The IPTRID programme is a multi-donor trust fund managed by the IPTRID Secretariat as a Special Programme of FAO. The Secretariat is located in the Land and Water Development Division of FAO and draws on a worldwide network of leading centres of excellence in the field of irrigation, drainage and water resources management. IPTRID aims to support capacity development for sustainable agricultural water management to reduce poverty, enhance food security and improve livelihoods, while conserving the environment.

The International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) is an international multi-donor programme, co-managed by partner organizations, created in 1990 at the request of the International Commission for Irrigation and Drainage (ICID). Its Secretariat, first located at the World Bank, was transferred to FAO in 1998, where it is being hosted, in the Land and Water Development division (AGL) as a Special Programme.

This paper describes FAOs programme in water. FAO’s water activities can be classified in three main categories: a) Information and knowledge, b) Policy advice; c) Technical support to countries and their constituents.

Since 1999, the Federal Government of Nigeria has been seriously pursuing the quest for serlf-sufficiency in food production. This commitment to the development of the nations potentials in agriculture resulted in the formulation and implementation, in conjunction with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, of the USD 45.2 million National Special Programme for Food Security (NSPFS). Under its Food Security sub-project, the government is promoting rapid investment in agriculture within 109 sites in all 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) i.e.

In 2004, ICARDA began strategic visioning, driven by the global focus on achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the realignment of the CGIAR System priorities by the Science Council. It involved, among other actions, a consolidation of the 19 research projects into six mega-projects for better integration of the Center’s multidisciplinary teams, and an increased use of new tools of science in addressing the problems of poverty and degradation of natural resources.

The São Francisco River provides about 70% of the surface water in Northeast Brazil and like much of Brazil the basin includes communities characterized by a broad range of incomes and persistent poverty (Brito and Gichuki 2003). The basin’s agricultural systems cover a similar range between capitalized export-focused enterprises and subsistence farms. Major corporations and cottage industries comprise the industrial water use sector while cities and towns tap the basin for municipal supplies. The basin also hosts several important water-dependent ecological zones.

Maungdaw, 7 May 2005:

"A number of villages in the north of Maungdaw Township have been facing a water shortage since the beginning of May, reports a villager who has been transporting water from Bangladesh to Burma via a small boat on the Naf River.

"The water is not for my family, it is for the Nasaka camp which is located at Ngakhura village," he said...