EUROCONSULT: INPIM's First Institutional Member

Editor's note: In an effort to get to know INPIM's institutional members, we invited our very first institutional member, Euroconsult, to tell us about themselves and especially the ways in which the firm is involved with PIM. The category of "institutional" membership is a way for organizations to contribute to, as well as benefit from, the services of INPIM. Institutional members receive multiple copies of each newsletter, and are placed on the mailing list for any INPIM-related training materials (e.g., seminar proceedings, case studies, etc.). Institutional members can also request INPIM's help in identifying suitable consultants, or inquiring about whom to contact for project-related information. Currently, there are 19 institutional members, including government agencies, research institutes, and consulting firms.

ARCADIS Euroconsult (AEC) is a professional consultancy organization with its headquarters in Arnhem, the Netherlands and affiliate organizations in several countries. The firm offers services in agriculture, water, sanitation, urban development, environmental management, institutional change, training, and education. Activities in the water sector cover infrastructure design and project management to national water plans and irrigation sector reform. In the last fifteen years AEC has had an average of 100 to 120 international experts besides a large number of national professionals, working in water projects worldwide. Last year Euroconsult's name changed to AEC, following its merge with ARCADIS, an infrastructure and environmental engineering firm.

Over the past 10 years, the irrigation and drainage projects that AEC has been involved with, has experienced many changes. Initially, our clients wanted us to address mainly problems of a technical/engineering nature; now institutional issues are being identified both by our clients and by ourselves as the problem focus. For our organization, this has required a different expertise mix. In addition to civil engineers, hydrologists and water management specialists, we now employ institutional specialists, financial planners and trainers.

The movement towards participatory irrigation management is probably the most important institutional shift. Initially, participatory irrigation management had the status of a `best practice' that was useful in some cases, but had limited applicability. It was an element of many irrigation development projects that we were involved with from the mid 1980s onwards in Peru, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Typically, these participatory irrigation development projects involved improving relatively small irrigation systems (500 hectares or less) with almost full subsidies for the capital investments. These early projects provided valuable hands-on experience. It soon became clear, however, that participatory irrigation management is more than just `handing over.' It required consultation through all stages of the project, and with more consultation in irrigation system development it also became obvious that more creative designs and a fair measure of flexibility in the design process were required. For example, the farmers and other stakeholders were concerned about planning hydraulic units at manageable sizes, designing water distribution structures that take into account changes in the availability of water, and recognizing the multi-functionality of irrigation systems (e.g., fishing, domestic water supply, and animal drinking places).

Participatory irrigation management also requires farmer organizations to be formed, where they do not yet exist. The need for firm organizational cadres is evident and the process of strengthening groups is equally important. We have had very positive experiences with farmer organizations that implement part of the physical work, either as subcontractors or as prime implementers. Taking such responsibilities has advanced both the social and technical skills of members of farmer organizations.

Recently PIM has come of age. We can see this in the type of assignments that we are engaged in. Almost everywhere PIM is now policy or policy-in-progress. Moreover, new sources of funding are being developed to move away from relying only on government subsidies. At AEC we are increasingly involved in irrigation development projects that are explicitly meant to give shape to new PIM policies. In the Sustainable Irrigated Agriculture Project, for instance, a number of small scale irrigation projects in Laos and Thailand serve as a test case for national policies in participatory irrigation management. In a comparable assignment in West Bengal in India, state river lift irrigation systems are being developed or rehabilitated under the North Bengal Terai Development Project in an effort to define a state-level approach towards PIM. Similarly, in the Third Irrigation Sector Loan in Indonesia, institutional reform was combined with systems development. In such projects there are many issues to be addressed beyond the conventional concerns of irrigation system construction: the new roles of irrigation agencies, including a restructuring of the organization; different mechanisms for collecting revenue; and new legislation and the identification of support for the establishment of farmer organizations.

In large scale irrigation systems, the challenges of incorporating PIM are of an entirely different nature: they require a precise definition and agreement on the water services, provided to farmer organizations, and they call for a vision on how to integrate different water management functions. One of the first large-scale projects that AEC was involved in was the pathbreaking Irrigation Service Fee Project in Indonesia. It introduced the concept of `a service for a fee; a fee for a service' aimed at improving service delivery to farmers and generating more revenue for the irrigation department. Relations between farmers and the irrigation agency became contractual with a third party, the district administration, providing the oversight.

