For the past several months, I have been working with a team of other researchers in partnership with WaterAid and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs to find new techniques for measuring the benefits of improved water and sanitation in rural Madagascar (draft report). Studies of the impact of water and sanitation programs tend to focus on health treatment costs avoided and time saved obtaining water, but our field visits and analysis suggest that water and sanitation development projects can also improve food security, education, and local community governance, and may even introduce new forms of conflict resolution.

After our team’s initial field visit to rural communities around Ambositra, a small commercial town several hours south of the capital, we decided to broaden our scope of analysis. We had noticed that livelihoods and community management were dramatically different in villages with clean water nearby than in villages whose residents continued to walk long distances to sources of questionable quality.

By conducting focus group interviews with community organizations, community councils, and other community leaders, we discovered that the new water projects led to the creation of water committees to oversee the maintenance and long-term use of these services. As these committees gained respect and legitimacy within their communities, they encouraged and managed additional community improvement projects. For instance, one committee collected contributions and organized the construction of a community storage facility for surplus rice harvests (which also stored the tax payments for the new water system, which are often made in rice, not currency). In another village, the water committee members coordinated efforts to self-finance and build a new one-room primary school, which subsequently required the government to fund water and sanitation facilities for the school. This brought water services to an entire new section of the village in addition to the school.

The committees’ direct interaction with the users of the tap stands increased the communities’ trust in the committees, a fact reflected in statements gathered through household surveys. Several water committees organized their communities to participate in a regional economic fair, showcasing their vegetable production and arts and crafts, an opportunity that other villages did not seize.

In addition, the committees codified conflict resolution mechanisms in their founding committee rules, formalizing a crucial tool for mediating conflicts between community members over water. These committees are also empowered to resolve water-related conflicts that existed prior to the project. The water committees are evidence of the first institutions developing in these small communities. Although our report includes suggestions for measuring some of the diverse impacts of improved water and sanitation, such as education and livelihoods, further questions remain: How do we measure the impact of water and sanitation projects on governance and natural resource management? Are there ways to quantify community-level social changes?

Food security is another area that changed after the introduction of improved water sources. The close proximity of water to the houses dramatically increased the variety and quantity of vegetables grown. Our interviews revealed a dramatic upsurge in the cultivation of high-value crops that are more sensitive to rainfall variability. The reliable small-scale irrigation made possible by the water project allowed farmers to cultivate crops that had previously been off-limits to them. These new crops diversified production and decreased dependence on other foods for basic consumption, promoting better nutrition and sustainable harvests. In addition, one water committee actively sought out secondary water sources in order to ensure sufficient water flow throughout the dry season, further increasing households’ food security.

There are additional indicators that we did not have time to adequately study and quantify, including increased environmental awareness; the impact on gender dynamics and women’s earning power; the psychological impact of clean water and improved sanitation; and higher earning potential due to higher rates of school attendance and the attainment of more advanced education levels. The team hopes that additional work will be carried out on these and other potential benefits of water and sanitation projects, so that governments, donors, NGOs, and private citizens will see that these projects are not just investments in pipelines and latrines, but in food security, governance, education, economies, and conflict resolution—all of which contribute to human dignity and security.

Alex Fischer is a policy associate at WaterAid America, where he works on the management and development of water resources. He is also involved with several projects focusing on environmental governance in post-conflict settings. He holds a master of international affairs degree from Columbia University.

Photo: A water system in a village near Ambositra has multiple uses, including drinking water, small-scale irrigation, clothes washing, and composting. Courtesy of Alex Fischer.

“Lessons in Governance From Urban Brazil,” a recent event co-sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute and Comparative Urban Studies Project, highlighted how Curitiba, the capital city of the southern state of Parana, has used urban planning to strengthen environmental security.

Following a rapid wave of industrialization in the 1960s, small Brazilian cities were overwhelmed by urban growth. In anticipation of growth’s negative outcomes, the city of Curitiba established the Urban Planning Institute of Curitiba (IPPUC), led by urban visionary Jamie Lerner. Concerned about degradation due to urban sprawl, Lerner created an affordable, extensive, efficient bus system—and completely altered existing road infrastructure to allow for it. Its success is unprecedented. While Curitiba has one of the highest rates of personal car ownership in Brazil, more than 70 percent of the population uses the bus to commute to work, translating into less traffic congestion and lower levels of air pollution.

