Farmer Field Schools

In the previous blog posts, I tried to highlight the importance of community participation in water management and, in the last one, I started reflecting on the most effective methods to enhance this aspects: which community participation formats can be introduced?

Among the solutions implemented by FAO, there are also Farmer Field Schools (FFS)
These are groups of farmers who, on a voluntary basis, weekly gather to:
-discuss about problems in land and and water management;
-exchange techniques drawing from their own experience to find solutions;
-learn good soil and water management practices, guided by the FFS facilitator*, and test them through field experiments;
-collectively monitor data, such as soil moisture, number of pests and beneficial creatures.
*The FFS facilitator is usually an extension worker or a previous participant of a FFS who has 'graduated', thus has attended meetings for the whole duration of the crop season.

I believe one important aspect to focus on is that sharing of local practices among farmers and learning of techniques presented by the facilitator are complementary aspects of information exchange.

Farmer presenting her results of field observations and agro-ecosystem analysis during weekly Farmer Field School sessions, Kendewa village, Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka, 2002. Photo: Henk van den Berg

Credits: http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Issue/pn61/pn61p3.htm

It could be interesting analysing FFS in view of the three main principles of IWRM: equity, efficiency and environmental sustainability, after recognising that land management -the main decision area of FFS- is strictly related to water use.

-Equity:
The aim of FFS is that of stimulating community members to participate in the decision making process about water and land management.
One of the strengths of these projects is that people participate on a voluntary basis.
Moreover, as I mentioned above, they also choose what are the main areas they want to learn about.
Also, exchange of local agricultural practices gives relevance to Indigenous Knowledge.
FFS enhances equal participation of community members in decisions within the school (but, indirectly, also in other situations in community life) through women's involvement and access to leadership roles; engagement in elections; collective funds management, which increases social responsibility.
Perhaps, the last point is one of the most important aspects to improve. As FAO (2006) reports, FFS members should be kept more updated about the financial situation and regularly involved in the discussion about budget.
The FAO document also points out the need to encourage self-financed farmers schools. Perhaps this can be achieved implementing microcredit systems, as microfinance management groups can have similar sizes and organisational structure of FFS.

-Efficiency:
FFS also intend to increase economic efficiency by enhancing agricultural productivity -measured in change in yield per hectare, returns to labour, returns to input- due to the introduction of more efficient techniques, change in land use (for example, diversification of crops) and increase in soil fertility.
However, cost-benefit analysis led by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) in 2014, registers that FFS are unlikely to be cost effective because of their high per capita costs, which can be offset only by a high adoption rate (the percentage of participants in the projects among all the sustained adopters).
It might be argued that the financial sustainability problem is actually an issue related to lack of access of information about FFS benefits to potential adopters. In this sense, the voluntary basis of these schools is disadvantageous only if communities do not have proper information about the project itself.

-Environmental sustainability:
Environmental objectives of FFS include: increase of biodiversity and water quality and decrease of pollution and soil erosion.
Beyond stated purposes of FFS, studies evaluating their environmental impacts are contrasting.
The above mentioned document of 3ie refers to an impact evaluation of FFS programs in Indonesia, which reports lack of their effectiveness in improving a better use of pesticides. On the other hand, other studies registering reductions in pesticides use are mentioned.

To sum up, FFS impacts are quite controversial; especially in large-scale assessment which lack data, as most analysis focus on specific case studies, as reported in a document for the International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD, 2011).
Perhaps the question if FFS are effective in general can be reframed as how FFS can be effective on a local basis, adapting characteristics of this learning tool to specific community features -for example, understanding which are the most suitable methods to engage community in FFS.


Sources:
Braun A., Duveskog D., (2011) The Farmer Field School Approach - History, Global Assessment and Success Stories Background paper for the IFAD Rural poverty report.
FAO (2006) Farmer field schools on land and water management in Africa - Proceedings of an international workshop in Jinja, Uganda, 24–29 April 2006.

http://www.fao.org/nr/land/sustainable-land-management/farmer-field-school/en/

Waddington, H., White, H., and Anderson, J. (2014). Farmer field schools: from agricultural extension to adult education. Systematic Review Summary, 1.

