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Overview
Water Resources Institutions and Policies
Studying and proposing "best institutional and policy practice" for water management in developing countries. Creating a lasting network of institutional policy research groups to drive change.
This research theme
focuses on understanding how governments, communities and entire societies
change their habitual behavior in managing water resources when faced
with water scarcity. To gain this insight requires a detailed study of
laws and rule - making, policies and institutional arrangements in developing
countries - ranging from the community to the regional and national levels.
The goal of this research is to produce knowledge-based guidelines and
best practices in institutions and policies that allow countries to deal
with specific types of water management problems.
This research theme deals with institutional and policy implications of:
- Strategies for enhancing the productivity of water (at national, basin and local levels).
- Building Poverty and Gender concerns into national and subnational water management regimes.
- Managing water scarcity and its consequences.
- Farmer-led/participatory irrigation management.
IWMI has considerable
experience in researching questions relating to water management and institutions.
During its first decade, IWMI did extensive work in more than 15 countries.
It produced influential results highlighting effective approaches to Irrigation
Management Transfer (IMT), from government agencies to water user and
farmer organizations.
Research reports published by IWMI on this topic have become an important resource. They are used frequently by many groups of specialists when designing new institutional strategies for effective water management programs. This group includes international organizations, government agencies, research institutes and experts from developing countries.
As IWMI's research
focus evolved from irrigation management to water resources in the river
basin context, the Institute's institutional and policy research also
included the river basin perspective. Since 1995 research has focused
on river basin institutions and management.
- To understand the institutional arrangements and policy frameworks that have the highest potential to improve the productivity of water in ways that promote livelihoods for poor men and women, and environmental sustainability. This will be done through a program of thorough systematic comparative research.
- To identify, test and evaluate research-based guidelines for water policy reform that lead to more effective management of water in river basins. The avenues explored will include organizational options and roles and support systems for the local management of irrigation.
- To test and validate the application of internationally established best practices so that they are effective in the regional and subregional contexts
The following targets will guide the research focus of the Water Institutions and Policies research theme. This research will:
- Significantly facilitate and influence the process and design of the Catchment Management Agency as it evolves in the Olifants river basin in South Africa.
- Significantly shape and influence the development of Pakistan's Irrigation Management reform program.
- Organize 25 Policy Dialogues over five years, and do necessary follow-up activities to ensure that the IWMI Policy Dialogue emerges as a significant platform for raising and discussing front-line water policy issues on an annual basis-in India, Pakistan, China and South Africa.
The outputs of this theme will be applied to institutional and policy research products, such as guidelines and examples of best practices from other countries and river basins. These products will be targeted at national policy makers and at the international and national research communities.
Close partnerships will be developed with some 25 institutions in 8-10 IWMI priority countries, to create a network of institutional and policy research groups that will share research results.
1. Producing case
studies of innovative and large-scale water-sector institutional and policy
reform programs and an ongoing synthesis of the lessons learned.
2. Financing water service delivery mechanisms.
3. Analyzing the negative gender and poverty impacts of: water scarcity,
river basin "closing," competition for water in basins, and
exploring strategies for mitigating these.
4. Analyzing institutional arrangements for river basin management to
identify best practices that can be transferred to help others.
5. Analyzing water conflicts and alternative approaches to managing them.
6. Water policy modeling and scenario generation, as with the policy dialogue
model, PODIUM.
7. Policy analysis, using a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, issue-based
approach.
8. Policy roundtables, consultations and other mechanisms for research-based
advocacy, supported by the targeted dissemination of research results
to achieve maximum impacts.
Effectiveness of
Water Resources Management
Developing and supporting the implementation of policies and institutional
strengthening programs that will lead to improved management of water
used in agriculture.
Studies in Pro-Poor
Interventions in the Irrigation Sector in Asia
Identifying the pro-poor potential of interventions in the irrigation
sector by evaluating the impact of past investments in irrigation development
and management.
Institutional Support
Systems for Water-short Basins
Developing practical policy guidelines for designing and strengthening
support systems for local irrigation management.
Impact Assessment
of Infrastructure Development on Poverty Alleviation
Assessing the impacts of infrastructural development on poverty alleviation
in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, developing performance indicators to measure
the impact of infrastructure projects.
Local Water Management
in South Africa
Identifying methods to increase agricultural productivity of small-scale
irrigation systems and developing improved institutional arrangements
for productive, socially equitable and sustainable irrigation systems
in the Northern Province of South Africa.
Institutional Arrangements
for Improving Water Management, Central Asia
Evaluating water user associations in the three countries sharing the
Ferghana Valley (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), analyzing legal
and institutional constraints to effective water management, and monitoring
variables affecting water productivity and agricultural performance.
Background
Objectives
Impacts/Outputs
Key Research Activities
Project Portfolio 2001
Logical Framework
Publications List and Links
Water
users associations in Central Asia—a model for others?
PRO-POOR INTERVENTION -
Stategies in Irrigated Agriculture in Asia