Organised Farmers: Spate Irrigation in Balochistan Frank van Steenbergen
Augmenting Groundwater Resources by Artificial Recharge
Community Management of Groundwater Resources
Water, difference and power: Kutch and the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) project
Watsan and PRSPs—Integrating Watsan activities within PRSP development and implementation (DFID)
Transboundary Water Management as an International Public Good (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden)
Irrigation, Livelihoods and River Basins Bruce Lankford
Overseas Development Institute
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Organised Farmers: Spate Irrigation in Balochistan
Frank van Steenbergen
Spate irrigation systems, which divert water from normally dry riverbeds when the river is in spate, are common in semi-arid environments. Because of the inherent uncertainty associated with floods as well as variability over time of riverbed levels, these systems tend to be risk-prone, often supporting only marginal agriculture and the poorest sections of the rural population. This paper discusses spate irrigation systems in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. It reviews government investment in spate irrigation in Balochistan over the last few decades. In the absence of a pervasive role of the government, the spate irrigation systems in this area are by and large farmer-managed. The paper discusses the main management tasks – the distribution of water, management of silt and scour processes in the flood channels, and the maintenance and rehabilitation of diversions structures – and how these tasks are carried out in the farmer-managed systems. Finally, the paper concludes with an overview of the options for increased participatory management of spate irrigation in Balochistan.
Augmenting Groundwater Resources by Artificial Recharge
Groundwater is the main source for rural water supplies in many developing countries. Over recent years, increasing abstraction to meet rising demand for domestic supplies and irrigation has raised concerns for the sustainability of the resource and the livelihoods it supports. To address these concerns, considerable emphasis is being given to the augmentation of natural recharge by both traditional and modern techniques. Some of these techniques have been employed for centuries ranging from simple check bunds in gullies to complex diversion and infiltration structures as well as injection wells. Recently there have been considerable renewed effort and investment to maintain and restore such traditional facilities as well as building new structures. However there has been little systematic assessment of the effectiveness of these schemes, neither technical nor socio-economic. Phase 1 of AGRAR undertook a review of methodologies and controls on effectiveness and identified the benefits, constraints and uncertainties associated with aquifer recharge. The results of this, and other work can be accessed through www.iah.org/recharge, a web site created to promote information dissemination and networking.
Community Management of Groundwater Resources
A two and a half year project funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), starting in October 2001.
Over the last 20 years there has been an enormous increase in the use of groundwater in India. As well as providing a critical source of domestic and irrigation water, groundwater also plays a vital role in supporting the livelihoods of the poor. This is because groundwater can be accessed relatively easily and cheaply, and provides a reliable source of (generally) high quality water. However, there is increasing evidence that the intensity of groundwater exploitation is not sustainable in many areas of India. Reduced access to groundwater, caused by a sustained decline in water levels or the failure of wells earlier in the dry season, disproportionately affects poorer households - the landless and asset poor farmers.
Addressing the problem of groundwater over-abstraction in India is challenging. Conventional wisdom suggests that a mix of regulatory and economic reforms are needed to control groundwater use. Implementing such reforms is politically difficult, however. Against this background, the development of user-group institutions for groundwater management, for the benefit of those most affected by failing groundwater supplies, is an attractive idea. The viability of this approach has not been tested for groundwater, though common property management of other resources, including grazing lands and forests, has been actively promoted in recent years, and community-based solutions to other problems (e.g. pump financing and maintenance) are well rehearsed.
www.bgs.ac.uk/hydrogeology/comman/home.html
Water, difference and power: Kutch and the Sardar Sarovar (Narmada) project
Kutch, a semi-arid district in the state of Gujarat in western India, is known for its water scarcity. This report examines the relationship between the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), a controversial dam under construction in western India, and Kutch, which is supposed to benefit from the dam. It highlights that contrary to decades of promise, Kutch does not stand to benefit significantly from the project and shows how the state has “manufactured” the dominant view that there is no alternative to this project for Kutch. This has two consequences: one, locally appropriate alternatives are not adequately explored; two, crucial aspects concerning social difference are obscured. The case study gives a picture of the social, caste and power dynamics in a village supposed to benefit from the project and shows how these are intrinsically tied to the water question. The analysis of the arrangements governing land and water use indicates that access to and control over water resources was always differentiated and this differentiation is likely to increase with the advent of canal irrigation. Hence, notions of the “user” and “community” need to be de-homogenised to accommodate variations arising due to historical legacies, class, caste, gender and occupation. The study argues that both macro and micro-level water interventions are blind to questions concerning social difference. In doing so water schemes build on or reinforce already skewed social
and power relations. It contends that unless social difference is taken seriously, even ecologically sustainable options such as watershed development may end up being “old wine in new bottles.” In order for issues such as equity and social justice to be addressed in water interventions, the study argues for the need on the part of implementing agencies to be aggressively partisan in targeting the marginalised and socially excluded groups.
