Investing in Water
A rehabilitated section of canal in Kyrgyzstan prevents water losses and ensures equitable distribution among water users. (Photo: Winrock) ASIA BUREAU WATER PROGRAMS
Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Regional Development Mission for Asia, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam
CONTACTS
Scott Christiansen
Senior Agricultural Development Advisor
Tel: (202) 712-0745
Email:schristiansen@usaid.gov
Overview
Approximately 1 billion people in Asia lack access to safe water, contributing to the deaths of more than 500,000 young children each year due to waterborne illnesses. Poor households are disproportionally affected by inadequate water access and sanitation. USAID is working with communities and local partners to improve water availability and quality throughout Asia.
Programs
Improving Water Supply and Sanitation
USAID promotes private sector approaches for achieving sustainable water access in Asia. In Cambodia, USAID worked with a private company to provide safe, piped water to over 60,000 people. As part of the Environmental Cooperation Asia (ECO-Asia) program, USAID partnered with private water companies in six countries in Southeast Asia to increase capacity for continuous water supply delivery as well as proper septage treatment for 95,000 people.
Fostering Water Users Associations
In the three Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, USAID funded the Water Users Association Support Project. The project creates and strengthens associations to enable farmers to operate, manage, and make investment decisions needed to maintain and improve on-farm irrigation and drainage systems. Water users associations contribute to more efficiently irrigated land, increased crop yields, and less waste of natural resources. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, the project helped farmers to dramatically increase their yields of wheat by 50 percent, corn by 60 percent, and tomatoes by 400 percent.
Supporting Resilience to Climate Change
Impacts of climate change will be experienced across Asia through changes in water quantity and quality. In accordance with the new USAID strategy on water, programming in Asia supports community resilience through improvements in water sanitation and hygiene, watershed management, water productivity, and irrigation efficiency. In Nepal, which has the largest concentration of glaciers outside the Arctic, climate change will reduce freshwater availability and lead to increased flooding. USAID is working to assist communities in disaster relief and recovery after floods and to prepare them for future disasters.
Enhancing Water Resources Management
In 2009, USAID/Indonesia’s watershed management activities facilitated the rehabilitation of 223,653 hectares of degraded land to stabilize water flow and improve water quality and improved the management of 216,268 hectares of biologically significant area. Through the Global Water for Sustainability program in India, USAID helped supervise the development of water resources and improve sustainability of rainwater harvesting in 26 villages in the Wakal River Basin of the Indian state of Rajasthan, one of the country’s most water-stressed regions.
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