Remote sensing technology and community participation

In a previous post, I mentioned how communities can be empowered by providing them with relevant information to become active decision makers in water supply management.

One might think about which kind of information would be more relevant for them.
As regards this question, a recent article on FAO news section reports the decision of the Dutch government to enhance their cooperation with the UN agency by investing $7 million in remote sensing technology to monitor and improve water use for agriculture in Near East and Africa.

'Example of an interpreted satellite image: Blue showing areas with good water-to-yield ratios, yellow showing areas with poor-water-to-yield ratios'

Credits: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/346377/icode/

Thus, this led me to think about the possible usefulness of giving communities access to data collected with this system. As a matter of fact, the purpose of the four-year program is to update a data portal of interpreted real-time remote sensing images -inclusive of data of inputs, such as rainfall and crop transpiration. Thus, experts can quickly identify the causes of low land productivity.

What seems interesting about this project is the possibility to share satellite images of the state of cropped areas to farmers, in order to show the success of good practices in scientific terms and stimulate the discussion about more productive techniques on the basis of the specific characteristics of land. The aim is that of improving water productivity in local agriculture. In this way, environmental sustainability, economic efficiency and community participation -three key elements of IWRM- would be improved. Still, I think that the most appropriate methods to give access to these data and discuss about them have to be explored.

Another aspect worth noting is that images in the database are already 'interpreted'. This can remedy the well-known 'lack of capacity and resources' of governments to 'analyze and work' with data resulting from remote sensing techniques (World Grain). But it does not seem clear how this interpretation will be conducted.

Finally, one might think about the possibility to link the spatial scales of analysis (continental level over the whole of Africa and Near East, country and river basin level and, irrigation scheme level) to decision-making levels. Thus, how it can be ensured that the voices of communities living in the river basin can access to the lower spatial scale data and they -and not only authorities at higher levels- are considered relevant actors in IRBM.

Sources:
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/346377/icode/
http://www.un-spider.org/news-and-events/news/fao-develop-database-support-water-scarce-countries
http://www.world-grain.com/articles/news_home/World_Grain_News/2015/08/Database_to_help_water_scarce.aspx?ID=%7B7DB8D43E-0348-4B13-A0B1-E6F9DE5241F7%7D&cck=1

Community management or community participation?

This week's blog will be about some reflections on two articles focusing on community participation in water supply management.

Both Carter and Howsam (1999) and Harvey and Reed, (2006) report some problems in community water supply and sanitation programs, identified by the authors as reasons of unsustainability.
I tried to reorganise them in two groups:

• Problems due to dissaffection with water supply projects, due to absence of participation of communities at different levels -mainly in decision-making and information sharing;

This takes the form of lack of sense of responsibility for the water supply facilities; doubts about the desiderability of new facilities; absence of trust in the water committee; abandonment of roles in the committee.

• Problems due to lack of institutional support to communities;

The authors report that communities lacking financial and technical resources,can hardly maintain or replace facilities without long-term support from governments and NGOs.

So, what are the possible strategies to cope with these problems?

• As regards the first set of problems, Harvey and Reed suggest that a necessary condition for sustainability is not community management, but community participation, as groups expressing a high sense of ownership still present low levels of sustainability. They consider community management one aspect of participation and express the idea that sometimes the latter does not even imply a real involvement of locals when it is only the result of governments' decision to get rid of their operation and maintenance responsibilities. 

Therefore, a good strategy might seem that of providing communities with information about all the possible systems of management, financing and maintenance in order to enable them to decide among various options with a sufficient level of knowledge. 

