Roger Calow

Head of Programme, Water Policy

R.Calow@odi.org.uk

Roger Calow is Head of ODI's Water Policy Programme and an Honorary Research Associate at the British Geological Survey. Roger has over 20 years’ experience on international research and development projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and has worked for over 2 years in China on irrigation management and rights reform with the Ministry of Water Resources and provincial government.

Roger has a detailed knowledge of water resource management, service delivery and water and poverty issues in developing countries, and has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, Cardno Acil Australia, DFID, the FAO and UNESCO. He is an author of several books and numerous journal articles, and has given invited presentations at the Royal Society in London, and the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and California.

Roger leads an interdisciplinary team of 8 staff spanning the physical and social sciences, and was Director of the DFID-funded RiPPLE programme in Ethiopia. Countries of work experience include Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, China, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Palestine.

Outputs

Downloads

Outputs

Mary Muntari collects water from a stream in Kachia, in Kaduna State Nigeria

Adaptation to climate change in water, sanitation and hygiene

Projects - April 2013 to August 2013

This project will analyse the risks to delivery of DFID Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) results posed by climate change and provide an economic analysis setting out the costs and benefits of adaptation options.

Find out more

Voices from the source: struggles with local water security in Ethiopia

Publication - Research reports and studies - 6 February 2013

Mengistu Dessalegn, Likimyelesh Nigussie, Wondwosen Michago, Josephine Tucker, Alan Nicol and Roger Calow

What are the physical, social, economic and political drivers of water insecurity in different locations in Ethiopia? How have different communities responded to situations of water stress? What should be the public policy and institutional priorities to improve resilience to water stress at a local level, and reduce the negative impacts on communities? This assessment explores local water security in two very different sites in rural Ethiopia – a pastoral district in the eastern Somali region (Shinile), and a somewhat remote agricultural district in the south (Konso).

Download

Achieving water security: lessons from research in water supply, sanitation and hygiene in Ethiopia

Publication - Books or book chapters - 2 January 2013

Edited by Roger Calow, Eva Ludi and Josephine Tucker

Achieving water security remains an elusive goal across swathes of sub-Saharan Africa. This book asks why, and draws on extensive field research and institutional analysis in Ethiopia to offer insights for policy and practice which are relevant across the continent.

Find out more

Climate risk screening for rural water supply in Ethiopia

Projects - December 2012 to April 2013

The purpose of this project is to develop a risk assessment methodology that can be used to assess the threat posed by climate change on rural water supplies, and suggest steps to minimise or mitigate such risks. The approach will examine risks along the supply chain, from resource, to source and end user, and look at how rural water supplies planning might be better integrated with groundwater recharge and watershed protection measures.

Find out more

Fresh water being poured into a jerrycan. Harshin district, in the eastern Somali region of Ethiopia

Scoping study on social vulnerability in three climate change hotspots for the CARIAA programme

Projects - November 2012 to October 2013

The aim of this programme is to develop robust evidence to inform how to increase the resilience of vulnerable populations in three hotspots: large deltas, glacier-fed river basins and semi-arid areas, in Africa and Central and South Asia. ODI are carrying out a systematic mapping of climate change literature, to provide insights into the state of knowledge on social vulnerability in these three hotspots.

Find out more