by Marybelle Stryk

29 August 2002

Rajasthan, India: In India's Rajasthan State, national UN Volunteer and water specialist Kulwant Singh is deeply involved in reviving traditional rainwater conservation practices and stirring local activism as a sustainable solution to the region's recurrent water shortages.

"Without involving the local communities, it is almost impossible to significantly reduce the effect of drought," says Kulwant.

According to the United Nations Disaster Management Team (UNDMT), severe drought has been prevalent in Rajasthan for the past 44 years. It has affected 33 million out of Rajasthan's 56 million inhabitants in more than 40,000 villages. Some US$ 760 million in income was lost due to severely damaged crops.

"When I came to Rajasthan in 2001, the area was suffering from its third consecutive year of drought. In 31 out of the 32 districts the conditions were harsh -- children start to eat twigs and leaves because there was no food and cattle die at water points," says Kulwant.

Frontline, a national magazine, recently reported that people were dying of hunger in areas around the state capital Jaipur. Most poor families have either reduced their food intake by half or are forced to skip meals for a day or two. And large-scale migration of people and cattle has begun in western Rajasthan towards the nearby state of Gudjarat.

Together with three colleagues from the UNDMT, Kulwant identifies other causes of drought apart from the apparent lack of rain and failing crops. He discovered that neglecting traditional water conservation and agricultural practices worsens the situation. "The new systems are unsuitable to local conditions while traditional practices are slowly disappearing." Other aggravating factors include inappropriate water management and animal feeding techniques.

The UNV/UNDMT team works with local people to resolve the communities' biggest problems -- water shortage and unemployment -- complementing the state's drought relief programme in remote areas.

Under the Food-for-Work scheme, the team employs villagers to build water tanks and other water infrastructure to improve water supply and generate income opportunities.

Together with the British Department for International Development (DfID) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID), UNV/UNDMT encourages villagers to build traditional "rain catchers" such as beris, johads and tankas (water tanks). Beris, narrow vase-shaped wells that stores rainwater buried underneath the sand, are very adaptable to the desert-like conditions in some parts of Rajasthan. Johads are small dams made out of soil designed not only to catch rainwater but also to replenish ground water.

"UNDMT, with the help of AUSAID, initiated and trained villagers in constructing tankas in the district of Jhunjhunu, one of the worst affected areas," says Kulwant. "We optimized local knowledge by employing the assistance of local NGOs to form community self-help groups to enable them to design their own drought risk reduction programme. We also promoted traditional dry farming and fodder production, and opened a fodder depot."

Kulwant is realistic. He knows that the participation of communities alone will neither sustain these achievements nor the environment. "The drought in Rajasthan, to a large extent, is due to the absence of long-term strategies on water management, specifically on usage conservation and storage of water. The fight against drought should involve everybody -- government, development agencies, and more critically, the affected communities."

That is why, under the UNDMT's sustainable programme to combat drought, Kulwant now encourages policymakers and NGOs to incorporate sustainable drought management programme that includes the active involvement of local communities.

He has also launched an advocacy campaign to adapt local water conservation and agricultural practices in collaboration with government agencies, the media and similar groups working to abate drought. Kulwant is convinced that involving all sectors of the society "will dramatically reduce drought".