Water for Development

Water is a resource vital to all. But it can be more keenly felt in indigenous and rural communities where neither public nor private water systems operate. In many interior Cordillera villages, creeks, rivers, and streams irrigate fields and supply domestic water needs. The community people themselves look for a source that could be a mountain away from their village, channel its waters to a reservoir, and pipe it to common faucet stands or more rarely to individual houses. Rivers have also been harnessed by some communities to power their village economy. In the Kalinga village of Ngibat, the people diverted the waters of Surong River to run a mini-hydro that fueled economic productivity. The mini-hydro ran a community rice mill, revived blacksmithing and sugarcane winemaking, and enhanced rice trade and barter with neighboring villages.