Water and poverty

Water lies at the heart of rural livelihoods, food security and poverty reduction. Across the world, rural communities depend directly on water for agriculture, livestock, fisheries and household needs. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) is deeply interlinked with ending rural poverty and hunger. Yet millions of rural people continue to face water insecurity and increasing exposure to climate risks. These challenges disproportionately affect the rural poor, whose livelihoods are often highly vulnerable to droughts, floods, land degradation and environmental degradation.

Many of the world's rural poor are smallholders and family farmers, but also women, youth and Indigenous Peoples, for whom water is a fundamental resource and a common constraint. Reliable access to, and sufficient availability of, water are essential not only for food production but also for broader socioeconomic development, resilience and environmental sustainability.

Emerging challenges such as climate change, land degradation, population growth, migration and increasing competition for water are expected to intensify existing inequalities.

Improving agricultural water management and ensuring equitable access to water are priorities in FAO's work to support the livelihoods of rural smallholders. By increasing knowledge of the role of water in rural livelihoods and adopting participatory approaches focused on smallholder farmers, FAO works to build resilience, identify and adapt water technologies, and promote smart investments in water for poverty reduction.

When planning and implementing agricultural water management investments, FAO tailors its interventions to the diversity and complexity of local contexts within countries, with the aim of enhancing their contribution to reducing global hunger and rural poverty.

To support effective water-related interventions that improve rural livelihoods, FAO works with international and national partners to enhance the poverty-reduction outcomes of strategies targeting smallholder farmers. In particular, FAO:

• develops methodologies based on livelihood mapping to support investors and policymakers in prioritizing, planning and implementing water-related interventions for smallholder farmers (see Water for the Rural Poor [factsheet] and Assessing the potential for poverty reduction through investments in agricultural water management);
• carries out regional and national studies on rural poverty reduction through water-related interventions (see Water and the Rural Poor [sub-Saharan Africa] and Water and the Rural Poor [Asia]); and
• identifies water technologies and approaches to increase the impact of development projects targeting poor farmers (see More effective and sustainable investments in water for poverty reduction and One million cisterns for the Sahel initiative).

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