E Newsletter 36

THE INPIM E-NEWSLETTER

August, 2004

Number 36

http://www.inpim.org

Welcome to the INPIM E-Newsletter #36.

It has been approximately one month since the Seventh Annual Seminar on Participatory Irrigation Management concluded on a very successful note.  The Seminar and other news and events will be discussed below.

We have had quite a few new subscribers to this e-newsletter in the last month or so and we would like to welcome you all.  We also want to encourage you to forward this newsletter to anyone you think may be interested in irrigation issues and direct them to our web site at http://www.inpim.org so that they might subscribe for themselves.

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NEWS AND NOTES

1. Seventh International Seminar on Participatory Irrigation Management focuses on a decade of irrigation reforms in Albania.
2. INPIM's Executive Director participated in a Farmers Workshop in Sudan.
3. International ReSource Award for Sustainable Watershed Management ($100,000 USD) offered by Swiss Re.
4. Public-Private Partnerships: Dutch Government to support the water sector in developing countries
5. Punjab, India plans 3 irrigation projects costing Rs 13b
6. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) New Report
7. Farmer Networks mobilize water user associations in India
    

UPCOMING EVENTS

8. World Water Week, August 16-20, Stockholm.
9. The Interregional Conference of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), Moscow, September 5-11, 2004.
10. Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems (FMIS) Promotion Trust Third International Seminar, Kathmandu Nepal, September 9-10, 2004

NEWS AND NOTES

1.  Seventh International Seminar on Participatory Irrigation Management focuses on a decade of irrigation reforms in Albania.

The seventh international seminar on participatory irrigation management was held at the Hotel Sheraton, Tirana, Albania from June 13-18, 2004.  The seminar drew 93 International Participants from 27 countries in addition to 50 local Albanian participants.  The theme of the seminar was on "Creating an Enabling Environment for Productive and Sustainable Water User Associations".   The keynote paper presented by Doug Vermillion addresses two key issues why should farmers promote participatory irrigation management? and why should government and foreign investors support PIM?   Internal and External factors enable water user associations to achieve productive and sustainable irrigation.  Internal factors relate to the structure and composition of the WUAs, trust and reciprocity, organization experience and resources.  The external factors relate to land and water rights, the enabling environment, investment and financing and new capacities required to tackle the new challenges in governance shifts.  The productive and sustainable use of water by water user associations calls for new capacities to innovate and  plan for irrigation services  that include measurable definitions for water acquisition, allocation, distribution, application, drainage, operation and maintenance, financial management and monitoring.  Creating an enabling environment which recognizes irrigated agriculture based livelihoods through profitable agricultural policies and strategies, enabling greater roles for farmers in decision making; modernizing investment and financing through new innovative mechanisms such as investment cost sharing, smart subsidies; enabling a service orientation to irrigation agencies and farmers that is demand driven and create partnerships based on accountability are some of the key factors that make WUAs sustainable and productive.  The paper finally addresses the new capacities required for empowering WUAs, reorienting and aligning the roles of irrigation agencies and WUAs, diversification of service providers and developing new partners in investment.  Monitoring of WUAs through benchmarking, management audits and performance assessment indicators is both necessary and critical to evaluate the performance of WUAs. 

The seminar featured a special presentation on the “Role of Farmer Networks in Irrigation and Water Resources Management and a special session on “Capacity Building for PIM”.  Farmer Networks are being increasingly recognized as critical to the building of pressure groups in irrigation sector reforms.  Water User Associations have seldom a voice in partaking in irrigation policy.  The pilot project attempts at ways in which capacities of farmers be built up through farmer networks to enable them to partake in irrigation sector reforms.  The Session on Capacity Building was meant to elicit feedback on the proposed training modules of a forthcoming training program on PIM in Turkey.  This training program is a further improvement on the earlier capacity building course for policy makers held at Bari for a period of five years.  Both these projects happen to be INPIM initiatives which have been started during the year 2004.  Another novel feature of the seminar was the group discussions in which participants were divided into five thematic groups to do a problem analysis on issues relating to Implementation of PIM.  A large number of country presentations were made by Albania, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Georgia, Japan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Madagascar, Philippines, Srilanka, Tanzania and Turkey.  You may download the keynote paper and presentations made at http://www.inpim.org/leftlinks/Seminars/leftlinks/Seminars/Seminars/seventhseminar

Participants had an excellent opportunity to interact with the Albanian farmers during a one day field trip.  Albania initiated reforms in its irrigation sector in 1994 effectively promoting water user associations to undertake rehabilitation works under the first and second irrigation and rehabilitation projects.  The experience has been encouraging as it been able to bring in recognition amongst the farming community to take operation and maintenance of irrigation schemes through water user associations and their federations.  The third project on Water Resources Management in Albania takes the reforms yet to another level of promoting River Basin Councils and the integration of water Enterprises into Drainage boards, which not only undertake drainage management but also river conservation and flood protection.  

The key lessons learnt at the seminar were:

The importance of water user associations in rehabilitating irrigation infrastructure

The complex interplay of internal and external factors in making water user associations productive and sustainable.

Need for capacity building and dialogue

Need for Farmers’ Networks in irrigation sector reforms

Exchange of country experiences

1.      INPIM Executive Director participated in a farmers’ workshop at Barakat, Sudan.

The workshop was organized as a part of the consultative process by the World Bank and the Gezira Farmers’ union.  Sudan is actively considering reforming its Gezira Board by giving a key role to farmers through water user associations.  The Gezira farmers Union, which represents 2 million farmers, is also playing a key role in the process.  The government has constituted an Advisory Team under the leadership of Prof. Abdallah to come up with recommendations for the irrigation reforms.  The advisory team has since been working over the past nine months to work out different options that are pragmatic and can be successfully implemented.  For additional information visit the INPIM web site at: http://www.inpim.org/leftlinks/News/news_item.2004-07-08.4590763835. 

