HISTORICALLY, water resources developments have yielded immense benefits to societies. In Asia, cereal production more than doubled, between 1970 and 1995, from 300 million tons to 650 million tons. This remarkable growth in food production was largely attributed to growth in irrigated agriculture, coupled with the use of high-yielding varieties and fertilizers.

At present, about 40 per cent of the cropland in Asia is irrigated and amounts for about 70 per cent of total cereal production. Irrigation is believed to have benefited the poor by providing more food at reduced prices. In Pakistan, food crops production increased from 12.83 million tons in 1975-76 to 25.98 million tons in 2002-01, with the average yield increasing from 1.32 to 2.10 tons per hectare during the period. With even higher increases in production of cash crops, the overall production index increased by over 22 per cent over the past two decades.

As a result, considerable progress has been made towards achieving food self-sufficiency and food security at the national levels in many developing countries. Despite these achievements, there are vast areas where agricultural productivity levels continue to remain low, notably in South Asia (including Pakistan), and Africa. Such low productivity areas are generally food insecure and are characterized by persistent rural poverty. Growing demand for water, for agricultural, domestic and industrial uses, increasing scarcity of water supplies, over- exploitation and degradation of land and water resources, and lack of social safety nets in most of the developing Asian counties are posing big challenges to achieving household level food security for the poor and protecting the poor against vagaries of nature and climate, with many millions continuing to live in poverty and misery.

All available recent studies on poverty indicate that the situation in Pakistan is worsening.

According to recent estimates, Pakistan had a population of 141.5 millions in 2001, which grew at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent during the 1990s. The population density is 183 persons per square kilometre. With a gross national income of only $ 59.6 billion and large population size, per capita gross national income worked out to be around $ 420 in 2001. Pakistan has a life expectancy of 63 years, under-five child mortality rate of 110, and adult literacy rate of just 57 per cent only. As per official statistics, 28.20 per cent of the population was below poverty in 1998-99, with the incidence of poverty higher in rural (31.95 per cent) than in urban areas (19.13). While poverty estimates vary from study to study, the overall conclusion from all sources is that over one-third of the population is living in poverty, and poverty is increasing (note: according to World Bank estimates released in October 2002, poverty rate in Pakistan in 19998-99 was 32.6 per cent). Further, income inequality among the poor and non-poor is very high, with estimates in 1998-99 suggesting that the lowest 20 per cent of the households got only 6.2 per cent of income and the highest 20 per cent got 49.7 per cent of the income, with the remaining 44.1 per cent of income shared by the middle 60 per cent of the households. Households with heads working in unskilled agriculture and other unskilled occupations were the poorest; and the incidence of poverty for households whose heads engaged in agriculture was lower than of those engaged in all other occupations except professional, management, and clerical positions.

Within agriculture, water is a vital resource for many productive and livelihood activities, and many developing countries, including Pakistan, have promoted water resources development over the last five decades to improve social outcomes. Huge investments have been made in water resources to achieve such broad objectives as economic growth, rural and agricultural development, national food security, famine protection and land use intensification.

Production, income/consumption, employment, vulnerability/food security, and overall welfare are key dimensions of how access to good irrigation water contributes to the socioeconomic uplift of rural communities and alleviates poverty. These inter-related poverty-reducing variables indicate that access to good irrigation allows poor people not only to increase their production and incomes, but also enhances their opportunities to diversify their income base, and to reduce their vulnerability to seasonality of agricultural production and external shocks. It should be noted that the poor also use water for other farm and non-farm production activities, particularly small-scale rural enterprises such as for livestock rearing, fish production, brick-making and so on.These enterprises are part of the poor’s livelihood strategies and contribute to poverty alleviation.

Poorly-managed irrigation can also be a socio-economic ‘bad’ and have the potential to negatively affect communities through land and water degradation, siltation and flooding, population displacement, increased incidence of malaria, and through inequitable distribution of benefits of public irrigation investments among rich and poor.

Given that water is generally linked to land, the direct benefits of irrigation, in terms of increased farm output, will tend to accrue in proportion to the size of landholdings, with large holders benefiting more than small holders and small holders benefiting more than the landless. However, the landless can still directly benefit from increased irrigation services. For example, those working in the agricultural sector can experience an expansion in employment opportunities and stable agricultural wages, enhancements to livestock and poultry raising, and improved opportunities in other non-crop, water dependent rural enterprises (e.g. brick-making). They also benefit from direct uses of irrigation infrastructure, say, for navigation or road transport. Use of canal banks for transport, and tractors as ambulance for sick patients in remote areas of Pakistan is well know, and so is the use of canal water for domestic uses in villages with brackish groundwater.

As with direct benefits, the indirect benefits of irrigation services will also not accrue evenly across household sectors. To the extent that irrigation increases crop production, food prices will decline due to increased overall supplies. For both categories of the landless, any fall in prices will result in an increase in real incomes and food security as well as increased employment and other opportunities via the multiplier effect in both local and regional economies. Small holders will also receive indirect benefits of lower food prices as net food buyers, whereas large holders — net food sellers — may experience low or negative indirect impacts.

There is an enormous amount of evidence on the impact of irrigation on the above-mentioned poverty-reducing intermediate variables. Irrigation-related impacts include expansion in cropped areas, higher cropping intensity, improved productivity, and shift in cropping patterns towards more diversified and high value crops results. Recent evidence on the contribution of irrigation to farm incomes from India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam shows that farm incomes under irrigated conditions are much higher than those under un-irrigated conditions.

