The Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Management of Rivers

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The Millennium Development Goals and the
Sustainable Management of Rivers
2nd African Science Communication Conference,
2009
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science Technology,
Kumasi, Ghana.

• Tyhra Carolyn Kumasi (Miss)

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Sustainable Development

• Development that meets the needs of the present
  without compromising the ability of future
  generations to meet their own needs (WCED,
  1987).
• Sustainable water use is the use of water that
  supports the ability of human society to endure
  and flourish into the indefinite future without
  undermining the integrity of the hydrological
  cycle that depends on it (Gleick, 1995).
• The availability of water in adequate quantity
  and quality is crucial for sustainable
  development. Water is at the centre of
  sustainable development and essential for poverty
  reduction.

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The Millennium Development Goals

• The eight MDGs break down in to 21 quantifiable
  targets that are measured by 60 indicators.
• Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3 Promote gender equality empower women
• Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5 Improve maternal health
• Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria other diseases
• Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8 Develop Global partnership for development

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GOAL 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

• Integrate the principles of sustainable
  development into country policies and
  programmes reverse loss of environmental
  resources.
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a
  significant reduction in the rate of loss.
• Reduce by half the proportion of people without
  sustainable access to safe drinking water basic
  sanitation.
• Achieve significant improvement in lives of at
  least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

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INDICATORS OF TARGET 2 3

• Proportion of land area covered by forest.
• CO2 emissions, total, per capita and per 1 GDP.
• Consumption of ozone-depleting substances.
• Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological
  limits.
• Proportion of total water resources used.
• Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas
  protected.
• Proportion of species threatened with extinction.
• Proportion of population using an improved
  drinking water source.
• Proportion of population using an improved
  sanitation facility.

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Challenges of Sustainable development

• Population
• Poverty and inequality
• Food and Agriculture
• Freshwater
• Forests
• Energy
• Climate change
• Water and Health
• Health and Air Pollution

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Water

• Water is intimately linked to health,
  agriculture, energy and biodiversity. Without
  progress on water, the attainment of the
  Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be
  difficult if not impossible.
• Explicitly unless sustainability levels can be
  vastly improved, the Millennium Development Goal
  target to halve the proportion of people without
  sustainable access to safe water by the year 2015
  will not be achieved (Harvey and Reed, 2005)
  making the fight against poverty reduction a
  mirage.

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Freshwater

• In a growing number of areas, limited freshwater
  resources are a major constraint on sustainable
  development, requiring difficult decisions
  regarding water allocation among various users.
• Nearly half of the world's people will experience
  water shortages by 2025.

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services provided by freshwater ecosystems are
threatened

• Many freshwater systems are being degraded
  through excessive water withdrawals, water
  pollution and introduction of invasive species of
  plants and animals.
• Worldwide, about half of all wetlands have been
  lost and more than 20 per cent of the worlds
  10,000 known freshwater species are extinct,
  threatened or endangered.

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Health and water

• Over one billion people in developing countries
  do not have access to safe drinking water, and
  2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation facilities.
• Most deaths in the least developed countries are
  readily preventable.

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Community Participation in Sustainable Development

• The attainment of a more effectual and
  sustainable balance between human and
  environmental needs for fresh water is one of the
  great challenges of this century but dependent on
  community participation.
• The objectives of this study was to highlight the
  attitudes of the catchment area inhabitants
  towards their involvement in the sustainable
  exploitation and management of the Barekese
  watershed as a natural resource.
• And explore ways of sustainably managing the
  Barekese catchment area to ameliorate the
  deteriorating water quality.

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Study Area

• In Kumasi, the Barekese reservoir provides 80
  percent of the total public pipe borne water to
  the Kumasi metropolis and its environs.
• However over the past two decades the watershed
  has seen persistent degradation through
  anthropogenic activities along its catchment area
  which also raises concern on the deteriorating
  water quality.
• Slush and burn is the main practice in clearing
  land for agricultural purposes, activities of
  vegetable crop farmers most of whom pump water
  from the dam for irrigation and the use of
  agrochemicals all contribute to the degradation
  of the watershed.

