Results
This workshop held on 15 July 2005 had three objectives:
- to further discuss and define how the MUS learning alliance in the Valle del Cauca will operate
- to select case studies for joint documentation and research involving the learning alliance members
- to arrange field visits to these case studies/ pilot projects.
Seven possible case studies were proposed prior to the workshop and are each summarised in this report. Three case studies were selected for further investigation based upon the priorities of the learning alliance members. These were:
- La Palma – Tres Puertas (Restrepo): the project PAAR (a department level rural water supply programme) is re-designing the rural water system in this settlement based upon a demand of 40m3/household/month in order to meet household-level productive as well as domestic needs.
- Minidistrito de Riego de Cajamarca (Roldanillo): there are three communities in this area, two both have separate irrigation and domestic systems, and one has an irrigation system that is also used for domestic purposes. The case study will study the advantages and disadvantages of having a multiple use system (in one village) compared to two single use systems in the other two villages.
- Microcuenca El Chocho (Cali): this catchment close to the Cali suffers from water scarcity, and piped water systems struggle to supply sufficient water for both domestic and productive uses. At the same time systems are affected by productive uses upstream.
Field visits to these sites were arranged for September 2005 and case studies will be completed by the end of 2005. Preliminary results will be discussed in the next Valle del Cauca learning alliance meeting to be held as an additional event of the AGUA2005 conference on 3 November 2005..
Four student research (MSc thesis) projects were also presented and discussed in the workshop. One of these is in the Valle de Cauca focusing on the domestic water system in a small town (Costa Rica) where pig rearing is an important water use. The other three studies are located in the neighbouring department of Quindio (where a learning alliance will also be developed on multiple uses of water) on themes relating to the legal and institutional framework relating to water supply systems and multiple use, catchment level water management, and farm level water management.
A number of specific actions for follow up work were identified in the workshop including a workshop to be organised by the PAAR programme on multiple uses of rural water supply systems. Annexes to the report include details of participants and further information.
Many rural and peri-urban water supply systems are used by families for productive as well as domestic use. However, in Colombia, productive uses of domestic systems are not adequately understood, recognised or planned for. This leads to a loss of livelihood opportunities for households that need to augment their income and food availability.
A workshop was held in Cali on 16 November 2004 involving organisations who were interested in finding better ways to manage and support multiple uses of water supply systems. The 28 participants were from government, NGOs, research institutes, and water supply committees. The activities of each of these organisations are summarised in this report.
The participants agreed in the workshop to jointly form a learning alliance to work together on research to improve policy and practice relating to the multiple use of water supply systems. This learning alliance will be supported by Cinara and the international research project on Multiple Use Systems (MUS) involving Bolivia in the Andes and other countries in Africa and Asia.
This report captures the main proceedings, points of discussion and conclusions emanating from the symposium.
This background paper to the MUS Symposium, from practice to policy has been written by Stef Smits, Mary Renwick, Daniel Renault, John Butterworth and Barbara van Koppen. In this background paper for the symposium, we aim to provide a synopsis of current work in two parts: the first part looks at key concepts and definitions on multiple-use of water and the second reviews existing work on multiple-use services, especially that carried out over the past 5 years since the earlier 2003 Johannesburg symposium.
John Butterworth, Martin Keijzer, Ian Smout and Fitsum Hagos (Eds). Proceedings of the International Symposium Multiple-Use Services; from Practice to Policy. 4-6 November 2008, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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J. Mtolo: an overview of Water for Growth and Development in South Africa
Water for Growth and Development signals a shift from earlier supply and demand driven approaches, through the period of concerted water service delivery to this sharply-focused response to current and future socio-economic demands and issues of water security. The new focus/thinking strongly emphasize the issue of “Bringing water to the forefront of development planning” which means that all economic and development planning must be influenced and guided by an assessment of water availability. A critical point for consideration is: Water is seldom the primary driver and catalyst of economic development in many instances; however, it can be a severe constraint to development initiatives in many parts of our country. Its availability, or potential availability, is therefore a crucial factor in all development planning initiatives and processes (whether local, regional / provincial or national) in the country. [authors abstract]
B. van Koppen, S. Smits, P. Moriarty, and F. Penning de Vries: Community-scale multiple-use water services: ‘MUS to climb the water ladder’
The Challenge Program on Water and Food-supported MUS project (PN28) developed and tested ‘multiple-use water services’ (‘MUS’). This new approach to water services takes multiple water needs of rural and peri-urban communities as the starting point for planning and design of new systems or rehabilitations. By overcoming the administrative boundaries between single-use sectors, MUS contributes more sustainably to more dimensions of wellbeing than single-use approaches: health, freedom from drudgery, food and income. The action-research took place in 25 study areas in eight countries in five basins. The project brought global, national, intermediate-level and local partners together who were champions of MUS at the time in five benchmark basins of the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF). At community-level, the project identified generic models for implementing MUS. This was done through pilot-implementation of innovative multiple-use water services and by analyzing de facto multiple uses of single-use planned systems. It was found that by providing 50-100 lpcd, so doubling or tripling the common design norms in the domestic sector, multiple cost-effective benefits could be achieved from homestead-scale MUS. At the intermediate, national, and global level, the project’s ‘learning alliances’ engaged in the wide upscaling of these community-level MUS models, with the aim to establish an enabling environment to provide every rural and peri-urban water user with water for multiple uses. [authors abstract]