Work Package 3: Assisting national policies
In Work Package 3 (WP3), the WaterPIP team will focus their efforts on assisting national policies in Egypt, Jordan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan. This assistance will be delivered through policy dialogues. Many valuable opinions and insights will exist on how to be more productive with water regions in a particular region. A policy dialogue is then useful to get a deeper understanding of current and alternative policy directions. The dialogue should move beyond mere water productivity (for instance crops per drops as pure policy objective), as in reality many more factors will play a role in decision-making processes on new policies for water management, such as employment generation, energy blending targets, poverty alleviation, food sovereignty, environment.
The objective of a policy dialogue is to facilitate a meaningful discussion on productive land and water use, among participants based on different sources of information (WaPOR biomass, WaPOR evapotranspiration, socio-economics, water governance, policies, trade-offs between current and alternative policies). A dialogue will generate insight how productive a country or an area is with its water resources (crops, jobs, income per drop), whether policies still serve the latest priorities for land and water use, and indicate feasible strategies and management interventions at various levels to increase one or more forms of water productivity. By bringing people and different information sources together in a dialogue, it will have a longer-lasting impact on discussions for productive water use among ministries, scientists, the private sector, and countries (bilateral collaboration).
Activities and Outputs
NEW! Policy review and dialogue implemented in Kenya
Following a review of the agricultural policies on water and agriculture a stakeholder dialogue was implemented in November 2022 in Kenya. For more information read the full policy review and the policy brief .
Food Security under Water Scarcity: a comparative analysis of Egypt and Jordan
This paper analyses how the application of the global trade and self-sufficiency food security strategies under water scarcity have evolved in Egypt and Jordan before, during and after the 2008 world food price crisis.
Policy Briefs for Jordan and Egypt
Two policy briefs were developed evaluating different future strategies using the spider diagram. For Egypt vertical expansion was evaluated against horizontal expension. For Jordan the review focussed on comparing the irrigated highlands with the Jordan Valley
This policy review aims to shed light into the Jordanian national plans for agricultural water management in relation to water productivity and the related socio-economic objectives of national development that can be met through agricultural water management.
Learn more about this review in our 1-pager or read the full report.
This quick review first discusses the aspects of the Acts and Policies that contributed to the current poor status of the agricultural production, water use efficiency and productivity as well as food security, job creation and other related socio-economic development issues, followed by the future outlook as defined by the ambitions and targets of the National Sudan Water Sector Strategy: Transforming Livelihoods 2021-2031.
Integrated Assessment Framework: Description and Application on a Hypothetical Case Study
The report presents the Integrated Assessment Framework and describes how it can score different agricultural development strategies against various technical, economic and social indicators, with the ultimate goal of providing a holistic understanding of development strategies and their (inherent) trade-offs. It applies the framework to a hypothetical case of two agricultural development strategies, the hypothetical horizontal expansion strategy and the hypothetical vertical expansion strategy, defines the data requirements for the real-life application of the framework, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken and final conclusions are drawn.
This 2-pager highlights how a policy dialogue can help improve water productivity, including an introduction to what a policy dialogue is, why it important to improve water productivity, objectives and potential outcomes, and what to expect when participating in a policy dialogue.
This quick review summarizes the role of water productivity in water and agricultural policies in Egypt. This review was used to develop the Framework for Conducting a Policy Review on Agricultural Water Productivity.
Framework for Conducting a Policy Review on Agricultural Water Productivity
This report presents a framework to conduct a policy review on agricultural water productivity and assess its implications for national development objectives. The method consists of 10 steps that guide a policy analyst from preparation to analysis, validation and policy influence. Practical insights are given for each step of the policy review framework. The framework allows for a quick and comprehensive understanding of the role of water in the development agendas of a country, and how that may change over time. The goal is to link the policy review resutls to biophysical impacts using WaPOR data to examine past increases or decreases in evapotranspiration (a measure for water use) or biomass (a measure for agricultural production).
Drought Observe (beta-version)
This web map created using Google Earth Engine provides near-real-time drought monitoring for Africa using FAO WaPOR datasets. Take a look at the web map and read more about how Drought Observe can help promote improved water productivity.