With more employment and increased demand for agricultural labour, irrigation also helps to increase agricultural wages. A study on the impacts of irrigation on agricultural wage rates across 17 Indian states covering the period 1974-75 to 1993-94 indicated that irrigation has significant positive influence on real agricultural wages. The key conclusions from this study are (1) there is a positive and significant relationship between the availability of irrigation and the real wage rate of agricultural labourers; (2) wage rates are generally higher in densely irrigated states compared to those with low irrigation intensity; and (3) the gender wage gap has been narrowing at a faster rate in states where the level of irrigation is higher.

Recently, researchers at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) conducted detailed studies on poverty impacts of irrigation in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Specifically, the purpose of the research project was to assess the impact of improved community/ household access to irrigation (through the development and/or rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure) on poverty alleviation. The study was undertaken over the 2001-2002 period in Sri Lanka’s Uda Walawe Left Bank (WLB) Irrigation System, part of the Ruhuna Basin and an IWMI Benchmark Basin, and in Pakistan’s Mandi Bahauddin and Gujrat districts, located in the upper portion of the upper Indus basin. Both study sites are representative of large-scale surface irrigation systems, but not the country sample.

In Sri Lanka’s WLB system, results indicate that household income and expenditure levels are substantially higher in areas with access to irrigation infrastructure, compared to those without. Household average monthly expenditure in areas with irrigation infrastructure access is 24 per cent higher than in areas with no access to irrigation infrastructure. This is largely because areas where households have access to irrigation exhibit higher cropping intensities and double cropping, higher crop productivity and overall production, and higher employment opportunities and wage rates. For example, the agricultural wage rate in areas where households have access to irrigation is over Sri Lankan Rs200 per day compared to Sri Lankan Rs173 per day in areas with no irrigation.

In Pakistan’s upper Indus basin, the study indicated that access to irrigation/infrastructure reduces the incidence of permanent/chronic poverty. Improvements in irrigation infrastructure have helped increase availability of water for crop production, resulting in higher cropping intensity and crop productivity (up five-25 per cent) and improved crop incomes (with increases ranging from 12-22 per cent). However, the overall impact of irrigation infrastructure improvements/ watercourse lining on poverty is found to be only marginal (with the incidence of chronic poverty only 0.8 per cent less in areas with improved irrigation infrastructure than in those without) because of several factors including (a) inequity in distribution of resources, particularly land, with those having larger landholdings benefiting more compared to small land holders and the landless; and (b) poor governance in the water sector (poor infrastructure condition, including improved infrastructure, due to inadequate maintenance, and un-reliable water supplies due to lack of proper planning and water theft), which tends to negate any anti-poverty impact of improvements in infrastructure.

The study indicates that the incidence of permanent/chronic poverty is higher among non-farm households (64.2 per cent) than among farm households (6.5 per cent). The majority of these non-farm households, constituting over 39 per cent of all households, are landless.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the adoption of irrigation technologies for smallholders such as low-cost pumps, treadle pumps, low-cost bucket and drip lines, sustainable land management practices, supplemental irrigation, recharge and use of groundwater and water harvesting systems. This wide range of technologies, collectively referred to as smallholder water and land management systems, attempts to create ‘opportunities’ for the poor and small land holders in accessing presently unusable water supplies, in turn leading to increased production and income. Emerging evidence suggests that access to agricultural water through these technologies has tremendous potential to improve the livelihoods of millions of the poorest. Thus identification and promotion of these technologies offers significant opportunities in the fight against poverty.

The following may be keys to reducing rural poverty:

1. Increasing agricultural productivity through pro-poor development and management of both land and water resources (including re-distribution of land);

2. Generating land-based employment and income opportunities for the poor; and

3. Generating non-land based livelihood opportunities for the poor and landless through small-business and non-farm enterprise development and skill improvement and vocational training.

In the agriculture sector, we urgently need another ‘Green Revolution’ for improving the economies of the poor households. This would be possible by improving productivity on poor and smallholder farms, increasing well-being per drop of water, developing and disseminating new high-yielding seed varieties, providing micro-finance for the poor, promoting income generating enterprises, disseminating knowledge through public-private and community partnerships with inclusion of the poor, developing and promoting small-scale production technologies, and most importantly adopting integrated management of water resources with emphasis on efficiency, equity, and sustainability of resource use.

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been recognized as a important tool for efficient and effective use of water resources in a society and is seen as the means of providing water security, of creating sustainable water policies and practices and of averting the risks to the global water system. There are three fundamental components of IWRM that take account of economic, social and natural conditions, (1) Economic efficiency in water use — using water with maximum possible efficiency; (2) Equity — equity in access to water of adequate quantity and quality for the sustenance of human well- being; and (3) Environmental and ecological sustainability- managing water in a way that does not undermine the life-support system thereby compromising use by future generations of the same resource (GWP, 2000, technical report 4). The IWRM framework and approach recognize that complementary elements of an effective water resources management system must be developed and strengthened concurrently. These complementary elements include enabling environment (the general framework of national policies, legislation and regulations and information for water resources management stakeholders), institutional roles and functions of the various administrative levels and stakeholders, and management instruments, including operational instruments for effective regulation, monitoring and enforcement that enable the decision-makers to make informed choices between alternative actions. These choices need to be based on agreed policies, available resources, environmental impacts and the social and economic consequences.

The Second South Asia Water Forum (SAWAF-2) at Islamabad has been organized from 14-16 December 2002 to discuss to enhancing understanding of regional irrigation management issues and problems. Well-known scientists as well as policy makers will be discussing water and poverty among the key topics at the forum.