Why water?

Water. It's a problem if you have too much, and it's a problem if you have too little. For poor communities around the world water is one of their biggest difficulties. And you can see why: millions of poor people are small-scale farmers and they rely on water to irrigate their crops.

Progressio has worked on issues of water for several years. We're aiming to ensure poor and marginalised people, especially small-scale farmers who feed a third of the world's population, have the water they need.

To this end we've worked hard to bring the voices of farming communities to international debates by:

•    Supporting Fabiola Quishpe, an Ecuadorian farmer and community leader, to take her message about the need to consider water in climate change negotiations,  to the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen;
•    Taking Innocent Ogaba, a Progressio development worker in Malawi, to the Bonn follow-up meeting of the UN climate change talks;
•    Getting Progressio campaigners to take part in our successful Just Add Water campaign, calling on world leaders to consider the vital importance of water for livelihoods in climate change negotiations;
•    Hearing from llama farmer Humberto Lizana about the problems of water in the high Andes during last year's Climate Journey awareness campaign;
•    Drawing attention to the importance of water for meeting the Millennium Development Goals, even speaking to the Secretary of State in person about the issue.

And we've worked alongside organisations around the world, like Environment Africa, to help communities protect their environments as well as grow the food they and their families need to survive and thrive. It's this history of great work we're asking people to build on this autumn!

Click here to find out how you can help us fundraise and friend-raise for Progressio and ensure people understand of the importance of water!

Photo: Women farmers in the Wedza district, rural Zimbabwe (photo © Jon Macpherson/Progressio Ireland)