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Text:	DEVELOPMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Overcoming Water Scarcity Moyiga Nduru JOHANNESBURG, 20 Nov (IPS) - A routine visit to a village in the northern South African province of Limpopo brought Stephen McFarlane face-to-face with the reality of a child-headed family. But, the members of this household were not, as one might suspect, AIDS orphans. Their parents were very much alive – but living in a mountainous area some 20 kilometres away. Drought in the area had obliged the parents to move to a region where there were still small quantities of water to cultivate crops. "The problem here (in Limpopo) is water. There has always been a need for water," says McFarlane, who works for a global charity – World Vision. This week (Nov. 18) international scientists joined hands with non-governmental organisations such as World Vision to launch a five-million dollar research initiative to improve the lives of millions of poor farmers living in and around the Limpopo river basin. The launch took place in South Africa’s commercial capital, Johannesburg. The ‘Challenge Programme on Water and Food’ (CPWF) will tackle water scarcity in the basin, which extends through Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. In particular, the initiative will address one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century: how to grow more food with less water, while safeguarding the environment. All in all, the ‘Challenge Programme on Water and Food’ is focussing on nine rivers around the world, including two others in Africa – the Nile, and the Volta in West Africa. "The Limpopo was selected because of the combination of high poverty levels, chronic water scarcity and widespread food insecurity," explains Adriaan Louw of the South African Agricultural Research Council, who is the Challenge Programme coordinator for the Limpopo. "About one million people in the Limpopo currently rely upon food aid (and) deaths from starvation and malnutrition are commonplace, particularly in times of drought. In the next few years we expect to see about 10 percent of the population abandoning their homes and migrating south," he added. Almost 14 million people live in the Limpopo river basin, which has a catchment area of 413,000 square kilometres – including rivers and tributaries flowing through Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. However, the area is arid or semi-desert with most rivers only able to provide water for short periods of time each year. In dry years, large stretches of the Limpopo and many of its tributaries contain flowing water flow for just 40 days, or less. Despite these uneven water flows, the Limpopo has been settled by smallholder farming communities which rely on seasonal rains to irrigate their crops. Agriculture in this region tends to be characterised by low productivity and vulnerability to erratic climatic conditions that bring frequent droughts and floods. According to CPWF documents, farmers in the region have begun to look at crop production in wetlands in a bid to secure their livelihoods. In light of this, researchers will study how best to pursue agricultural and fisheries projects in swamps, and develop tools to guide wetland use and conservation. This research will take place over a five-year period. The CPWF will also investigate the use of small multi-purpose reservoirs and large dams, to determine which are best suited to meet the water storage and provision needs of local communities. "The research agenda of the challenge programme is intended to be very broad," says Jonathan Woolley, coordinator of Challenge Programme, who is based is Sri Lanka. "Most research projects involve multiple partners and are spread across a number of different river basins. They aim to capture experiences from different countries and build a knowledge base that will help us find solutions to various problems related to land and water management around the world," he adds. "The end result will be a range of tools and policy options that will have a practical application for farmers, water managers and governments." Barbara Van Koppen of the International Water Management Institute in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, told IPS Thursday: "Water can be a trigger for development among the poorest of the poor. But you need to capture it first, through cheaper technology. In rural areas, you can capture it through cheaper tools like simple taps, small dams, and water tanks." "There is a lot of water in Africa, which should be captured, developed and harnessed and the method should be replicated in all the villages," she added. "We don’t want a success story in one village, while the other villages live in a sea of poverty." The straight-talking Koppen said the governments of Mozambique and Zimbabwe were doing well in capturing and harnessing water compared to their neighbour, South Africa. "The governments there understand that their economies rely on agriculture," she said. "In Tanzania, people, automatically, know how to capture water." Van Koppen urged Southern African governments to integrate their water institutions to avoid management and policy problems. "To a woman in a village, water is water. She doesn’t care whether it is from the department of irrigation, agriculture or forestry," she said. (FIN/2004)

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