The Program consists of 5 themes and at 12 benchmark sites. CIAT has been nominated to lead Theme 2: Multiple Use of Upper Catchments. The objective is to improve sustainable livelihoods for people who live in, and downstream of, upper catchments through significant, unambiguous improvements of water productivity.

The CPWF interlocking goals are to allow more food to be produced with the same amount of water that is used in agriculture today, as populations expand over the coming 20 years and, do this in a way that decreases malnourishment and rural poverty, improves people's health and maintains environmental sustainability from a research perspective. CIAT leads one of the five thematic groups of the CPWF:

Theme 2: Water and People in catchments
Enabling efficient and equitable water use

Potential improvements in water management can be limited by the complexity and diversity of water uses and water users within upper catchments. Substantial modification in water use at one location influences the resource at another, so a systemic approach is required which links changes in catchment and basin-hydrology with the people who create it, and anticipates the impacts of complex interactions which occur between socially, economically or politically diverse groups. Resolution of the 'hydrologic dyslexia', that is, the institutional disconnectivity that occurs between hydrologically-connected people, will increase the potential gains offered by advances in biophysical performance.

'Hydrologic dyslexia' may occur at community, catchment and basin scale. It results from a deficiency of institutions that could enable more effective use of shared resources. It reflects the barriers that prevent 'collective' or 'coordinated' management.

The complex challenge can be divided into three facets, each of which will need to be generalized: water and livelihoods; catchment hydrology; and social organization. These facets overlap within catchments, but the knowledge of processes they represent is not congruent. This lack of congruence presents a major challenge for researchers, but also an opportunity for new, integrating activities that can underpin significant.