Andean project promotes farmer involvement in irrigation development

The benefits of including farmers in irrigation planning are widely accepted. But there are few concrete examples or practical models. The Andean Community Irrigation Project is a working example of best practice useful for governments and development organizations interested in planning and implementing irrigation projects with farmers instead of for them.

The goal of the collaborating organizations—spearheaded by the Netherlands Development and Cooperation Service (SNV) and the Ecuadorian Agricultural Service Central (CESA)—was to create an irrigation system that meets the precise social and agricultural needs of this farming community and one that the farmers can manage themselves. They realized this would not be possible without the farmers’ participation in all stages of the project process.

The government had already attempted to develop an irrigation scheme in the area without consulting or involving the farmers it was intended to benefit. This effort failed. The approach adopted by the Andean Community Project uses the community’s irrigation knowledge and social structure as the starting point.

The Andean project’s participatory approach to community irrigation design teaches some common lessons that can benefit communities across the developing world. For example:

• The use of visual and hands-on models to make the process more "farmer friendly". One of the challenges of involving farmers in planning is bridging the communication gap between irrigation engineers and rural people. In the Andean project, the farmers, who had a difficult time understanding topographical maps and technical jargon, found it easy to relate to the plastic models. The project leaders brought the models to them, in their villages, enabling men and women to ask questions, bring up concerns, and make suggestions in the comfortable context of community discussions.

• Requiring men and women to earn their rights to irrigation water by participating in the design, construction and management of the system. Andean farmers have taken this exceptionally democratic approach to building up water rights and ensuring community participation for centuries: you earn your rights with your hands and head, rather than just by paying dues.
  
  
• Including both men and women equally in the process. Because many of the men have left in search of work outside the community, the majority of the farmers are women. Involving them in the planning was one of the major challenges of the project. Standard methods of encouraging community participation, like the distribution of leaflets and brochures, failed to capture this largely illiterate audience. Village meetings conducted in the native language of Quichua proved much more effective. The project also trained women to be irrigation leaders and promoters and provided them with technical skills. Their names are included on the irrigation roster along with those of their husbands, fathers, brothers. This new practice acknowledges their role as irrigators and allows them to earn water rights on their own behalf and that of their families.

To share the lessons they learned with others in the Andean Region, the collaborating organizations documented their experiences on video tape and developed an irrigation project guide. The guide can be downloaded in English or French from the International Water Management Institute’s website, www.iwmi.org. Jacobijn van Etten explains the Institute’s promotion of the guide, "We think the lessons learned extend beyond geographic boundaries. This project reflects a rather unconventional but quite effective dialogue with the farmers. For organizations involved in irrigation projects that target the rural poor, especially poor women, it offers some valuable ideas."