Irrigation development in Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged significantly behind that in other developing countries. Consequently, economic development and food security are also lagging behind. Since the mid-2000s there has been a resurgence in the willingness to invest in irrigation, and Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest potential of any developing region to benefit from it. However, to gain from new investment in irrigation without repeating past failures, it is critical to develop a business model for small-scale irrigation schemes. This article explores the barriers that such a model needs to address to be successful and the opportunities this represents for irrigators’ profitability.

https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07900627.2016.1263552

Profitability and productivity barriers and opportunities in small-scale irrigation schemes

Donald Worster examines the development history of the American West, identifying the elite of technology and wealth who have controlled its most essential resource: water.

Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West

The objective of this paper is to identify the possible role and opportunities for the private sector to participate with governments and farmers in developing and managing irrigation and drainage (I&D) infrastructure. Over the last 50 years, irrigated agriculture has been vital to meeting fast-rising food demand and has been key to poverty reduction. In the coming years the strong demographic demand for food is expected to continue, and intensified irrigated agriculture will have to provide close to 60 percent of the extra food. However, in recent years, the pace of irrigation expansion has been slowing, there has been less improvement in productivity, and water availability for irrigation is increasingly constrained. Governments have long led the expansion of large-scale irrigation, but performance has been suboptimal, and reforms that have been introduced have proved slow to improve efficiency and water service. Faced with this challenge, the I&D sector has been wrestling with three deep-seated problems: low water use efficiency, a high reliance on government financing, and poor standards of management and maintenance. Much of the search for improved investment and institutional models in I&D has been driven by the need to resolve these three problems. One solution that has been tested over the last two decades has been Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) involving water user associations (WUAs) in the financing and management of schemes. This solution had its logical culmination in irrigation management transfer, the handover of responsibility for scheme operation and maintenance (O&M) to farmers and their organizations. This solution promised to relieve governments of both the fiscal burden and the responsibility for asset management and maintenance and to improve efficiency by empowering farmers. PIM has made impressive strides. However, efficiency has risen only marginally, and there are many schemes where O&M is beyond farmers' capacity.

/pdf/emerging-public-private-partnerships-in-irrigation-1bb33htgd9.pdf

Emerging public-private partnerships in irrigation development and management

This paper aims to provide an international review of water pricing policy with an emphasis on the alignment of costs with prices. The paper raises questions around the mechanics of promoting policy changes for more sustainable irrigation management as well as environmental protection in the future. The information and data used for this review were extracted from available published studies but use was also made of information from research institutions and development organizations, country reports, working papers, conference proceedings, and some unpublished documents. My initial hypothesis was that developed countries are more likely to approach full cost recovery policy for irrigation while in developing countries subsidies were considered more likely. The concept of full cost pricing has been employment in shaping policy in a number of countries, including Europe. Although environmental externalities from irrigation are seen as an important part of irrigation costs, in practice these are seldom included as a component in charges for irrigation. While most developed nations have been promoting full supply cost recovery, subsidies are still dominated in irrigation in both developing and developed countries. Full cost for irrigation water consists of three components: supply cost, economic and resource cost, and environmental cost. Capturing the costs of each component into pricing policy arguably leads to more sustainable development and environmental protection in the water sector. The political will to reach full cost recovery seems beyond most governments.

Water Pricing Policy and Subsidies to Irrigation: a Review

The hope for a unique revolutionary actor in the twentieth century evaporated as a result of the weaknesses of social organisations. This paper examines the potential of an almost-forgotten group o...

The communitarian revolutionary subject: new forms of social transformation

A comparative history, from the 16th to 20th centuries, of irrigation water management in Spain, Mexico, Chile, Mendoza (Argentina) and Peru.

