be considered. Water pricing can be
used to mitigate both the quantity and quality dimensions of
water scarcity. This paper reviews partial equilibrium
models and general equilibrium models that are relevant to
irrigation water management issues. The most widely

This paper tells a story about
conditions in Tanzania's hidden economy, the parts of
the natural resource sector often ignored in conventional
economic analyses and studies, and makes recommendations for
future policy actions. The paper draws primarily from
extensive background studies undertaken of the forestry,
fishery, wildlife, mining, and tourism sub sectors (COWI
2005) as well as a wide range of complementary studies

Meeting symbol/code: ALAWUC/NE/12

The Seventh Session (Special Meeting) of the FAO Agriculture and Land and Water Use Commission for the Near East (ALAWUC) was held in Cairo, Egypt, during 8-9 May 2012. The Opening Ceremony of the Commission was attended by (35) persons, including (20) participants from (13) Member Countries, (3) Observers representing regional organizations in the Near East; in addition to (2) Observers from Algeria and Palestine. SUMMARY OF MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS 1.

This literature review was commissioned by Project “G3 - Water Governance and Community-based Management”, one of several projects funded by the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) in the Ganges Basin. The project seeks to understand the different modes and outcomes of water governance in selected polders and the role that communities play in such governance.

n this paper, we review the historical evolution of policies, projects and institutions
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