3.      Public-Private Partnerships between Dutch government and water companies.

On 30 Jun 2004, the Minister for Development Cooperation, Agnes van

Ardenne, and the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) signed a covenant focusing on support to governments, knowledge institutes, businesses and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the water sector in developing countries. It is part of the Dutch government's policy to promote greater involvement of the business community in development cooperation. Through the covenant, the scope for public-private collaboration will be studied and private actors will be encouraged to become more involved in the water sector in developing countries. The NWP aims to put Dutch players in touch with local initiatives. Several initiatives have already been launched in the partnership's focal areas of spatial planning and the hydrological cycle. The NWP and the Minister will form a steering group made up of representatives from both parties. The steering group will promote and coordinate joint activities, consult regularly and report every year on the progress to the parties concerned. The covenant will be reviewed every three years.  See: http://www.irc.nl/content/view/full/10609

4.      Punjab plans 3 irrigation projects costing Rs 13b.

The Punjab government has planned three projects worth Rs 13 billion to meet the irrigation and potable water needs in arid areas, which would bring hundreds of thousand acres of barren land under cultivation, said Punjab Irrigation Minister Chaudhry Aamir Sultan Cheema.  He said this while addressing a seminar on Sunday. The minister said under the ‘Flood Management of Hill Torrents’ pilot project, diversionary structures were constructed on Kahala Hill torrents. Mr Cheema said these structures controlled the torrents from flowing into the adjoining areas, which provided precious water to cultivate 75,000 acres of land from 6,000 acres of land in t e past and also preserved the land from destruction.

5.       IMWI New Report

R. Maria-Saleth of IMWI has recently published Research Report 79, Strategic Analysis of Water Institutions in India: Application of a New Research Paradigm.  The overall objective of this paper is to outline the analytical framework and theoretical approach underlying a new research paradigm and illustrate how this paradigm can be used for the strategic analysis of water institutions by applying it to the Indian context.  The report can be obtained from the IMWI website at: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/pubs/pub079/Report79.pdf

“Farmers Networks mobilizes water user associations in India”

A.P. Jalaspandana the farmers Network of Andhra Pradesh has conducted successful project level meetings in Godavari Delta, Krishna Delta and Sriramsagar Projects trying to articulate the need of water user associations. The Network plans to request the Government of Andhra Pradesh to conduct elections to the water user associations.  Under the pilot project, networks have been established in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and TamilNadu.  Mr. Doraiswamy and Mr. Bhavani Prasad attended the seventh international seminar to make a presentation on the farmers network a special session at the seminar.  In all the three states, three independent societies have been registered and memberships are under way.  The network envisages, building up the capacities of farmers and water user associations to take a key role in irrigation sector reforms.

Pragathi the Karnataka farmers network requests the government to enable them to be given a role in the Krishna waters dispute tribunal which is currently reviewing the allocation of water in three basin states of the Krishna River – Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh.  Traditionally, the KWDT makes its awards on claims put in by the respective irrigation agency and Ministry of Irrigation.  The principles of prior appropriation and committed use form the basis for the allocation of water in the River Basins in India.  The allocations form the basis of irrigation development in the State.  This is perhaps the first time that a request is being made by a farmers network to represent the farmers perspective. 

 UPCOMING EVENTS

6. World Water Week, August 16-20, Stockholm.

The aim of the World Water Week is to serve as a link between practice, science, policy and decision making in the search for sustainable solutions for water resources management. While the character of the World Water Week in Stockholm is comprehensive and reflective, the agenda also includes discussions on specific issues. The purpose is to secure a proper tie between problems and their main causes on the one hand, and technology and governance perspectives of problem solving on the other. As a venue for the awarding of distinguished prizes and honours, the World Water Week also focuses attention on outstanding efforts on different water issues.  For additional information visit the web site at: http://www.siwi.org/

7. The Interregional Conference of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) will host its 55^th IEC meeting in Moscow from 5-11 September, 2004. During the Conference, papers will be presented and discussed with respect to two Questions: (1) the role of irrigation and drainage in the strategy of development and maintenance of sustainable and agrolandscapes; and (2) present environmental and economic issues of irrigation and drainage development; and one Special Session on scientific and research problems of irrigation and drainage development in the XXI century.  The aim of irrigation and drainage in the XXI century is to provide population with food through economical use of water resources and water saving under the condition of sustainable development of agriculture and improvement of soil fertility. A matter of particular importance will be the discussion and exchange of experience in solving social and economic problems of irrigation and drainage development faced by the countries resulting from reduction of investments in irrigation and drainage, expansion of privatization processes in water management, in particular the tendency for the transfer of water management functions to organizations of water users, for the introduction of market relations in the countries with transitional economy. For more information, visit the conference web site at:  http://www.icid.org/index_e.html
8. Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems(FMIS) Promotion Trust is organizing its third international semianr on "FMIS and Governance Alternatives" on 9th and 10th September, 2004 in Kathmandu Nepal. Keynote speakers include Prof Wait Coward, Cornell University, USA, Prof. Emmanuel Reynard University of Lausanne Switzerland, Prof Nyoman Sutawan, Academic Staff Member, Udayana university, Indonesia and Charles L. Abnerthy, Consultant Srilnaka. Further details contact FMIS by email at: Dr. Updendra Gautam (cmsug@wlink.com.np) or by phone at +977-1-493664

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