For example:

1) management: what are the 'boundaries' of the community? do locals prefer to organise themselves in smaller groups, based on households? which techniques should be used? is 'indigenous knowledge' considered? -in this last case, it seems important to highlight that the preliminary information exchange is not only unidirectional (from external agencies/experts to communities), but also bidirectional (form communities to external agencies/experts);
2) financing: how do member contribute? are there alternative types of contributions for low income families (e.g. providing labour force)?;
3) and maintenance: is the community responsible for maintenance? if so, how are roles assigned and how are members replaced? if not, can private sector take this responsibility?;
It can be argued that communities which choose the desired water management scheme, with a specific division of roles according to the every community member's willingness, are less likely to distrust the committee or abandon their roles.
Moreover, it seems that another important aspect of community participation is receiving correct information about the effects of water supply projects; so that institutions proposing these programs can maintain their credibility and there are less probabilities that locals do not support future projects taking into account that benefits promised failed to materialise.

• The second aspect, addressing the second group of problems, which might be taken into account is a greater institutional financial and technical support.

This can take various form, including training schemes to enable communities to maintain their facilities -in case they decide that this duty is a responsibility of the community.

In conclusion, these papers seem to reinforce the idea that what is really crucial is community empowerment: enabling communities to become active actors of the decision making process in possession of all revevant information.


Sources:

Carter, R. Tyrell, S. and P. Howsam (1999) ‘Impact and sustainability of community water supply and sanitation programmes in developing countries’ Journal of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, 13(4), pp. 292–296

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-6593.1999.tb01050.x

Harvey, P. A., & Reed, R. A. (2007). Community-managed water supplies in Africa: sustainable or dispensable?. Community Development Journal, 42(3), 365-378.

Community involvement in financing and maintaining water facilities

In this week's post I will just attempt to highlight two interesting points of  a research on water supply services in Rwanda and Uganda by Golooba-Mutebi.

Who pays for water facilities and how?
The research reports difficulty in collecting money in Ugandian local communities to finance the construction of water sources. The solution has been asking for other types of contribution, such as materials, free labour force, accommodation and food for technicians.
It might be seen as a more feasible strategy to ensure financial sustainability of water facilities, by taking into consideration the real resources which communities can offer in exchange.
However, the question whether communities (instead of state administrations) should be responsible for financing water sources remains open. It might be argued that this solution can increase the communities' sense of ownership of facilities, a crucial issue I have mentioned in my last post.

Who maintains water facilities?
Golooba-Mutebi highlights the relation between lack enforcement mechanisms in water facilities maintenance operated by local communities and their ineffective management.
The author suggests that assigning a definite role to one individual, rather than transferring maintenance responsibilities to the whole community, might be more distant from the theoretical principle of public participation, but has proven to be more effective.
Therefore, a cause for reflection could be thinking if participation in water facilities maintenance implies the indistinct attribution of responsibilities to the community, or if it entails the involvement of locals in finding agreed solutions on how to manage them (including the choice of who is responsible for maintenance).

I hope to further explore these themes in the next posts.
Thanks again for reading this last post, and feel free to correct and comment it!



References:

Golooba-Mutebi F. (2012). ‘In search of the right formula: public, private and community-driven provision of safe water in Rwanda and Uganda’, Public Administration and Development 32 (4-5): 430–443.

Community participation in Tanzania

After a quick glance at a Chinese case, I have moved back to public participation in Africa, in particular to the Tanzanian case studies reported in a paper by Dungumaro and Madulu (2003),

The authors highlight the importance of community participation in water resources management not only from an ethical perspective (ensuring democracy and equity), but also for practical purposes.

As a matter of fact, they claim that development projects which lack public involvement can end up in failure and lead to conflicts between stakeholders. 

A reported example of failure is the Msanzi Irrigation Project, planned and implemented by Rukwa Development Project (RUDEP), a development programme of the Norwegian government, with an estimated value of about 70 million US dollar (2009). According to the authors, the local government stopped funding the irrigation scheme, as it was designed without any consideration of the indigenous techniques used for the construction of the previous Msanzi Irrigation Scheme, which had been destroyed by a series of floods.
In a Review Mission of February 1987 (quoted in a study of the RUDEP impact), it is only mentioned that central government funds were diverted to other sectors; but causes are not specified. In the study there is also a reference to the lacking 'sense of 'ownership and responsibility for the gift [emphasis added] they [the local communities] had received', without questioning the reasons of it.
However, the authors of the study also mention a training progma to promote village level management.

