Roger Calow

Head of Programme, Water Policy

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.

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Outputs

Rural water supply corruption in Ethiopia

Publication - Books or book chapters - 3 September 2013

Roger Calow, Alan MacDonald, Piers Cross

For decades, corruption in Ethiopia has been discussed only at the margins. Perhaps because many have not experienced corruption as a significant constraint to their lives and businesses, or perhaps because a culture of circumspection has dampened open dialogue, Ethiopia has seen neither the information flows nor the debate on corruption that most other countries have seen in recent years. This chapter 4 focuses on rural water supply corruption in 'Diagnosing corruption in Ethiopia : perceptions, realities, and the way forward for key sectors'.

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A hidden crisis: strengthening the evidence-base on the sustainability of rural groundwater services

Projects - June 2013 to November 2013

This project aims to strenthen the evidence-base on ensuring the sustainability of rural groundwater services.

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East Africa Food crisis - Water point in Ethiopia

GroFutures: groundwater futures in sub-Saharan Africa

Projects - June 2013 to October 2013

This project, led by the GroFutures team, will develop the evidence base and methodologies to enable the identification of future hotspots of groundwater depletion where demand may exceed available resources. Pilot studies will be conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania.

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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.

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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).

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