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Study Area
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Study Methods

• Informal village appraisals were conducted in
  seven towns and villages of the catchment area.
  Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) tools were
  used to collect the local perceptions on the
  involvement of the local communities in the
  sustainable exploitation and management of the
  reservoir, reasons for the non involvement in
  management of the reservoir and ways of
  ameliorating this.
• The PRA tools used were focused group discussions
  and participant observations. Additionally,
  various levels of consultation with key
  informants and desk study were used in gathering
  data.
• A survey involving 370 respondents was conducted
  in seven communities along the Barekese catchment
  area.

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Findings

• Farming was the dominant occupation (70.3).
• Farmers farming within 5-15m of rivers were
  57.3.
• Most (49.5) of the communities were farming on
  watercourses with reasons being scarcity of land,
  non payment of compensation and as a form of
  protest.
• Respondents (50.3) indicated that they do farm,
  hunt and fell trees in the reserve.

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Findings

• Sources of energy

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findings

• Farmers admitted using fertilizers
  agrochemicals (34.1).
• In all the communities did not have access to
  Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit (KVIP).

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Land use change in the Barekese catchment area
from 1973 1986 - 2003
1973 1986 2003
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Projected land cover in the Barekese catchment
area for the next forty years
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Is there a solution?

• What can (we)
• Experts
• Civic groups,
• Policy makers,
• Journalist
• Academia.
• We can employ science
• communication to link science
• and policy in order to strengthen
• the decision making on a local
• level and achieve global results.

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COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
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WILL COMMUNITIES PARTICIPATE?
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Communities expectation from development
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Take home message 1

• Projects are often designed without local input
  and consultation and efforts to gain local
  acceptance are sought later (Sharpe, 1998
  Campbell and Vainio-Mattilia, 2003). This is not
  different from the situation of the local
  communities along the Barekese catchment area.
•  
• Contrastingly, local cooperation should be
  central, not peripheral, as local objections can
  override the best conservation intentions. Joint
  objective-setting, planning and implementation
  can decrease conflict and thus reduce costs.
  Rather than viewing the local communities as part
  of the conservation challenge, to be educated,
  compensated or given economic alternatives, local
  priorities for conservation should be placed at
  the centre of joint conservation strategies
  (Vermeulen and Sheil, 2007).

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• Conservation is something that most people are
  willing to support to some degree. Even those
  penalized by conservation projects accept the
  need for conservation interventions more
  generally (McLean and Stræde, 2003).Working with
  the local communities efficiently utilizes both
  insider and outsider knowledge (Sheil et al.,
  2006).
• Local communities needs must be taken into
  consideration especially those that affect their
  livelihoods and resource base. Active
  participation of the affected communities in all
  stages of a project is needed for the
  sustainability of a project in question.

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TAKE HOME MESSAGE 2

• The refusal of government to pay outstanding
  compensation to the farmers who lost their
  farmlands has compelled most of these communities
  to farm on the fertile lands in the reserve and
  on watercourses.
• The issue of paying compensation to local
  communities who lost their lands under the
  provisions of the State Lands Act (1962) has to
  be amended.
• This is because the payment of compensation is
  not sustainable, every generation of the local
  communities will keep demanding for realistic
  compensation packages perpetuating a vicious
  cycle of poverty.

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• There is the need in making the local communities
  shareholders to the project in question. This
  could be in the form of dividends paid to the
  communities yearly or it could be channelled into
  developmental projects and the award of
  scholarships to brilliant children of the local
  communities.
• This will make the communities feel that they
  are part of development ensuring social equity
  and the ultimate sustainable use of the natural
  resources.

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Take home message 3

• Researchers and the academia must learn to
  communicate the findings of science and
  technology in a language that can be understood
  by everyone. In view of the fact that science
  communication is currently used as a pillar for
  the democratisation of science in Africa.
• This is an colossal task but greater part of
  moving this continent forward rest on the
  shoulders of science and technology. However the
  findings become futile if the communication is
  appalling.

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Thank you all for your attention
WORLDWIDE THIRST WATER ,WATER EVERYWHERE, BUT ARE
WE DOING ENOUGH?