A case of conflicts between stakeholders is the one in the Pangani basin, in which there have been contentions for water use in farming and irrigation, pasture, hydro-power and domestic purposes.
The Pagani Falls Development project tried to solve this conflicts by instituting the Pangani Basin Water Office, in charge of 'allocating, managing, monitoring and controlling water use in Pangani Basin' (2007), One of the reported strengths of the Office is its capability of representing and defending upstream and downstream stakeholders interests.
Therefore, it seems that public participation could be analysed as an important factor for development programs success.
Dungumaro and Madulu list as channels for community involvement: public hearings, notice and comment procedures and  institution of advisory committees.

But what this channels should be used for? What should be content of public participation?
They highlight the importance of enabling communities to identify and report their specific needs, interests and water use problems. An important role is played by programs aimed at providing locals with negotiation skills, as being able to communicate opinions is crucial for communities.

In the paper there is also a great emphasis on the need to consider indigenous knowledge (ID), defined by the World Bank as the local system of 'skills, experiences and insights of people, applied to maintain or improve their livelihood'. As local communities have a deep knowledge of the specific features of their environment, it is suggested that indigenous knowledge is taken into account as a database for 'practical, relevant, achievable and acceptable solutions [emphasis added] to water related problems'.
Also the UN Agenda 21 deals with the relevance of the 'improvement of indigenous technologies 'to fully utilize limited water resources and to safeguard those resources against pollution' (1992).

Indigenous knowledge encompasses not only practical solutions, but also legal and cultural instruments for water resources protection.
By way of example, the authors refer to bye-laws aimed at limiting human activities near sources of drinking water effected in the rural areas of Mwanza Region. An interesting case is the Integrated Water Resources Management Project in the Ghanaian Volta region: the catchment inclusive of its vegetation was declared sacred to prevent cultural activities and waste accumulation in the area. This 'cultural' (rather than 'legal') prohibition proved to be effective for water quality maintenance.

Different types of training and educational programs are also considered of great importance. Besides the above mentioned projects to reinforce communicative and negotiating skills, Dungumaro and Madulu mention educational activities to enhance the understanding of correlation between human behaviour and waterborne diseases in the Tonga water resource management project (South Africa) and training programs to provide local communities with skills to properly maintain irrigation infrastructures.

All the activities aimed at increasing public participation seem to be relevant in raising the sense of responsibility and ownership of water management schemes and, thus, in guaranteeing the effectiveness of projects.
The very central idea of community involvement appears to be community empowerment: that is, not (or not only) transferring skills and technologies from experts to locals, but empowering communities with capacity to communicate their views to experts, negotiate with them and other stakeholders and implement their own solutions.




Sources:

Dungumaro, E.W. and Maduly, N.F. 2003. Public participation in integrated water resources management: the case of Tanzania. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 28, 1009-1014.

Alf Morten Jerve and E.J.K. Ntemi 2009. Rukwa Ruka. The attempt of a foreign donor to uplift a neglected region: A study of the impact of Norwegian aid to Rukwa Region, Tanzania. Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI Report R 2009: 12) 98 p.

Kimwaga, R. J., and S. Nkandi 2007. Evaluation of the Suitability of Pangani Falls Redevelopment 

(Hydro Power) Project in Pangani River Basin, Tanzania: An IWRM Approach.

United Nations (UN) 1992. Agenda 21: The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio - Chapter 18 'Protection of the Quality and Supply of Freshwater Resources'. United Nations, New York, USA.

http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/basic.htm

Public participation: a case study from China

In this new post, I will try to comment a paper not focused on an African region, but interesting in its contents.

Liu Jingling, Luan Yun, Su Liya, Cao Zhiguo, Zeng Baoqiang (2010) conducted a research about public participation in the upper and middle reaches of Haihe river basin.

They have divided the area in three parts: Anyang and Baoding city as urban modules, Qingfeng and Laishui county as rural modules, Boai and Anxin county as eco-sensitive area.

By measuring public participation in terms of  water environment satisfaction, willingness and actual participation rate, they have been able to rank the three areas in this order: eco-sensitive >urban>rural modules.