Governance and management of irrigation systems

In this paper, we suggest a typology for distinct types of self-management, based on who carries out the administration and operation of the irrigation system: specialized staff (bureaucratic) or the irrigators themselves (non-bureaucratic). We argue that a specialized staff for irrigation administration and operation characterizes all large systems, but that both small and medium-sized systems may be administered and operated by the irrigators themselves. Both types of organization are described, and special attention is given to the problems posed by bureaucratic organization. The effectiveness of bureaucratic or non-bureaucratic organization is treated from the analytical framework of industry, where issues of efficiency and a preferred cultural model have been framed. Finally, we propose that smallholding and non-bureaucratic self-management of irrigation are linked. Proponemos una tipologiia de autogestioon, basada en quieen realiza la administracioon y operacioon en el sistema hidraaulico: personal especializado (burocraatico) o los mismos regantes (no burocraatico). Argumentamos que el uso de personal especializado para la administracioon y operacioon caracteriza a todos los grandes sistemas de riego, pero que los pequennos y medianos sistemas de riego pueden ser administrados y operados por los mismos regantes. Se describe a ambos tipos de organizacioon, y se da particular atencioon a los problemas peculiares que derivan de una organizacioon burocraatica. La eficacia de la organizacioon burocraatica o no burocraatica es tratada desde el marco analiitico de la industria, donde las cuestiones de la eficiencia y el modelo cultural preferido han sido consideradas. Finalmente, se propone que hay una relacioon causal entre minifundismo y administracioon no burocraatica.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/msem.2006.22.2.361

Self-Management of Irrigation Systems, a Typology: The Mexican Case

En la region de los volcanes en el Estado de Mexico existen controversias entre el municipio y las comunidades sobre quien debe administrar sus recursos; entre ellos seis sistemas de abastecimiento de agua para consumo domestico proveniente del deshielo de los volcanes. Actualmente los seis sistemas conducen agua por gravedad a 12 comunidades, cuya primera administracion estuvo a cargo de la Secretaria de Recursos Hidraulicos (SRH) durante los anos 50 y posteriormente se transfiriera a Comision Estatal de Agua y Saneamiento (CEAS) / Comision del Agua del Estado de Mexico (CAEM), en la decada de los 80. Durante estas tres decadas la distribucion local consistia en cuatro tomas publicas por comunidad. A partir de 1980, debido al incremento de la poblacion, cada comunidad invirtio en su red de distribucion para toma domiciliaria y conformo su propia figura organizativa. Por cambios en la legislacion nacional el municipio debe administrar las redes de distribucion, cobrar las cuotas y pagarle a CAEM el agua que consume. No obstante, las comunidades se han negado a dejar la administracion de sus propias redes de distribucion y para ello se han constituido bajo diversas figuras juridicas: Comite de Bienes Comunales, Comite de Ejidatarios, Delegado Municipal o asociacion civil. La conformacion de estas figuras juridicas corresponde a un vacio juridico que de legalidad a organizaciones comunitarias que realizan una administracion y operacion eficiente en el manejo de sus recursos

http://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/asd/v10n1/v10n1a3.pdf

Las comunidades en la administración de sistemas de agua potable: región de los volcanes, estado de méxico

La propuesta es diferenciar gobierno y administracion en los sistemas de riego, argumentando que el analisis que permite la caracterizacion de esta ultima no se puede realizar observando unicamente el locus de autoridad. Desde la perspectiva de la administracion, hay casos de autogobierno en que los regantes mismos realizan todas las tareas con base en sistemas de conocimiento local, otros en que toda la administracion se encuentra a cargo de personal contratado. Hay casos de administracion burocratica y tecnocratica en sistemas con distinto locus de autoridad (Estado/regantes). Ademas, se propone que mientras el autogobierno de sistemas de riego no parece tener limites de tamano, la administracion sin burocracia ni personal especializado parece estar acotada a sistemas de riego de una extension determinada. No obstante, se argumenta que el gobierno influye sobre el caracter de la administracion, dado que su descentralizacion disminuye o evita que sea burocratica/tecnocratica.

/pdf/gobierno-y-administracion-de-sistemas-de-riego-1wuxgw1x1f.pdf

Jacinta Palerm-Viqueira

Papers

A comparative history, from the 16th to 20th centuries, of irrigation water management in Spain, Mexico, Chile, Mendoza (Argentina) and Peru.

Governance and management of irrigation systems

Self-Management of Irrigation Systems, a Typology: The Mexican Case

Las comunidades en la administración de sistemas de agua potable: región de los volcanes, estado de méxico

Gobierno y administración de sistemas de riego