Thoughts from the Andes 2012 Study Tour Leaving Lima, en route to the upper Cañete basin, we passed through some of the bleakest landscapes imaginable – mining towns like La Oroya, described by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most polluted places, where the average lead level is three times the World Health Organization [...]

Improving crop-livestock value chains in the Volta basin The Volta Basin Development Challenge (VBDC) aims “to strengthen integrated management of rainwater and small reservoirs so that they can be used equitably for multiple uses.”. One way by which to do this is to increase crop and livestock productivity through Rainwater Management Strategies (RMS) and improve [...]

AN1 project progresses in Nariño river basin, Colombia 

A new agreement and alliance between COLACTEOS (Nariño´s Milk and Dairy Cooperative), the Latin American Center for Rural Development (RIMISP) and The National Association of Milk Producers (ANALAC) has been approved to begin field work for the joint design of a project to promote better use of water [...]

Social Capital work in Llulan Parón subwatershed By Fabio Azzolin * As I walked towards a man resting in the shade of a tree I had the feeling as if at that precise moment he was only thinking about his life, about his future and the future of his family. He was worried; how can [...]

Households under High Saline Condition/Intrusion in Chitolmari sub-district People living in the coastal areas of the Ganges River face large challenges in increasing food production and improving livelihoods in the face of climate change, yet farmers are showing that much can be accomplished in spite of the apparently hostile living and farming conditions. In the [...]

A field report from Shamba village, Ward 19, Insiza district The LBDC aims for integrated management of rainwater to improve smallholder productivity and livelihoods and reduce risk. Toward this goal, ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) is leading the Farm Systems and Risk Management project (L3). L3 seeks to define the interplay [...]

The Andes Phase 2 research program focuses on institutional mechanisms for the sharing of water-related benefits. This program builds directly on the findings of several Phase 1 projects. One Phase 1 project (Project no. 22, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) as a mechanism for promoting rural development in the upper watersheds of the tropics) examined [...]

The Ugandan cattle corridor covers an area of about one third of the country, extending from the southwest to the northern and northeastern borders. Although ideally suited to livestock production, overgrazing aggravated by charcoal production led to a complete breakdown of the natural pastureland. Repeated efforts to rehabilitate the vegetative cover had failed because of [...]

The CPWF’s coastal resource management projectbrought real change to communities
 in Vietnam and Bangladesh. 
In Vietnam, the project’s technologies and cropping systems benefited 8,000 households and contributed to the economic growth of Bac Lieu Province, population 800,000. In Bangladesh, 2,500 farmers connected to the CPWF research project increased their income by between 50 and 100 [...]

In April 1991 a category 4 cyclone  crossed the coast of Bangladesh. With 250 kph winds and a 6m storm surge, this storm left more than 138,000 people dead and millions homeless and is considered the one of the most deadliest cyclones ever. Fast forward to November 2007. A category 5 cyclone – Sidr – slammed [...]

As part of a branding and identity exercise, a number of CPWF staff and partners were asked to contribute to a CPWF photoethnography. The objective was to better understand how different stakeholders view the CPWF, how they define it in their own minds and see it in their own day-to-day activities in different locations around [...]

Development ‘success stories’ from a community’s point of view This video is an edited version of a three-part narrative, links below, was published by Malaysiakini, the most popular independent news provider in Malaysia, on January 18, 2010. This accompanying story is by Natasja Sheriff, leader of our Community-based Fish Culture project: Documentary film is becoming [...]

In late 2006, the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) and TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) produced a half hour video documentary and a series of short (5 min) films on the action research supported under the CPWF. Filmed in nine countries on four continents, it looked at how researchers, farmers and local communities [...]