According to their analysis, the most relevant drivers of participation level (and, therefore, the explanatory causes of differences between the studied areas) are:

-Importance of river basin environment as income source (such as fishery and tourism) and significance of benefits derived by environmental protection.

-Past environmental incidents, which raised environmental awareness. The authors report the case of the "Dead Fish Incident" in 2000 and 2006, which brought to the attention of locals the damages of water pollution and stimulated their demand for environmental protection.

-Inadequacy of channels for public participation:

 Governmental initiatives are limited, mainly aimed at enhancing the public's environmental  awareness, but not at involving them into the WRM process, in particular in policy-making.  Specialised laws are usually not stipulated and procedures for public participation are not clearly  defined.

 In many cases media take on the government's duty to inform the river basin inhabitants, who  passively receive information.

 School education has a minor contribution in providing environmental knowledge and education.

The first two points seem to be more related to the public willingness to participate, while the third point on their actual possibility to participate granted by institutions.

The research also shows a high correlation between the environmental awareness and the willingness to participate. Citizens with a good knowledge of water pollution risks are more prone to take on water resources management responsibilities, as they are aware of water pollution damages. Therefore, it could be argued that, in this case, participation in water management, whose environmental awareness is one of the preconditions, can reinforce environmental sustainability, one of the three principles of IWRM.

At the same time, the authors highlight the lack of a 'commonly-recognized river basin value' and integration of activities between upper and middle reaches' inhabitants. Moreover, they also stress that publicity, education and participation arrangements were not adjusted to the specific features and needs of the urban and rural areas.

Therefore, it seems that the following scheme for public participation improvement in WRM could be drawn, by recapping the main results and suggestions of this paper.

Furthermore, increases in willingness to participate and in possibility to participate could also be considered mutually-reinforcing: governmental initiatives for public participation are likely to raise in response to a higher demand by well informed stakeholders, and the existence of opportunities to participate in WRM stimulates interest among locals who are informed about them.

Again, I am always grateful to anybody interested in suggesting/correcting/criticising, even more now that I am trying to develop more personal and critical recaps of my readings!

Sources:
Jingling, Liu, et al. "Public participation in water resources management of Haihe river basin, China: the analysis and evaluation of status quo." Procedia Environmental Sciences 2 (2010): 1750-1758.

The social context of water management

In this second post I will try to briefly comment some aspects of the human dimension of water management - always from the humble point of view of an undergraduate student. Therefore, comments, suggestions and corrections on form and contents are always very welcome!

It would maybe be obvious saying that the human dimension of water management should be considered as crucial.
But acually it seems that the 'profile of the human factor in Hydrology' (Saveniie and Van der Zaag, 2008) did not receive wider attention until the 1980s.
In those years, social and ecological constraints gained a greater importance in water management, which in the 1960s and 1970s was predominated by the 'predict and provide' engineering approach.

Savaniie and Van Der Zaag define integrated water resources management in terms of four dimensions, one of which is the 'Water users' one.
This dimension takes into account all the aspects related to water users, the functions they need water for, the quality and quantity of water required.

But it might be said that the 'human factor' does not only consist of the consideration of stakeholders as passive recipients of water management projects, but as active actors in the decision process.

It seems that a participatory approach is crucial to ensure the effectiveness of water management policies. I'll refer just to one case study: the construction  of improved wells in Sierra Leone, mainly undertaken by Integrated Agricultural Development  Projects (IADP).

Bah (1987) reported that in two villages, Gboworbu and Kambia, the improved wells contributed about 5 and 10 per cent respectively to the households’ measured water consumption and only 1 per cent to on-farm water use. The main reason (although this is a simplification of the research) is the distance of improved wells, mainly concentrated in the villages, from farms. Transporting water is difficult, especially during periods of labour shortages, when farmers organise themselves in labour groups of 10-14 peope and therefore greater amounts of water need to be carried to the farms.
Maybe a different allocation of wells, taking into consideration the villagers' activities and the locations in which water is required, would have been more efficient.
Other surveys show that the position of wells affects their use by villagers. For example, the drinking water provided by wells close to mosques is more likely to be used for washing. While headmen can charge on wells located inside their compounds.
It seems that a deeper understanding of village dynamics -in terms of activities, traditions and power relations- could be achieved by involving locals in the decision process (mainly listening to them), in order to make them active actors.

