Workshop with the WSSCC, April 2007

Given the link between productive uses of water at the household level (like small gardens, livestock and microenterprises), access to domestic water supplies and poverty, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) has been interested in the thematic group on multiple use water services (MUS group) for a long time. Since November 2003 when we held a session at the WSSCC global forum, there has been relatively little contact. Recently, John Butterworth facilitated an hour and a half session on Multiple Use Systems (Water for Productive Use) at the WSSCC’s planning meeting for national coordinators and regional representatives held in Geneva on 18 April which overall aimed to reinvigorate the council’s work.

The meeting was attended by around 50 representatives from a wide range of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. After a group exercise (based upon cards and advocacy messages from the 2003 Johannesburg symposium) a presentation was given on Multiple Use Systems (Water for Productive Use). In small groups the participants then considered whether the MUS concept was useful in attempts in improve access to WASH in the respective countries? Many participants could cite examples of the importance of productive uses (at the household level…not multiple uses at the catchment scale) in their own situations and were making linkages also to sanitation and hygiene. For example, we heard that in Zimbabwe rural families will cut back on water for washing and cleanliness if it is in short supply for their livestock. So water supply for basic needs can never be easily separated from small-scale productive uses.