Ronaldo Munck is head of civic engagement at Dublin City University and visiting professor in Development Studies at St Mary's University, Canada. He is the founding chair of the Development Studies Association of Ireland and has written widely on development issues from a Southern and social movement perspective with an output of more than twenty books and over one hundred academic journal articles. Recent work includes Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony and Social Transformation. He was a PI for the Water Is Life research project funded by Irish Aid.Narathius Asingwire is a senior lecturer and former chair, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Makerere University, Uganda. His key areas of research include safe rural water, hygiene and sanitation. Alongside research, he has worked in a consultancy capacity in the areas of rural water and sanitation. His most recent publication is Interrogating the Role of Social Work in Policy Reforms in Uganda: A Case of Demand-driven Approach for Rural Safe Water.G. Honor Fagan is a professor of sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She has previously lectured in sociology departments in Northern Ireland, South Africa and the UK, and currently has research capacity-building relationships with universities in Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa. Her research interests focus on human security, gender and development, and governance. She has published over twenty-six journal articles and book chapters and three books, including the prize-winning Globalisation and Security: An Encyclopaedia.Consolata Kabonesa is senior lecturer and dean at the School of Women and Gender Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda. Her research focuses on gender and human development, and her major research interests include water, agriculture, health (especially HIV/AIDS), technology (including ICT), and gender budgeting. Her recent publications have focused on gender in relation to e-learning, access and utilization of information communication technology, water, climate change, land rights, and conflict transformation. She has a PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

This volume is a well-structured introduction to the topic of water and development that shows the necessity of harnessing global initiatives through deep understanding of local contexts.

• Part I: ContextIntroduction1 Water, development and good governance - Ronaldo Munck2 Liquid dynamics: challenges for sustainability in the water domain - Lyla Mehta and Synne Movik3 Can IWRM float on a sea of underdevelopment? Reflections on twenty-plus years of 'reform' in sub-Saharan Africa - Larry A. Swatuk4 Water politics in eastern and southern Africa - Sobona Mtisi and Alan NicolPart II: Case study5 Integrated water management and social development in Uganda - Gloria Macri, Firminus Mugumya and Áine Rickard6 Governance and safe water provisioning in Uganda: theory and practice - Firminus Mugumya and Narathius Asingwire7 Woman water keeper? Women's troubled participation in water resource management - Richard Bagonza Asaba and G. Honor Fagan8 Women and water politics: an ethnographic gender perspective - Joyce Mpalanyi Magala, Consolata Kabonesa and Anthony Staines9 Understanding adaptive capacity on the ground: a case of agro-pastoralists in a rural parish, Uganda - Mavuto D. Tembo10 Functional sustainability of hand pumps for rural water supply - Michael Lubwama, Brian Corcoran and Kimmitt SayersPart Three: Balance sheet11 Beyond the MDGS: can the water crisis for the poor finally be resolved? - David Hemson