Sixth International Seminar on PIM

The Sixth Seminar on PIM. The seminar was held in Beijing from April 21 to April 26, 2002, and attracted more than 172 participants from 28 countries namely Albania, Australia, Cambodia, China, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Vietnam. The China seminar brought together a diverse group of professionals that are each engaged in irrigation management work from a wide variety of disciplines to discuss the theme "Options for User Participation in Irrigation and Drainage". They each represented a number of organizations, both public and private.

The seminar included a rich and varied array of presentations(see seminar program), site visits, and both formal and informal dialogue that yielded an intellectually stimulating event. The country presentations were insightful and contributed to expanding the participants' understanding of various aspects of participatory irrigation management (PIM) and pointed to the challenges that lay ahead for PIM practitioners. The field visits were well organized and very thought provoking as they demonstrated China's commitment to PIM and innovative irrigation reform. It is expected that seminar participations will be able to use concepts and examples discussed during the seminar and in this document, to define a set of options that they can explore and evaluate as they participate in the design of institutional reform programs in the irrigation and drainage sectors of their countries.

The keynote paper titled "Institutional Options for Reform in Irrigation and Drainage" was written by Sam Johnson III, Mark Svendsen, and Fernando Gonzalez and provided the overall background of the seminar. It described the various institutional approaches that are being used in irrigation management and explores the dimensions of the national contexts within which they are being implemented. The presentation on Irrigation Sector Reforms in Asia provides interesting insights on the approaches emerging in the continent.

The seminar had a large number of presentations highlighting the different institutional arrangements in managing irrigation from participants and resrouce persons. Presentations were made on Netherlands(Water Boards), France (Canal Du Provence), Australia(Murray Darling Comision), Albania, Andhra Pradesh (India), Cambodia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, BCIAP project, Philippines and USA, provoking intense discussion. Since the seminar was held in China a large number of presentations were made on China such as PIM in China,Irrigation Management in China, SIDD Model of China, PIM in the Piyun Project. A special presentation was made on the Role of Communications in Irrigation Reform with a case study of Reforms in Andhra Pradesh, and the outcomes of the iternational email conference on irrigation management transfer, jointly conducted by INPIM and FAO.  In addition the seminar also funded a research study on participatory irrigation management conducted by Peter Mollinga of the Wageningen University. An interesting presentation was made by Pierre Lacarelle on the experience of private sector particpation in irrigation a case from France.  Finally a presentation was made on the Third World Water Forum to be held in Kyoto in March 2003 along with a presentation by the Ministry of Agriculture, Japan on the multifunctionality of paddy cultivation.

You may download the seminar proceedings in .pdf format. The detailed proceedings with complete set of presentations is published on CD Rom by INPIM.