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Taking a Multiple-use Approach to Meeting the Water Needs of Poor Communities Brings Multiple Benefits
Summary
This briefing focuses on how multiple use systems (MUS) for water can benefit poor communities. Poor people need and use water for a wide range of essential activities, including earning much-needed incomes. A more integrated, multiple-use approach can maximize the health benefits and productive potential of available water supplies. This can lead to increased incomes, improved health, and reduced workloads for women and children. Systems that cater to multiple uses are also more likely to be sustainable, because users benefit more from them, have a greater stake in them, and are more willing and better able to pay for them.
About the publisher
The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) mission is to improve the management of land and water resources for food, livelihoods and the environment. Its vision is water for a food-secure world. IWMI targets water and land management challenges faced by poor communities in the developing world/or in developing countries and through this contributes towards the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty, hunger and maintaining a sustainable environment. IWMI is one of 15 international research centres supported by the network of 60 governments, private foundations and international and regional organizations collectively known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). www.iwmi.cgiar.org
