Abstract
The evolution of water governance and societal perception in large, public irrigation systems in developing countries has triggered successive waves of reforms since the 1980s. Among them are Participatory Irrigation Management, Irrigation Management Transfer, Public-Private Partnerships or Market Instruments. Reforms have generalized the implementation of Water Users Associations (WUAs) in continuous interaction with a public Irrigation Agency. This paper set out to review recurrent problems and reported solutions in the governance of irrigated areas in developing countries and to relate solutions to problems in a case study context. The combination of literature review and the experience of the authors permitted identification and characterization of eight problems and eight solutions. A semi-quantitative approach was designed to relate solutions to problems in case study WUAs. The approach is based on the definition of a generic problem-solution matrix and a WUA-specific problem vector. The solution vector indicates the adequacy of each solution to a case study WUA. It can be obtained by multiplying the problem vector with the problem-solution matrix. Application of this approach to seven case study WUAs demonstrated its potential. Local fine-tuning of the coefficients defining the problem-solution matrix seems required to draw conclusions effectively guiding decision-making.
Highlights
World irrigation development accelerated in the twentieth century, following intense progress in civil engineering machinery and the push of governments and international development agencies.Many developing countries—often former colonies—changed their view on irrigation: from support to colonial agriculture to a national policy for employment and poverty eradication [1]
Vermillion and Sagardoy [5] reported that Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) processes were implemented to involve water users in the governance of irrigated areas
From the legal point of view, this program was based on an internal regulation of the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (DSI) that allowed the institution to transfer the management of irrigation systems to water users’ organizations when appropriate
Summary
World irrigation development accelerated in the twentieth century, following intense progress in civil engineering machinery and the push of governments and international development agencies. Vermillion and Sagardoy [5] reported that Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) processes were implemented to involve water users in the governance of irrigated areas. As a corollary of all these hot issues, after reviewing 230 case studies in the literature, Senanayake et al [19] found it impossible to conclude about the success or failure of IMT processes, owing to the weaknesses of the methods used to infer impact and to problems inherent to the available information These findings call for a structured approach to the actual problems of irrigation governance in developing countries and to their solutions. The paper draws from analyses and examples in the literature and from the experience of the authors
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