SecureWater: Building sustainable livelihoods for the poor into demand responsive approaches (DFID KaR)
How can the poor afford water? What is the impact of global shifts in policy on their access to this vital resource? SecureWater is concerned to understand the implications of the shift to a demand-responsive approach (DRA) to water supply and sanitation development on the poor so as to apply the tools of sustainable livelihoods approaches in making DRAs more pro-poor in its implementation and development. Recognising that there are aspects of financial cost recovery which are important to ensure the sustainability of interventions, the project nonetheless challenges many of the assumptions which attend current contingent valuation processes and other tools of demand assessment. Working closely with a range of partners the project is looking in detail at the experience of five countries (India, Sri Lanka, Malawi, Kenya and Sudan) to determine key water-livelihoods linkages, ways in which decision-makers can be best supported in policy development and implementation as well as strategies for mainstreaming pro-poor sectoral decision-making.The project began in September 2001 with an inception workshop in Nairobi. Scoping studies have been completed and further work alongside policy makers including national governments and the Water and Sanitation Programme in both South Asia and Africa is currently underway. Emerging issues are examined in a WPP film entitled: 'SecureWater: water, livelihoods and demand-based approaches' and initial project findings and outputs were disseminated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan.
Watsan and PRSPs—Integrating Watsan activities within PRSP development and implementation (DFID)
National efforts at addressing poverty reduction are increasingly focused on the process of Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This process — led by major multilateral donors — aims to achieve comprehensive and integrated programmes for poverty reduction at a national level. However, a broadening understanding of poverty within the Watsan sector has yet to be reflected in wider PRS development, particularly in terms of process (sub-national development and participation of water sector institutions) and content (broader adoption of sustainable livelihoods principles).
A recent draft report by the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) emphasised that whilst water and sanitation concerns were frequently expressed during participatory poverty assessments, they have rarely been reflected in the interim or final PRSs themselves (WSP, 2001). There is a danger, therefore, that both a vital element in understanding the nature and causes of poverty — the status of poor people's access to safe water supply and environmental sanitation services — and a key instrument in addressing poverty reduction are being inadequately integrated or, worse still, left out altogether within the PRS process.
The challenge is therefore threefold: 1) to understand how Water Supply and Sanitation WSS) — poverty issues are reflected in the PRSs, 2) to identify and address issues of inclusion by local government, civil society, community and the private sector in the process of PRS development, implementation and monitoring and 3) to build better understanding of WSS-poverty linkages into programmes, action plans and monitoring indicators under PRSs, particularly ones which derive from more integrated and poverty-focused approaches. Sustainable livelihoods thinking on water supply and sanitation, by focusing on household livelihoods and water and sanitation, helps to link not only poverty reduction approaches more fully within the water sector (for instance in terms of monitoring indicators), but also assists in linking what happens at a household level to the wider policy environment, including, for instance, policy and institutional processes such as DRA being championed by the WSP and others (see SecureWater, 2001).
This two-year research and advocacy project is collaborating with the WSP-Africa office in Nairobi, the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and Water Aid. The project will focus on analysis of content and process of PRS development, implementation and monitoring. It will build and strengthen civil society networks and linkages with local government to ensure local priorities are reflected in national PRS priorities, processes and resulting expenditure plans. International and regional advocacy will also be undertaken through co-ordinated action (e.g. lobbying meetings and delegations) towards identified policy and decision-makers. The research and advocacy will be in three main phases over the two years, timed to coincide with major dissemination opportunities as a way of integrating the research into advocacy activities at international, regional, national and local levels, e.g. the Kyoto World Water Forum in March 2003.
Transboundary Water Management as an International Public Good (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden)
Is transboundary water management an international public good, and, if so, how can it be best provided through financial mechanisms? Working on behalf of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this research project focused on four regions: southern Africa, the Middle East, the Mekong sub-region and the Southern Caucasus. Working together on addressing these key questions through the case studies, an international team of consultants led by ODI produced a report which, inter alia, called for the creation of an International Shared Waters Facility (ISWF). The ISWF would help to coordinate and channel support to shared waters management at an international level and received enthusiastic endorsement when a policy brief deriving from the project and also supported by Sweden was presented at the recent Bonn International Conference on Freshwaters (December 2001).
Irrigation, Livelihoods and River Basins
Bruce Lankford
This paper examines the relationship between irrigation, rural livelihoods and river basin management in Tanzania. There are six critical arguments contained in this paper. Firstly, irrigation is a complex livelihood activity that many integrates across many economic, natural, technical and social systems; farmers implicitly understand this, adjusting the extent of their involvement in irrigation, and therefore only in special circumstances do governments need to 'provide irrigation' or to further increase it. Second, irrigation is a sector that consumes considerable amounts of water and may impact negatively on downstream sectors and livelihoods; pastoralists, rainfed agriculturalists, the environment and urban demands, especially during the dry season. Third, irrigation does not reduce poverty in a geographically widespread fashion; this is because water is limited, sites for irrigation are restricted and places for irrigators finite. Fourth, a functioning irrigation system depends on the resolution of its own particular problems not on the application of generic irrigation theory. Fifth, irrigation improvements are often associated with technological interventions; these are prone to be poorly designed and expensive resulting in increased 'maldistribution' of water and therefore conflict. Sixth, in most cases the water resource is sufficiently limited in time and quantity for it to be contested over. In these cases policy should focus not necessarily on irrigation improvement, but on conflict mediation. This too reminds us of the need to take a balanced livelihoods river-basin approach and to establish appropriate institutional frameworks.
