Living with PIM: What Happens After Transfer?

With so much focus on implementing PIM programs, it's easy to forget that there is life after transfer. A recent workshop addressed the issue of how to sustain the transfer after it happens. The workshop, organized jointly by the World Bank's Economic Development Institute (EDI) and theInternational Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI) brought together 32 experts representing countries that have already adopted PIM.

The workshop was held from February 8-16, 1997 at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia, a country which is in the midst of a rapid transfer program. The other country cases were Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and Italy. The workshop was structured around case studies that had been commissioned specifically for the workshop. Copies are available from INPIM (see the section on Suggested Reading). 

Participants addressed three sets of cross-cutting issues relevant to the eight case studies: (1) the introduction of the program ("process"), (2) the economic and social impacts of management transfer ("impacts"), and (3) problems encountered following transfer ("problems"). The workshop attempted to come to some conclusions, which are summarized here:

Process: The enabling environment includes pressure (fianancial crisis, donor conditionality) and opportunity (concurrent changes in the macro-economy, political openings). Clear incentives to both farmers and agency staff need to be put in place. These can be negative (Mexico: support the program or be fired) or positive (Turkey: support the program and be re-assigned from O&M to construction). The intensity of the organizing process varies dramatically from 5 to 6 meetings per system (Turkey) to 300 meetings (Mexico) to live-in organizers (Philippines). A strong legal framework is important, but not necessarily a pre-conditionfor transfer. Old laws may be adequate (Turkey), or new laws can be worked on even as transfer is taking place (Mexico). Similarly, rehabilitation of the infrastructure ranges from central to the PIM process (Philippines), to a topic of non-binding negotiation (Mexico) to irrelevant (Turkey). 

Impact: While all cases of PIM resulted in a ``sense of ownership" on the part of the users, there is little evidence that the end result is a better performing system. Opinion surveys suggest farmers are better off, but in Mexico and Turkey there is no empirical evidence of expanding irrigated areas, or improved productivity or profitability. In Philippines, irrigated area has expanded, but cropping patterns remain thesame. [In Maharashtra, India, cropping patterns have changed and production values increased, but this case was not presented in the workshop.] Financial data offer the most solid basis for claiming benefits in terms of reducing the cost burden to government. In all cases reported, the fee recovery rate, as well as th proportion of O&M costs paid by users, increased after transfer. In Mexico, the users pay about 90% of real O&M costs, compared to about 25% before transfer. And in all cases, the staffing levels of the concerned government agency were reduced as a result of transfer. 

Problems: The new user organizations suffer from financial shortfalls (Mexico, Colombia), insecure water rights and competition fromurban/industrial use (Mexico, Argentina, Colombia), and need for rehabilitation and improvement of the infrastructure (Colombia). There is a continuing, and largely unmet need for technical assistance and management expertise, both in the form of specific support services and training. On the agency side, there is often a loss of technical capacity due to down-sizing, and a general loss of morale is also a danger. The agencies need to find new roles, which may require a new legal mandate. 

While the news is not all good, the informal consensus of the workshop participants was that PIM is working, that it is an improvement over theconventional agency-dominated management approach, and that with a bit of foresight, planning, and post-transfer follow-up, PIM can bring about avery substantial improvement in irrigation management. The basic lesson which I took away from the workshop is that PIM is very much a process.Even the very rapid, "big-bang" examples of implementation, e.g., in Mexico, required a thorough and intensive stage of promotion and organizing, along with legal reforms bolstered by strong policy pronouncements. And once the management is transferred to the users, the role of the state continues to be vital to the health of the user organization. 

- David Groenfeldt, World Bank, dgroenfeldt@worldbank.org