Due to its flat terrain, Curitiba suffers from poor drainage and dangerous flooding. Lerner and his team established numerous urban parks to absorb floodwater and stem the damage it inflicts upon poorer city residents, who often live in more vulnerable parts of the city. Since 1965, Curitiba has broken ground on 26 separate parks.

Curitiba was also the first city in Brazil to establish mandatory recycling. Profits generated through resale of recovered material are funneled into social programs; the city often employs its homeless to help with the separation of recyclables. In one of the strongest examples of how helping people and their environment can be mutually beneficial, Curitiba encourages its favela residents to collect garbage from their neighborhoods and exchange it at designated centers for food and bus passes.

Responding to whether or not Curitiba’s plan was replicable, speaker Ivani Vassoler insisted that imitating the details of the plan was not the point—urban planners must emulate the overall approach. For determined leaders committed to what Vassoler termed a “dynamic blueprint,” the sky is the limit.

By Wilson Center Intern Bronwen DeSena.

Photo: Curitiba’s bus system, courtesy of Henri Bergius and Flickr.

On June 10, at the 12th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, a comprehensive look at the environmental devastation being wrought in Africa. Highlighting the ecological damage caused by high population growth, climate change, and the unsustainable use of natural resources, the atlas shows before-and-after satellite images of “disappearing forests, shrinking lakes, vanishing glaciers and degraded landscapes.” The above image, courtesy of UNEP, shows how Lake Chad has shrunk to one-twentieth of its size 30 years ago.

As The Independent put it: “Put it all together and you have a picture that is hard to credit, so enormous is the destruction.” Much of the impetus behind the atlas was to spur African governments to improve their environmental records.

On July 1, ECSP will host UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner at the Washington, DC, launch of the atlas.

New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century, a report from the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, was unveiled at a packed House Foreign Affairs Committee event this week.

The Economist continues to brush off those who worry that there are too many people consuming too many resources on Earth: “If global growth and development continue, worries about overpopulation may, in hindsight, seem a uniquely 20th century phenomenon.”

“Countries that stagnate are less able and sometimes less willing to help address transnational issues, many of which originate within their borders, including illegal migration; trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and persons; health threats such as HIV/AIDS and avian flu; and environmental concerns such as loss of biodiversity,” says USAID’s economic growth strategy.

“We know that the cruel indignities of life without clean water, adequate sanitation, sustainable livelihood, or democratic governance can deny us our basic freedoms as surely as any despotic regime,” says Condoleezza Rice, quoted in USAID’s report Expanding the Impact of Foreign Assistance Through Public-Private Alliances.

The Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, headed by Wilson Center collaborator K. Y. Amoako, presented its report Securing Our Future to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this week.

On May 13, 2008, renowned environmental defender Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, resigned from her post after losing yet another political battle for control of environmental policies within the federal government. The “last straw” was President Luiz Inácio da Silva’s decision to place Minister of Strategic Affairs Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a Harvard law professor with limited experience with Amazon affairs, in charge of the highly publicized Sustainable Amazon Plan (PAS), withdrawing it from the auspices of the Ministry of Environment. Silva’s decision has had major negative repercussions and has exposed the shortcomings of Brazil’s Amazon policy.

The daughter of poor rubber tappers who became a successful politician and a champion of the Amazon, Silva was one of the most recognized and admired members of President Lula’s government. While a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 1980s, she led the Association of Rubber Tree Tappers with Chico Mendes, a pioneer of the Brazilian environmental movement who was murdered in 1988. That same year, Silva was elected to the state legislature of Acre. In 1994, she was elected to the Senate on the Worker’s Party (PT) platform, and was re-elected in 2002. During her eight years in Congress (1995-2002), Silva became a well-respected expert on sustainable development and national environmental protection issues.

Yet during her tenure as Minister of Environment, Silva lost many important battles and was rapidly becoming a merely symbolic figure. Particularly contentious was the alleged obstructionism of Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources (IBAMA) technicians, who refused to issue environmental permits for large development projects—especially hydro-electric projects—in the Amazon region. In response, President Lula reduced Silva’s power by splitting IBAMA into two agencies and separating environmental protection from the issuance of environmental licenses. IBAMA personnel reacted with a strike.

