Water matters…..

……on World Water Day.

Yes, that’s today. But it matters every other day too.

Water is brilliant stuff. We all need it (obviously). I grew up in a wet place (90 – 250 inches annually), and swam in it, fished in it, canoed on it, skated on it in the winter, and drank it too, sometimes with whisky in it to celebrate its versatility. And I have never ever taken its presence for granted.

So, courtesy of CGIAR Challenge Program on Water & Food (CPWF) here’s something to think about, why research into water utilization matters:

Complexity © CPWF

“One of the CPWF’s big ideas – or theory of change – is that there is benefit in linking organizations with a food and agriculture focus to those with a water mandate.  Agriculture is the largest user of water, but often agricultural ministries don’t talk to water ones, agricultural departments in universities don’t talk to water management ones, and so on.  
This network map is a composite of the networks drawn by CPWF Phase I projects in workshops similar to the one shown above.  The nodes are organizations.  The mix of blue and yellow shows that the CPWF is successful in linking foody and watery organizations.  The complexity of the map shows the complexity of the institutional environments in which the CPWF operates, and hence the need for ‘adaptive management’  that allows for changes in outcome pathways, as the institutional environment changes, described above.”

Aye it’s a bit baffling isn’t it. But it’s more easily understood with a simple photograph…….

So here’s the reason why that ‘complexity’ matters, but more simply portrayed:

Scrapped © Boru Douthwaite

“This is what got me into the CPWF in the first place.  These are machines I designed long before I started working for the CPWF.  These are just some of the thousand machines that were built and ended up like these – abandoned in sheds in tractor stations, next to rice hull stoves, rice seeders and other equipment similarly scrapped.  They were a product of a system that decided top-down what farmers needed, and sought no feedback, did not learn from, or even acknowledge, mistakes or when things did not work.  Such learning-resistant systems are more common than we think.  The CPWF represents an opportunity to help better link research to development and vice versa and make agricultural and water knowledge and information systems more accountable, effective and efficient, and to use resources to benefit agriculture rather than to squander them.”   Boru Douthwaite

Simple. Research matters: it can help target resources wisely, not waste them. Communication matters too: using images to make people stop and think. They don’t have to be sexy images, they only have to be relevant.

Water, without it we’d have none of this:

Water © John MacPherson

…and in my country that would mean none of this:

Whisky © John MacPherson

And who wants to live in a world like that? Not me. And neither do the folks at WaterAid UK.  Pop over and have a look at what they’re doing to celebrate World Water Day and celebrate with them.

Cheers all.