PIM Pilot Projects in Pakistan

In 1997, new legislation established Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities (PIDA) in each of Pakistan's provinces. Under this policy, formal organizations of farmers will become actively involved in secondary canal operations and maintenance. Even before this legislation was passes, several pilot projects were launched in 1995, to try to organize farmers at the secondary (distributary) canal level. This report gives an update on how this experiment is working. It is based on field assessments conducted in March 1998 of nine pilot farmer organization (FO) projects.

The pilot projects cover about 48,300 hectares of canal command in the provinces of NWFP, Punjab and Sindh. Slightly more than 11,000 shareholders (landowners with water rights) are involved.

Table 1: Distributary FO Pilot Projects in Pakistan (March 1998)

NB: Empty cells = missing data

The objectives of the nine pilot projects were to test different approaches and gain experience in developing distributary level farmer organizations. All of the pilot projects have been supported by the Provincial Agricultural Departments through their On Farm Water Management (OFWM) programs. In Punjab, OFWM is the sole implementing agency for two pilot FO projects, and an OECF team is assisting in a third pilot, and IWMI (International Water Management Institute) is assisting in a fourth pilot. In NWFP, an OECF team is assisting with two pilots, and in Sindh, IWMI is assisting with three pilot FO projects.

The provincial irrigation departments have not been actively involved in these nine pilots, and this appears to be the primary factor for the absence of significant progress in transferring management functions to the FOs. To date no distributary FO has become involved in the principal activities of secondary canal O&M; nor have resources been mobilized on a sustained basis for that purpose. There has been limited FO involvement in canal desilting and maintenance, but these activities have been one time, single purpose events.

In terms of developing organizational capabilities, however, the nine pilots have been more successful. In every pilot FO, a formal organization is now in place comprising a representative general body, an executive committee and several officers (which are both being filled by consensus rather than through formal elections). Depending on the size of the canal command, each pilot project has incorporated a two or three-tier FO model and essentially the same process in establishing the FO.

First, WUAs (Water User Associations) have been formed and registered for each watercourse area in the canal's command. In small and medium canals, representatives from each WUA comprise the general body from which executive committee members and FO officers are chosen. In the pilot projects in larger canal commands, an intermediate group of hydraulically-based organizations, WUOs (Water User Organizations) have been established from which the FO was formed. Overall, however, there has been very little experimentation with either institutional form or development process in the nine pilot FO projects.

IWMI's use of selected contact farmers to ensure widespread awareness of the FO development process and to encourage the full participation of the farming community in its pilot projects has been an important contribution to the methodology of forming farmer organizations. After an unpromising start, a now more broadly representative Field Implementation Coordination Committee (FICC) has further facilitated and strengthened the FO in IIMI's pilot projects. FO development appears to have been most successful when well-trained, supervised and technically-supported Social Organizers (SO) have been used. Appropriate data to accurately assess the comparative costs and benefits of these methodological elements, however, are not yet available.

It was evident in all the pilot projects that the new FO needed to be better prepared for assuming direct or supervisory responsibility for distributary canal O&M. Significant opportunities exist for the implementing agencies to actively engage FO officers and the general membership in developing canal operations and maintenance plans, as well as in developing solutions to key operational problems. Demonstrating real FO canal O&M capability could induce the irrigation agencies to become more cooperative with the pilot projects.

No less important is the effective preparation of the FO to assume responsibility for mobilizing the capital resources that will be needed to meet canal O&M requirements. With regard to the latter, the active involvement of the provincial finance departments in the pilot projects will be essential; heretofore their participation has been absent.

Unless the implementing agencies can soon rectify the obvious deficiencies in these key areas in their respective pilot FO projects, the promising beginning in the organization of farmers for participatory irrigation management in Pakistan is unlikely to be sustainable.

Edward J. Vander Velde
330 Greenwich Road, N.E.
Grand Rapids, MI 49506-1226
United States