Water blogs
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How small changes can make a big impact in achieving sustainable sanitation
9 December 2020Facebook guest blogger Laia Gemma García describes how the traditional pit latrine got an upgrade as part of a project in rural Tanzania
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Resettlement from large dams – what have we learned?
30 October 2019Millions of people are displaced by large dams around the world. How can researchers help safeguard against the long-term trauma of resettlement?
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Achieving transformational change for the ocean
11 June 2019Making progress on Sustainable Development Goal 14 – life below water – is a complex and increasingly urgent challenge. A new handbook offers practical guidance on monitoring, evaluation and learning for SDG14, and emphasises the importance of using systems thinking
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Getting Lebanon’s water flowing: using new SDG data in an urban crisis
19 February 2018Anna Walnycki explains how reliable, disaggregated data on water access – supported by the framework of the SDGs – could help tackle the challenges facing Lebanon's water sector
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Water in MENA: ripple effects in times of conflict
12 December 2017The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been hit by a wave of conflicts and crisis. A new study looks at how to improve resilience of water services in the region
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How a new ECOWAS directive could change the way dams are built and managed in West Africa
8 August 2017Is there such a thing as a good dam-building project? Jérôme Koundouno shares his view on why he thinks a ground-breaking new policy directive could achieve its goal – where large dams power national development while respecting the environment and bringing benefits to all
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Is this too easy?
26 October 2016Voices from grassroots communities are being heard at Habitat III, but will this make a difference where it counts? Diana Mitlin writes from Quito
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Growing rice needs more than soil and water
30 September 2016Research in West Africa finds that smallholder farmers are not benefiting enough from investments in irrigation because they are not getting access to the agriculture services they need
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Connecting settlements, cities and basins: realising SDG 6 at scale
25 August 2016World Water Week is an important opportunity to tackle the gap between global ambitions to achieve fair access to water and sanitation – and realities on the ground
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Improved water access unaffordable for urban poor
22 March 2016On World Water Day, a new briefing shows that the urban poor are missing out on the benefits of 'improved' water services because the costs are too high
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Women pay heavier price for big dams
8 March 2016On International Women's Day, we look at how relocating to make way for big dams in West Africa has particular impacts on women
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Water and land rights – hand-in-hand for sustainable development
25 September 2015The recent Stockholm World Water Week provided plenty of opportunities to explore the links between water and land rights, and the importance of these rights for ensuring sustainable development at both local and national level
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Sanitation in informal settlements: a networked problem
26 August 2015Can understanding how people perceive sanitation help achieve sustainable access to sanitation in cities?
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For smallholders and dams, one size doesn't fit all
6 August 2015Photos taken for the Global Water Initiative in West Africa in villages around the Sélingué dam in Mali show that when it comes to the irrigation schemes surrounding large dams, there is no 'standard' example of a family farmer
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From traditional land rights to long-term leases: fair compensation?
2 June 2015In the face of displacement due to large-scale development projects, can innovative legal solutions be used to protect smallholders' land rights?
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How India's slum and pavement dwellers made sanitation affordable
5 April 2015In India, slum and pavement dwellers' organisations have designed and managed a programme of community toilets and washing facilities that are used by hundreds of thousands of households. Guest blogger Sheela Patel describes how this was achieved
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Dams in Africa: Combining national and local development
9 December 2014The economics and distribution of development benefits of large dams continue to be a source of controversy. Every dam is different, and efforts to generalise from a few (often well known, but sometimes exceptional) examples continue to cause challenges in reaching common ground on the past development contribution of the 50,000 dams worldwide today and the need for more
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World Toilet Day: People need equality and dignity when they 'have to go'
18 November 2014On World Toilet Day on 19 November, our photoblog details the work of IIED and its partners to tackle the fact that 2.5 billion people lack access to basic sanitation
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Achieving universal sanitation: Sharing the experience of the SDI affiliate in Blantyre, Malawi
27 October 2014Achieving universal sanitation is a major challenge. A joint delegation from Malawi came to World Water Week in Stockholm to share their work on sanitation in the city of Blantyre
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Doing dams differently can mean development for all
30 August 2013Should development be just for the majority or is it possible to ensure development for all?
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Will Payments for Watershed Services fuel the protection of ecosystem services?
21 June 2013It’s easier to prevent pollution harnessing the forces of nature than to clean up the mess with costly technology. Is there a solution at hand?
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Niger: Tough questions posed by the Kandadji dam development
19 April 2013A new dam in Niger could generate electricity, create thousands of hectares of irrigated land and guarantee water for domestic use and fisheries. But making sure the dam benefits everyone is a complicated business.
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Clean drinking water is about people, not pipes
15 March 2012Water and water crises will dominate the news this week from Marseille, where the sector convenes for its triennial global meeting, the World Water Forum. Some 33,000 participants attended the last one, in Istanbul in 2009, and similar numbers are expected this year.
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Is this a climate change issue or a human rights issue?
29 March 2011We had been driven for seven hours from Dhaka through hair-raising traffic to see some of the practical approaches that Caritas was using in th
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Beyond buzzwords: making adaptation a development norm
12 December 2009Day 1 of IIED’s Development and Climate Days: Land, Water and Forests