The goal of the Tanzania Integrated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Program (iWASH) was to support sustainable, market-driven water supply, sanitation, and hygiene services to improve health and increase economic resiliency of the poor within an integrated water resource management framework. Performance was reported measured against the following intermediate results:
The Water and Development Alliance (WADA) of USAID and The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) supported a program for the improved management of water and watershed resources, access to sustainable safe water and provision of sanitation services and hygiene education in the Wami-Ruvu and Pangani River basins of Tanzania in 2007 and 2008. Follow-on funding was provided by USAID Tanzania in 2008/09.
USAID/Haiti Feed the Future (FtF) West/Watershed Initiative for National Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER) project sought to improve the livelihoods of people living within the targeted corridors, reduce the threat of flooding, and invest in sustainable agricultural development in the selected corridors. The $127 million WINNER project, implemented by Chemonics International, began in June 2009 and was originally designed to protect watersheds by preserving hillsides, stabilizing waterways, and building non-farm livelihoods options.
Kenya’s five major forest “water towers”—Mau Forest Complex, Mt. Kenya, Aberdares, Cherangany Hills, and Mt. Elgon—provide an estimated 75 percent of the country’s water resources and are central to Kenya’s economic and social well-being. Water towers are forested, high elevation landscapes from which most of the country’s major rivers (e.g., Tana, Mara, and Ewaso Ng’iro) originate.
In western Nepal, pollution, fishing with electric current, explosive devices, and other destructive practices threaten the biodiversity of the country's great rivers and the generations-old cultural traditions of fishing communities. But the tide is turning in some of these communities, where those who once contributed to the problem are increasingly becoming part of the solution.
In late 2016, much of South America’s Pacific coast experienced a severe drought that destroyed crops and impacted livestock. By the end of November, Bolivia had declared a state of emergency. Wildfires raged in Peru, and parts of Colombia were suffering from a lack of food and potable water. Relief finally came in January with the onset of the rainy season — only the rains didn’t stop. By April, massive floods had caused widespread destruction throughout the region. Peru experienced its worst flooding in decades.
The goal of the Irrigation and Watershed Management Program (IWMP) is to expand and enhance Afghan government and community-level capacity to manage water resources to improve agricultural production and productivity. The five-year, $130 million dollar program, will achieve this objective through activities in four component areas:
The $127 million USAID/Haiti Feed the Future (FtF) West/Watershed Initiative for National Natural Environmental Resources (WINNER) project, implemented by Chemonics International, began in June 2009 and was originally designed to protect watersheds by preserving hillsides, stabilizing waterways, and building non-farm livelihoods options. As a result of the 2010 earthquake, the government of Haiti recommitted to watershed management and food self-sufficiency and the USG created a post-earthquake strategy. At the same time, President Obama rolled out the Feed the Future initiative.
Water is a vital resource not just for humans, but also for a variety of aquatic ecosystems, including wetlands, watersheds, rivers, estuaries and coastal areas. The misuse and over-exploitation of water resources is hastening their degradation, and threatening human settlements and the natural resources they depend on.
Water resources management encompasses the efforts of stakeholders to protect freshwater ecosystems that provide drinking water.
Why it Matters
