Better water management and use can make a key contribution to sound poverty alleviation. The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and the concensus reached at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) of 2002 place poverty reduction at the top of international agenda. The 2005 UN Summit also identified poverty and HIV/AIDS as key challenges facing nations, especially developing ones in thier endevour to meet the 2015 deadline of attaining the MDGs and related targets.

Water presents an alternative strategy for poverty alleviation. Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of freshwater withdrawal globally. Water is a crucial not only in agriculture but also in other income earning activities that rural communties can engage in.Such activities include gardening, laundry, soap making, and many other micro-enterprises that can be engaged in by poor communities to earn income.

Water availability varies over space and time. It is hence importance to implement water saving and recycling techniques in the regions of the world that face water scarcity.

Productive water use, that is, water use activities whose primary purpose is improved nutrition and food security remains an alternative opportunity for the poor communities as they work thier way out of poverty. In light of this important role that water access can play in reducing poverty, efforts must now be redirected to water and poverty alleviation projects and research, particularly rural small-scale income generating projects were water is their source of input.