Current water reforms in most African countries focus on decentralizing water management to the water users, as a way of improving water governance. The target of these reforms is equity, efficiency and sustainability. Unfortunately the reforms tend to concentrate on the use of statutory laws, and give little consideration to the already existing traditional practices. This report presents the findings of a case that examined traditional water management practices in Binaaba located in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region of Ghana.

This article offers an approach to the study of the evolution, spread and uptake of integrated water resources management (IWRM). Specifically, it looks at the flow of IWRM as an idea in international and national fora, its translation and adoption into national contexts, and the on-the-ground practices of IWRM.

Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has been promoted as part of the development discourse on sustainable natural resources management since the mid-1980s. It has influenced recent water policy in Bangladesh through the Guidelines for Participatory Water Management (GPWM) where community-based organisations are to participate in the management of water resources. This paper reviews the extent of success of such participatory water management.

The CPWF-supported project ‘Models for implementing multiple-use water supply

systems for enhanced land and water productivity, rural livelihoods and gender equity’

(‘CPWF-MUS’) innovated, tested, and documented homestead-scale and communityscale

models for Multiple Use water Services in 30 rural and peri-urban sites in 8

countries: the Andes (Bolivia and Colombia), Indus-Ganges (India, Nepal), Limpopo

(South Africa and Zimbabwe), Mekong (Thailand) and Nile (Ethiopia). Learning alliances