In this sense, we can consider how Van der Zaag (2005) imagines the role of the water manager 'a person who has the capacity and skill to facilitate the decision process, and support it with relevant information. This implies a break with conventional engineering skills that were geared to predict and provide . We now seem to accept that not any one person can claim to know what is the right solution to a problem. The right solution is the agreed solution;the solution over which consensus among all interested parties has been reached—a truly African value'.

Sources:
Bah, O. M. "Community participation and rural water supply development in Sierra Leone." Community Development Journal 27.1 (1992): 30-41.
Savenije, H. H. G., and P. Van der Zaag. "Integrated water resources management: Concepts and issues." Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C 33.5 (2008): 290-297.
Van der Zaag, Pieter. "Integrated Water Resources Management: Relevant concept or irrelevant buzzword? A capacity building and research agenda for Southern Africa." Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C 30.11 (2005): 867-871.

Integrated Water Resources Management - Problematizing the concept

W e l c o m e  everybody!

I have created this blog as part of the undergraduate course 'Water and Develoment in Africa' at UCL.

I will try to focus on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and, particularly, on the principle of equity.

I absolutely have no experience in blogging (and, moreover, on such a complex issue with my limited competences of an undergraduate exchange student). 

Therefore, feel free to comment with suggestions, corrections or reflections; I would be really glad to hear from you and learn more.

I drew inspiration for the blog's title from a Swahili proverb reported in Taylor (2004): "maji ya kifufu ni bahari ya changu', translated as 'water in a coconut shell is like an ocean to an ant', which tells how our perception of resources can change in relation to the context. 

Anyway, here is my first post:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Everyone is for integrated water resources management: 

no matter what it means, no matter whether it can be implemented, 

or no matter whether it would actually improve water management processes”.

Biswas (2008) paraphrases Roosevelt's sentence “Everyone is for conservation: no matter what it means!” to reflect on the vagueness of the Integrated Water and Resources Management (IWRM) concept.

After definining IWRM, will try to introduce a brief problematization of this concept, mainly following Biswas' critiques.

Defining IWRM...

The most widespread and recognised -as it is also mentioned in the UNESCO Integrated Water Resources Management in Action: Dialogue Paper (Hassing, 2009)- definition of IWRM has been provided by the Global Water Partnership (GWP).

The GWP was established in 1996 by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to promote IWRM.

According to the GWP definition (GWP, 2000), 

"IWRM is a process which promotes the co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.

Although this definition might seem embreaceble by everyone for its holistic approach, it also lacks precision and entails internal contradictions.

...Problematizing IWRM

An historical overview: IWRM as a new and widely shared concept?

The GWP (2003) and Hassing sustain that the main concepts of IWRM have been inspired by the four Dublin Principles, contained in the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development (1992), on the essentiality and vulnerability of water; the importance of a participatory approach in water management and development; the central role of women in provision, managing and safeguarding of water; the recognition of water as an economic good.

The document has been adopted at the closing session of  the International Conference on Water and the Environment (ICWE) in Dublin in 1992, aimed to formulating "new approaches to the assessment, development and management of freshwater resources".

Conversely, Biswas argues that this concept builds on the decennal activity of the United Nations since the 1950s and it has been expressed in more significantly in the Report (1977) of the United Nations Water Conference held at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in which representatives of 116 states took part.

Moreover, he also sustains a wider and more representative participation in the above mentioned intergovernmental meeting, rather than in the Dublin Conference, which he defines as a "meeting of experts". However, his position could be reviewed taking into account that the 500 participants of the Dublin Conference came from 114 countries and included 28 United Nations agencies and organisations and 58 non governmental and intergovernmental organisations (Mitchell, 2005).