Silva’s resignation has already had significant domestic and international ramifications. All second- and third-echelon employees in the Ministry of Environment and IBAMA resigned in solidarity with her. Jose Maria Cardoso da Silva, vice president of Conservation International-South America, called Silva’s departure a “disaster”; Anthony Hall, a development and environment specialist at the London School of Economics, noted that “her resignation will be interpreted as a weakening in the government’s concern with the environment and forest conservation.”

The day after Silva’s resignation, President Lula confirmed that she would be replaced by Carlos Minc, a well-known environmental activist and university professor who was one of the founders of Brazil’s Green Party. Minc previously served as Rio de Janeiro’s state secretary for the environment. His appointment has apparently been well-received: Agência Brasil reports that Silva is “satisfied” with her replacement.

It remains to be seen how Minc will use his new position. His love of the limelight—he follows his own dress code, which does not include a necktie, and has described himself as a “performer”—has cost him politically in his first days on his new job, as President Lula rejected public demands he made to strengthen the Ministry of Environment’s authority. Minc’s first actions as Minister of Environment suggest that he will be a vocal figure. He warned “polluters” that they should fear his ministry’s oversight. He also instigated a public fight with the governor of the state of Mato Grosso, Blairo Maggi, an influential soybean farmer, declaring—a bit sarcastically—that most of the recent increase deforestation in the Amazon has taken place in Mato Grosso. On the issue at hand, however—the issuance of environmental licenses for major development projects in the Amazon—the new minister promised to move faster and more efficiently than his predecessor.

Despite Minc’s aggressive rhetoric, questions about his effectiveness remain. They will be answered by the substance, rather than the style, of his tenure as minister. Back in the Senate, serving the remainder of her term as a representative for Acre until the end of 2010, Silva will continue to be an important voice in the ongoing debate in Brazil over how to reconcile the country’s dual objectives of promoting economic development and protecting the Amazon.

Paulo Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Brazil Institute Program Assistant Alan Wright contributed to this posting.

A report commissioned by GTZ, the German government-owned technical assistance agency, examines how it can address the new challenges to development posed by climate change.

In the May/June 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jürgen Scheffran provides an overview of climate-security links.

An article in Time examining population and environmental degradation highlights Robert Engelman’s new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, presented recently at the Wilson Center.

Jody Williams and Wangari Maathai, who won Nobel Peace Prizes in 1997 and 2004, respectively, recently discussed climate change, environmental degradation, human security, and women’s leadership on Living on Earth.

Concerned Ghanaian officials believe the country’s discovery of domestic oil reserves last year represents “perhaps the greatest managerial challenge” since its independence, reports IRIN News. Though oil revenues could boost Ghana’s sagging economy and improve its infrastructure, there are real fears that mismanagement could destabilize the country and exacerbate social inequalities. Francis Ackah, engineering manager of the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC), confessed that the country currently lacks the “know-how” to manage the resource constructively.

In an attempt to avoid the “resource curse,” Ackah confirmed the government’s desire to implement the “Norway model” of resource revenue management, which deposits oil funds in a national petroleum fund at the central bank, hires external managers to invest the money, and uses the revenue to fund social services.

Ghanaian President John Kufuor warned that “oil sometimes proves the undoing” of countries blessed with reserves. Other oil-rich African countries—such as Nigeria, Chad, and Angola—have been plagued by insecurity and underdevelopment. Nigeria has been plagued by rebel attacks on strategic oil pipelines.

At the Third National Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Conference in Tagaytay City, Philippines, ECSP editor Meaghan Parker spoke with Joan Castro of PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc., who manages the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management or IPOPCORM project. The Philippines’ rapidly rising population has overwhelmed the fisheries that have traditionally supported the country, but IPOPCORM’s innovative and integrative approach may save families along with the fish and their habitats. In the following podcast, Castro discusses how IPOPCORM’s integrated approach improves reproductive health and coastal resource management more than programs that focus exclusively on reproductive health or the environment—and at a lower total cost. A description of IPOPCORM and its results is available in “Fishing for Families,” the latest issue in our FOCUS series. For more information on population-health-environment connections, please visit our website, www.wilsoncenter.org/phe.