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World water professionals and stakeholders once again congregated for the third World Water Forum (WWF3) in Kyoto, Japan during March 2003, after a gap of three years. The WWF3 brought together people with different interests in water and provided a platform for discussing and sharing their knowledge and experiences on the current and future state of water. WWF1 was held in the African continent, WWF2 was held in Europe and WWF3 was held in Asia. Readers will recall that ICID had played a lead role through its National Committees in holding country-level dialogues on the subject; these committees developed their country's visions on water and the World Water Vision for Food and Rural Development (WFFRD), at WWF2 at the Hague, through eight regional consultations. The global vision, however, sidestepped the important conclusions drawn by the WFFRD sector and hence ICID took it upon itself to plan a strategy for the future of its member countries, representing 85% of the geographical area and 96% of the irrigated area of the world. The world's population is expected to increase from 6 to 8 billion by 2025, yet growth in food production seems to have slowed by an estimated 1.3% during the recent past, basically because of shortages in water supplies for agriculture and less than efficient water management. If food production does not keep up with population growth, the majority of the world's population, especially in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, could experience a food crisis situation. Since water for agricultural use for food accounts for 70% of world water abstraction, a water shortage would intensify the food crisis.
Realizing the urgency of the situation, countries have pledged, through the Rome Declaration on World Food Security of the World Food Summit and the UN Millennium Declaration, to reduce the number of undernourished people by half from the 1990 level by 2015. The track record so far has been inadequate. To meet these targets, more efforts to create awareness about the criticality of the water resources for agriculture and food production, taking into account regional diversity, have to be made.
At WWF3, on behalf of ICID, Dr C. D. Thatte, Secretary-General, ICID worked as one of the three coordinators for Theme 1-10 "Agriculture, Food and Water", in which, in all, there were 19 registered sessions. The opening plenary session was held on 19 March 2003. At the end of all sessions under the theme, a wrapping-up plenary session was held on 20 March 2003.
In order to provide ICID's output to the WWF process, ICID had set up several Task Forces (TFs) and developed a strategy for action, which was adopted in Granada (1999), for moving from vision to action in Integrated Water Resources Development and Management (IWRDM). At Kyoto, therefore, a Special Session was held by ICID on 19 March 2003 on "Integrated water resources development and management for ensuring food sufficiency and security" under Theme 1-10 "Agriculture, Food and Water". The session advocated practising IWRDM as the only appropriate tool to attain sustainable development and global food security. The deliberations brought out the action needed, particularly in developing countries.
TF1 "Guide for preparation of ICID inputs for the 3rd World Water Forum" provided a lead role on behalf of ICID from WWF2 to WWF3. TF1 was chaired by President Hon. Aly M. Shady who presented the ICID Report on WWF3 in the session. TF2 "Global issues related to food production, security and trade" identified ways and means to meet the food demands of the future and a Report on Global Issues related to Food Production, Security and Trade was presented. TF3 on "Socio-economic sustainability of services provided by irrigation, drainage and flood control schemes in the water resources sector" provided direction for implementing ICID's strategy. A position paper on "Irrigation and Drainage Services: Some Principles and Issues towards Sustainability" was presented. TF4 on "Benchmarking of irrigation and drainage projects" is a joint initiative of IPTRID, the World Bank, IWMI and ICID, promoting implementation of benchmarking initiatives in ICID member countries. TF4 presented a position paper on "Benchmarking of Irrigation and Drainage Sector" and "Country Policy Support Programme (CPSP)" on water for food, people and ecosystems
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