What is Multiple Use Systems programme?

What is the Multiple Use Systems programme ?

Multiple-use water supply systems that aim at providing families with between 50 - 200 litres per capita per day, provide important new opportunities for tackling poverty. Such systems recognise that water is not only about safe drinking water, but also has productive uses which can have a real impact on poverty and living standards.

An international five-year programme involving a wide range of partners has been launched with a long title - Models for Implementing Multiple-use Water Supply Systems for Enhanced Land and Water Productivity, Rural Livelihoods and Gender Equity. Fortunately it is also known as MUS for short.

Five river basins

The study will start shortly in five river basins: Limpopo, Nile, Indus-Ganges, Mekong, and the Andean "virtual basin". These are all basins where the Program of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), whose Challenge fund is supporting the project, already operates.

IRC staff Patrick Moriarty, Catarina Fonseca, and Stef Smits helped facilitate the inception meeting of the MUS project led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), from 27 January - 7 February 2004 in South Africa.

The goal is to improve poor people's food security and health, alleviate poverty and enhance gender equity through more productive use of water. Alliances of researchers, NGOs, private operators and governments will identify and scale up field-tested models and guidelines for self-financed, sustainable multiple-use water supply systems.