Good review of “Climbing the Water Ladder” book in Waterlines 30th anniversary issue
Updated - Thursday 24 November 2011
The fact that the multiple-use water services (MUS) approach focuses on the specific needs of water users and aims to improve wellbeing and socio-economic status makes it a better tool for poverty alleviation than integrated water resources management (IWRM).This is one of the observations of Phillipa Kanyoka from the University of Pretoria in her review of our Climbing the Water Ladder book from the 30th anniversary issue of Waterlines, Vol 30, Nr 4, October 2011.
Here are some more quotes.
“This well written book addresses a very important and relevant topic especially in developing countries where water access is limited by physical and economic scarcity. The multiple-use water services (MUS) approach complements integrated water resources management (IWRM), which has become especially relevant in the context of climate change. But the fact that the MUS approach focuses on the specific needs of water users and aims to improve wellbeing and socio-economic status make it a better tool for poverty alleviation. Besides its relevance, the simplified nature of the book makes it easily accessible to a wider audience including academics, policy-makers, and non-professionals.
The book contains various case studies which enrich the text by presenting experiences in diverse contexts. However, no references are provided for some of the quantitative statistics presented. The economic cost–benefit analysis for household and community-scale MUS presented in Chapter 3 provides foundation for further work on this issue, but could have been improved if findings on the relationship between household water consumption and their willingness to pay had been included.”
....
“One of the most important chapters describes the approach towards the creation of a supportive environment for scaling up MUS at local, national, and international levels. Although the boundaries between the chapters are not very clear and a synthesis at the end of each chapter to summarize the salient findings would have been helpful, the book covers an important topic and puts a good foundation on the MUS concept on which future work can build. The publication is available for download from the IRC website.”
The book was published in 2009 by IRC and the International Water Management Institute:
Koppen, B. van et al. (2009). Climbing the water ladder : multiple-use water services for poverty reduction. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 52). The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre ; Colombo, Sri Lanka, International Water Management Institute (IWMI) .
- ISBN 978-90-6687-069-7. - 215 p. : 44 fig., 23 tab. - Bibliography: p. 199-213
Download from the publications pages.