Currently we are developing, together with our affiliate Euroconsult Pakistan, business plans for the first Area Water Board in Pakistan under the Nara Canal Command Pilot Project. This Area Water Board will provide water on a contractual basis to farmer organizations at minors and distributaries over an area of one million hectares. Payments will be made against the volumetric entitlements of different areas with reductions in case of avoidable non-delivery. Management at the secondary level will gradually shift to the farmer organizations. Since 1994 we have been supporting a pilot project in participatory irrigation and drainage management at the secondary level in Egypt under the Fayoum Water Management Project. Another important assignment is the support to the System Rehabilitation Project in Bangladesh. In this project a nation-wide system for the operation and maintenance of Bangladesh's water systems was set up, including the initiation of national guidelines and procedures for participatory irrigation and drainage management. Since the beginning of this year, we have started a similar assignment in Guyana.

Though much progress has been made, there is still a long way to go for PIM. Adding it all up, PIM has not yet been implemented in many parts of the world--particularly in those countries that have the largest areas under irrigation. Equally important are major issues that remain unresolved at the interface of infrastructure and organization in the context of PIM: irrigation designs are often not amenable to local management and farmer organizations and fail to make full use of their autonomy in local integrated water management. If it is true, as we read in the recent INPIM newsletter, that PIM has made its biggest impact in budgetary reform, but that in crop production the difference is less significant, then much more needs to be done.

Lessons Learned

As a consultancy organization, our experience is from the ``front line" of implementation--trying to put PIM into practice. Here are some of the issues that we come across regularly:

Business perspective: With the introduction of PIM, many agricultural subsidies (not only irrigation) are usually removed at the same time. Accurate financial projections are extremely important to ensure that irrigation agriculture will be profitable even without these subsidies. Our experience shows that this is particularly relevant for systems that depend on electric supply, and in countries where agricultural electricity rates are being liberalized. The risk is that irrigation systems may fail not so much because of the new mode of management, but because the financial conditions outside the irrigation system itself have changed. At the same, we also come across many new opportunities for income generation when management authority is transferred to farmers, such as fishery development and tree planting along canal right-of-ways.

The physical condition of the system affects institutional success: Transferring responsibility for the management of an irrigation system that is in bad shape is a sure recipe for institutional disaster. We find that, where possible, irrigation systems should be designed to minimize operational and maintenance costs over the long term, rather than aiming at low capital costs in the initial rehabilitation or construction phase.

Keeping the cost of organizational change under control: It is hard to say what is worse--programs where farmer organizations are assumed to come into being spontaneously and are not resourced or programs where the support to farmer organizations is overresourced and continues endlessly. It is our experience that the development of farmer organizations is most effective if done rapidly, but with an appropriate investment in organizational support and training. Additionally, the physical rehabilitation or development of the irrigation system must be accomplished quickly. Prolonged organizational support is counterproductive; it will raise questions as to what hidden agenda underlies efforts at social mobilization. Endless support is also not possible at the large-scale level required for nation-wide PIM programs. We have, therefore, concluded from our experiences is that faster-paced programs of irrigation management transfer--when aided by a degree of voluntary association--are more cost-effective. We also determined that in large social mobilization programs it is wise to accept that some farmer organizations may not succeed. This is preferable to trying to build in so many provisions against failure that the program of developing farmer groups becomes slow and complicated.

Smart cost recovery: Cost recovery is now a standard component of participatory irrigation development programs. The essence of cost recovery is that service users pay back part of the costs of service provision or capital investment made by others. We think that there is a difference between smart and unfocused cost recovery . Smart cost recovery involves a learning cycle to test and strengthen the social and technical skills of the farmer organizations. Smart cost recovery involves identifying components that farmers (or the farmer organizations) can pay for and manage through implement themselves or contracting out, rather than pursuing the more cumbersome route of repaying work budgeted and commissioned by others.

Follow up: Considerable energy is spent on the organizational reforms in PIM programs, including changes in the irrigation agencies and the establishment of water user organizations. It is not unusual to find that much institutional resistance needs to be overcome to implement PIM. The danger is that, while considerable effort is devoted to the process of organizational change, there is much less attention given to subsequent organizational improvement, both at the agency level and within new water user associations. There are often substantial gains to be made in improved water management and the development of additional activities. To provide support to the new farmer organizations, moreover, a service industry needs to develop, consisting of local suppliers, rental facilities for earthmoving equipment, maintenance contractors, and agricultural advisers. 

And don't forget drainage: Finally, a brief comment on participatory drainage management. AEC has a long history of drainage development. In our experience, the same arguments that apply to PIM also apply to participatory drainage management: high O&M costs for drainage; failures of public agencies to maintain drainage infrastructure; and drainage designs that are not suitable for local control. In addition, there are also important environmental and health issues of saline water disposal and vector-borne diseases. We are now building up a ``critical mass" of experience in many areas, such as adjusting drainage designs, integrated organizations and larger consultation processes. At the same time, though, we see that there is a need for more work, debate, and information exchange in participatory drainage management.

Euroconsult
Beaulieustraat 22, PO Box 441
6800 AK Arnhem, The Netherlands
tel: 31-26-357-7111
fax: 31-26-357-7577