Through 10 years of research across multiple river basins in Africa and Asia, the Challenge Program on Water and Food analyzed water, food, and poverty issues affecting 1.5 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day. The program addressed these complex problems through basin-focused research that developed sustainable solutions for water management, agricultural intensification, and benefit sharing through stakeholder engagement. Key outcomes included identifying cropping systems and land uses for the Mekong basin that increased benefits for communities while allowing for hydropower development, and institutional and technical innovations in the Ganges basin that supported diversified and resilient agricultural systems.

1. 10 years of research for development
through engagement with the rural poor
Alain Vidal, Director
CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food

2. Niger
Water, food and poverty analyzed in 10 basins
1.5 billion people
50% of the poorest < 1.25US$/day

3. There is enough water to meet our
needs, it’s how we manage it !
Sustainable intensification
 Beyond a focus on productivity
 Income and ecosystem services
Equitable sharing of benefits
from water
 Finding balanced solutions
Institutional water management
 A holistic approach to avoid fragmentation among actors
Addressed through basin-focused research programs
addressing a major development issue in each basin

4. Policy dialogues, stakeholders
engagement, outcomes and impact
Research…
 evidence-based
to deeply understand complex and
even wicked problems
 development challenges of
relevance to those living in a basin
and target interventions or solutions…
through engagement and learning processes…
where stakeholder behavior is influenced and outcomes
achieved
 Engaged and informed stakeholders themselves choose to change
practice because they perceive as to their own advantage

5. Outcomes stories

6. Engagement platforms…
out of Africa
MEKONG
GANGES
ANDES

7. Mekong: Hydropower and livelihoods
Techniques, land and water uses
identified that can increase
benefits available to riparian
communities
Fish-rice systems
Artificial wetlands in reservoirs
Add value for both dam builders
and communities
Dialogue processes identifying
institutional weaknesses and
providing solutions

8. Ganges: Sustainable intensification of
polders… is almost all about engagement
Lots of viable
cropping systems
possible with crop
diversification,
fish and shrimp
But it’s all about water control !
Need for political changes at national and local levels
Canal maintenance and management
Shifting from rice monoculture
Rice Shrimp
Upper threshold limit of salinity -
Rice
Date
Watersalinity(ppt)
Lower threshold limit of salinity - ShrimDaily water salinity

9. Andes: Benefit-sharing mechanisms
…with an engine
S
Annual net income:
2,183/ha
Annual net income:
US$ 1,870/ha
Conservation
agriculture and
paramo
restoration
supported by
revolving fund
Farmers‘
insufficient gain
and risk
aversion
Revolving fund credit:
+180 farmers /year
Potato
cropping, grazing
pressure, degradation
of paramo

10. No impact without engagement
Enhanced resilience requires engagement
 Combined technical and institutional
innovations prevent social-ecological
systems from moving to undesired
state when shocked
Social learning process leads to innovation at different
levels : project, basin, and global
Self sustaining innovation - not inventions bringing
about new things - dealing differently with a problem
 « Africans solve African problems »

11. Thank you
a.vidal@cgiar.org
www.waterandfood.org
www.slideshare.net/cpwf