Therefore, despite the large range of countries represented in both meeting, the question whether the absence of government delegates in the 1992 conference might have obstructed the implementation of the undefined criteria of IWRM, which -as the GWP affirms- draw inspiration from the Dublin Principles.

No operational definition, no implementation nor assessment.

The quotation in the opening lines of the post clearly show Biswas' strong criticism against the vagueness of GWP's definition of IWRM.

He states that the definition is not operational, not translated into measurable parameters. 

Without a clear plan of actions which have to be taken, IWRM principles of efficiency, equity and sustainability can hardly be implemented by policy makers and even be unanimously interpreted.

According to Biswas, even the individuals and the institutions who more than others have endorsed IWRM, do not have a clear idea of what it actually means.

As IWRM criterias are not defined, it is difficult to assess the policies built on them.

Biswas does not hesitate to label these policies as "dismal" . 

He bases his judgement on the Third World Centre for Water Management (of whose he is the founder) 'extensive analyses and researches' which 'indicate that on a scale of 1 to 100 (1 being no integrated water resources management and 100 being full integration), one is hard pressed to find even a single macro- or meso-level water policy, programme or project anywhere in the world that can be given a score of 30, based on medium- to long-term performance.'

This data seem to come from a survey conducted among the participants of a conference organised by the Third World Centre for Water Management evaluate the "status and extent of implementation of IWRM in the Latin American countries" (Biswas, 2008).

It might be argued that the results of this result could be more considered a proof of the absence of a common interpretation, rather than a failure of IWRM.

Behind the "Nirvana concept" of IWRM: in whose interests?

After introducing some critiques against the innovative nature and the concreteness of IWRM, it might be interesting to understand what hides behind this concepts, according to its who is skeptikal about it.

Molle (2008), defines  "Nirvana concepts" as "concepts that embody an ideal image of what the world should tend to", based on the opposite of faulty reality and impossible to diasagree with.

IWRM is identified by Molle as one of the Nirvana concepts which "a) obscure the political nature of natural resources management; and b) are easily hijacked by groups seeking to legitimize their own agendas".

Supported by Biswas' opinion, Molle affirms many institutions have benefit from this appealing new (according to whose who defined it) concept to attract funds for updated policies. Consulting firms, development banks, cooperation agencies and governments are some of these institutions.

It seems worthwile to conclude by better explore the implementation of one of the three principles of IWRM.

Equity and participation in IWRM

Equity is one of the three fundamental purposes of IWRM.

According to GWP Integrated Water Resources Management Toolbox (2003), equity "in the allocation of scarce water resources and services across different economic and social groups is vital to reduce conflict and promote socially sustainable development."

It can be noticed, although it might be considered a detail of little importance that equity is presented as a criterion for the allocation of water, rather than for the participation in the decisional process about the management, provision and allocation itself. It also has to be considered that in its previous Integrated Water Resources Management. TAC Background Papers No 4 (2000), large attention is devoted to the participatory approach.

But how is the principle of equity in access and participation put into practice?

I will not analyse in detail the success of IWRM in securing equitability, but I will just mention one of the cases studied by Manzungu (2004).

In his paper, he deals with the reforms aimed at guaranteeing equity in access to and management of productive water which started in 1995 and continued in 1998 with the promulgation of the Water Act and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act.

The country was divided into seven catchment councils, each one in charge of an area of the Zambesi River Basin; while the daily administration is conducted by sub-councils.

Manzungu points out the problematic identification of the stakehders among which each sub-council has to elect its representatives. At first the government recognised as stakeholders only irrigators, deliberately excluding the large number of farmers. Then government regulations started to 'identify stakeholders as including Rural District Councils, communal farmers, resettlement farmers, small-scale farmers, large-scale commercial farmers, indigenous commercial farmers, urban authorities, large-scale and small-scale miners among others', but still marginalising smallholder irrigation schemes when lacking a legal status.

Therefore, ensuring an adequate participation to the water management processes seems a fundamental, still hardly achieved by IWRM, objective to ensure full equity.

 To sum up, far from being an easy and unproblematic concept, IWRM deserves more attention to formulate better operational decisions, in order to allow the implementation (and the subsequent assessment) of policies.