Responding to poverty

The ground is shifting. In particular the widespread advocacy of demand responsive approaches within the WATSAN sector should lead to the voice of productive users of domestic water becoming more generally heard and recognised. For example South Africa's recent draft white paper explicitly recognises these needs (Box 5).

Embracing productive uses of water will also enable the WATSAN sector to strengthen its contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. While the main 'water' goal is rather unhelpfully (for the purposes of this paper) focused solely on 'drinking water', supporting productive uses of water will help in achieving the wider goal to halve poverty by 2015.

The actual impacts on poverty that might be achieved by promoting productive uses of water will clearly depend on the other constraints faced by poor people and on the targeting of water supply improvements. Growing vegetables in the backyard requires land as well as water, and lack of markets for produce or limited access to credit may be equally or more constraining than poor water supplies. Better water supplies may also often benefit elites rather than the poor. These key issues are expanded on in section 3.

Box 5 Policy recognising productive water uses

In the recent draft white paper on water services in South Africa, economic activities are explicitly recognised:

'Municipalities do not, and should not, only provide water services necessary for basic health and hygiene. It is important that municipalities undertake health education, facilitate the provision of higher levels of services for domestic users and provide services which support the economic development and well-being of communities.'