Watershed conservation contributes to the long-term sustainability of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Protecting watersheds and free-flowing river systems, lakes, streams, intact wetlands, and groundwater recharge areas not only bolsters ecosystem resilience, but also helps protect WASH infrastructure from the impacts of natural disasters.
World Water Week (WWW) is the annual focal point for the globe’s water issues. In 2018, World Water Week will address the theme “Water, ecosystems and human development”.
Water Currents is produced biweekly by USAID’s E3 Water Office. Each issue contains recent news and articles on water sector issues, partner and donor updates, latest sector research, and a special focus on one topic. Please provide your feedback and suggestions by contacting the waterteam@usaid.gov.
It’s that time of the year: World Water Week kicks off in Stockholm on August 27th!
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, fresh water is being consumed faster than it is being replenished. Irrigation accounts for most of this use. Unlike traditional flood-style or rain-fed irrigation, drip irrigation delivers controlled amounts of water directly to each plant through a series of tubes and emitters. This can reduce agricultural water consumption by 30 to 60 percent and increase crop yields by 20 to 50 percent, yet only 27 percent of the irrigated cropland in MENA countries uses the technology.
The food security situation in Senegal in 2013, illustrated by the Global Hunger Index (GHI) score of 13.8, was characterized by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) as “serious.” 2 This situation is all the more serious in that, at 13.7 in 2005, the country’s GHI score has remained unchanged for nearly a decade. Food insecurity in Senegal affects between 15.6 and 24 percent of the population, with higher numbers concentrated in the northern and eastern rural regions.
USAID funded the Coral Triangle Support Partnership (CTSP) as a platform from which the combined experience and technical depth of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Conservation International (CI) could be brought to support the six nations of the Coral Triangle (Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines – the CT6).
STEWARD III was a forest conservation and sustainable livelihoods project working in trans-boundary priority zones in the Upper Guinean Forest ecosystem, occurring in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. It was the third iteration of the STEWARD program. STEWARD I was characterized as a design phase, and STEWARD II as a pilot phase. STEWARD III was intended to be the implementation phase.
The PREPARED Project was a five year initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of East Africa economies, transboundary and freshwater ecosystems and communities targeting three key development challenges of East Africa. These were also high priority areas for the U.S. Government (USG), which includes climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation and water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
USAID’s Supporting the Policy Environment for Economic Development (SPEED+) project will provide expert technical services to the Government of Mozambique to support economic and structural reform in the areas of agriculture, trade, business enabling environment, energy, water and biodiversity conservation. It will also promote the areas of improved fiscal transparency, tax policy and economic and environmental governance. SPEED+ will provide expert technical assistance and training for public sector institutions and civil society organizations at the national and local levels.
