This presentation was give by Alain Vidal at the CPWF Basin Leaders meeting in Vietiane, Laos.

1. The Challenge Program on Water and Food
Big Picture
Assumptions, givens, strategic choices
Alain VIDAL, Basin Leader Meeting
Laos, 19. Jan. 2011

2. Global food crisis:
a poverty “countdown”
3 billion poor below US$2.5/day
2 billion suffer from malnutrition
1 billion suffer from hunger
 75% of them are rural poor
 Alleviating hunger means reducing rural poverty
Reducing rural poverty
 Increase the income of the rural poor to enable
investment
 Ensure they can cope with short-term and long-
term changes

3. The resilience challenge
Food production communities and ecosystems
should be able to cope with local and global
changes (climate, economy, demography,
migrations…), ie become more resilient
 Achieved through improved water
productivity (more food with less water)
together with empowerment, equity,
market access, health and ecosystem
services
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4. CPWF aims to increase the resilience of social and
ecological systems through better water management
for food production
Through its broad partnerships, it conducts research
that leads to impact on the poor and to policy change
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5. CPWF Phase 2
(2009-2014)
Basins, science, core principles and values

6. Focusing our strategy – a quizz
Why, where and on what do we focus?
How long are we supposed to live?
What does one basin development program cost?
How many partners does it include?

7. Six basin development challenges
Andes – Benefit-sharing mechanisms
Ganges – Floods and salt in the Delta
Limpopo – Small reservoirs, rainwater and livelihoods
Mekong – Dams and livelihoods
Nile – Rainwater management in Ethiopia
Volta – Small reservoirs, rainwater and livelihoods

8. Cross-basin science
Topic working groups
 Multiple-uses
 Resilience
 Learning to innovate
 Global drivers
 Others
Fed by and informing research done in basins
 Progressively established in 2010-11

9. How we work
Guided by core principles:
 working in partnership
 adaptive management
 capacity development
 gender and interdisciplinary integration
 accountability
Linking research to impact through compelling basin
development challenges and ‘outcome pathways’
Seeking insight across projects and basins

10. In other words…
Projects contribute to achieving the BDC - hence
should adhere to core principles
Basin focus but mechanisms in place to ensure cross
basin learning - TWGs
Our whole Program Team in place to make
integrated process work
Ability to scale up, replicate, influence and
contribute to policy change
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11. Where do we stand?
Assets and opportunities

12. Engaging decision-makers and
marketing Phase 1 outcomes
CPWF Learning Events at
World Bank and IFPRI
Basin stakeholder visits
in the Andes and the Nile
Stockholm
World Water Week

13. Marketing outcomes from Phase 1
The major effort to utilize Phase 1 outcomes is
through Phase 2
Continuous flow of Phase 1 legacy outputs
BFP special issues, book and high-level science paper
Science synthesis and evidence-based papers
Strategic engagement with the media (films, print)
Sourcebook for development professionals
Joint IFAD-CPWF initiative on
 Research into Use (5 Phase 1 projects)
 Mainstreaming innovation (19 Phase 1 projects)

14. Operationalizing Phase 2 - BDCs
EoIs approved
Proposal development
workhop Jan 2011
Operational
Operational
Operational 90% operational
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15. Operationalizing Phase 2 - Program

16. Basins to engage with
decision-makers and donors
World Bank and other major global players to be invited
to basin key events
 Link with program-level
Fund raising at basin level
 Basin- or activity-specific
 Not for a 2nd BDC
 Any fund raised by CPWF is supposed to benefit CRP5
 Needs to be reflected upon from 2012 with the perspective of
a basin exit strategy

17. CPWF website and communication

18. MT responsibilities and
communications rules
MT basin lead persons
 Boru: Ganges, Limpopo and Nile
 Larry: Andes, Mekong
 Sophie (AD): Volta – plus TWG
Full responsibilities of budget envelopes
 Boru – Innovation and Impact (incl. KM & publications)
 Larry – Science
 Sophie (AD) - Topic Working Groups
Program internal communications
 MT skype e-meeting every other Thursday
 E-mail: 1 idea – 1 title – 1 screen

19. Integration into CRP5
Changing a threat into an opportunity

20. « Full integration v1 » into
CRP5 on Land, Water and Ecosystems
R4D portfolio, program/basin teams maintained until early 2014
Contribution to CRP5 design, objectives and « best bets »
Irrigation
Resource Recovery
River Basins
Ecosystems
Rainfed
Pastoral
Information Systems

21. A science integration learning from
CPWF
A new Advisory Committee taking over CSC
functions, guiding our science and being the core of
the future CRP5’s AC
CPWF role to better articulated in CRP5
Start from present writing and build the justification
for effective integration as a way of strengthening
CRP5 - in practice test our BDC approach on 1-2
regional hubs

22. A governance integration
serving the program’s continuity
CPWF, its teams and its brand will continue to exist
until 2014
CPWF’s interests protected by AC
Once CRP5 is approved and launched
 IWMI and CPWF board amalgamated
 JVA dissolved
 CPWF Director member of CRP5 Steering Committee,
Management Committee and IWMI MT

23. An important reminder
As a partnership program aiming at alleviating
poverty, we should constantly look for
 Increasing our efficiency – be firm on decisions
and avoid ineffective debates on processes and
detail issues
 Building alliances rather than walls
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