Today the world is facing a problem of increasing food production due to water scarcity. Another pressing issue of global concern is improving the well-being of poor smallholders. This publication suggests that there a single strategy and be used to combat both these problems. If the two issues were to be combined, water-induced agricultural growth and increasing the access to poor male and female smallholders to improve productivity and to better their income can both be resolved with a combined strategy, thereby creating more jobs and more crops per drop. This publication explores the synergy between water induced agricultural growth and poverty alleviation. It discusses the role that gender plays and explores the process through which male and female smallholders’ access water. It views this issue from a socioeconomic perspective and conveys the impacts that policies have had. It discusses both the positive and negative aspects of the strategy that it puts forward with great detail and analysis.