WOCATpedia is a knowledge platform on Agricultural Water Management aiming at the improvement of food security under conditions of climate change in developing countries. Agriwaterpedia stands for easy and free access to knowledge and invites you to share your own knowledge and experience by contributing articles and documents.
Why WOCATpedia?
Water will become one of the earth’s most limited resources due to population growth, climate change and other effects of human activity. Already today, fresh water of good quality is scarce in many regions, hindering their development. As agriculture accounts for approximately 70 per cent of global water consumption it is a highly strategic field of action, through stopping wasteful use of water while increasing food production and protecting water resources and the environment. After three decades of declining investment in development cooperation for agriculture, the international community focusses on the strategic importance of food security, agricultural water management plays a major role. However, one of the obstacles is that potential investment plans lack the broadly available expertise to design and implement locally adapted policies, programmes and technics on the necessary global scale.
There is, however, a wealth of experience in agricultural water management gathered through development cooperation during the eighties and nineties which, together with more recent know-how, is highly relevant for today’s urgent needs. This is why WOCATpedia is collecting relevant documents and promoting the exchange of knowledge and experience providing a base for further development of approaches.
Who is addressed?
The platform provides easy and free access for all who are interested in the subject, in particular users who work in the context of development cooperation. WOCATpedia focuses on two types of users: a) generalists working in development organisations and b) practitioners in development programmes. The first, generalists, may be in need of a concise overview on specific aspects of agricultural water management for informed decision-making and management tasks. The practitioners, on the other hand, frequently need context-specific and in-depth documentation for locally adapted solutions.
What is in there?
Therefore, WOCATpedia, in this initial phase, consists of two main components:
a) A collection of short articles which are easy to read and to understand, providing an overview on Agricultural Water Management in development cooperation, with references to documents for further study and links to WOCATpedia’s own library.
b) An on-line library with a collection of all types of documents on agricultural water management in development cooperation.
The platform is open to further development according to needs, progress made and available resources.
History
It all began in 2011. Knowing that in achieves treasures were buried, knowledgeable human resources are going to retire, young experts in need of specific capacities and other organisations also struggling with the conservation and further development of their knowledge base. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ embarked to provide knowledge on efficient water use for food security under conditions of climate change for the public. Agriwaterpedia was set up to access and to share the wealth of earlier experience accumulated in archives and expert knowledge in an interactive manner. GIZ provides the technical infrastructure developed the main portals of the WOCATpedia, started to fill in content and invites other to participate.
WOCATpedia was launched during the Stockholm World Water Week in August 2012.
Vision
WOCATpedia is aiming at an involvement of practitioners, experts in water, agriculture and energy partner organisations in the South and the North, universities, civil society, the public and the private sector in order to create a knowledge platform that allows easy access to information and enhance the exchange and common discussion on sectoral and intersectoral approaches.
It promotes universally accessible knowledge and experience exchange to contribute to sustainable water and food supply for all people.
Your contributions
WOCATpedia is open and free for everyone. On www.WOCATpedia.info everyone is invited to create and revise articles on technologies, approaches and projects related to agricultural water management for food security under conditions of climate change with regard to development cooperation.
If you want to share your knowledge and contribute to the articles have a look at the guidelines.
Or you can help to build the WOCATpedia online library by proposing relevant publications or papers that can be used free of charge. They may be your own or those of your organisation, provided they can be used freely.
