Capacity Building for Sustainable Irrigation reforms in Pakistan: Post # 37

Capacity Building for Irrigation Reforms

When the general definition of UNDP about capacity building (1998) is tailored to fit the institutional reforms in irrigation management, it becomes as the sum of efforts to nurture, enhance and utilize the understandings, skills and capabilities of people, farmers and irrigation staff, at all levels of the irrigation system, by empowerment and retraining to solve their problems associated with the irrigation water delivery service.

After passing of Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA) acts from all provincial assemblies in 1997, there has been a felt need to manage the ongoing change in the organizational structures, roles, rights and responsibilities of provincial irrigation departments, the new Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities (PIDAs), Area Water Boards (AWBs) and Farmers Organizations (FOs). For the success of this new or change infrastructure, capacity building is extremely critical factor.

As far as the farmers are concerned, they take over certain roles and responsibilities that they have never handled before. The change is so enormous that even the existing irrigation staff needs to be trained and re-oriented to fully understand their new roles, rules, rights and responsibilities. It is therefore, obvious that the capacity building of farmers and retraining of irrigation staff is a must condition to ensure sustainable irrigation reforms.

At present, the Government of Sindh has been negotiating a project with the World Bank to support the reforms process. Under this project, both sides are in discussion for adequate financial provisions to provide technical assistants to FOs for a limited duration.

From the inception of irrigation reforms in Pakistan in the mid-nineties, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) played a very positive role by conducting applied research in the reform arena, assistance in the preparation of a legal framework for the PIDAs, creating awareness and conducting exercises like identification of maintenance problems, flow measurements, etc. IWMI also organized pilot FOs to operate and maintain selected distributaries in Punjab and Sindh.

As an international staff of IWMI, I was part of the team that established pilot FOs in Punjab and Sindh. In spite of our best efforts, it was difficult to build proper capacity of even the pilot FOs as they were still at an infancy stage with too many uncertainties about the potential functions and roles of the project. 

Since farmers have never managed canals and distributaries in their lives, they obviously need relevant capacity building to play their role effectively at distributaries, canals and provincial levels. As Yameen Memon and co-authors (2000) have reported, IWMI did conduct a Training Needs Assessment (TNA) of FOs. In doing so, job analysis served as a guide. Follow up included training activities like: (i) awareness about institutional reforms; (ii) discharge measurements; (iii) organizational and financial management; (iv) FOs rules, regulations, bylaws, action plans and management transfer agreements; and (v) agricultural production practices.

     

As stated above, the role of IWMI remained confined only to creating awareness and providing some understanding about the potential functions of FOs. However, the scope of the irrigation management reforms extended beyond these FOs at secondary canals to Area Water Boards at main canals and PIDAs at provincial levels. Unless all these players,new and old, understand this ongoing change and develop skills to adjust and perform according to the changed scenarios at each level, it would be unfair to expect FOs to deliver efficient irrigation delivery service at secondary canals.

Based on a series of workshops, UNDP /UNOPS also prepared a menu of trainings activities under the National Drainage Program Training Project. As a team leader of the project, on behalf of the UNOPS, my colleagues and I took this assignment in 2002. In one year, we conducted 43 training events. The scope of the training project covered all new and old players of irrigation systems at all the above stated levels. By the end of 2003, we were about to initiate an interactive process to derive job descriptions for farmers and official managers at different levels of the irrigation system along with having training of trainers for conducting TNAs when the project came to a sudden halt due to some differences in approach with  client agency.

With the passage of a few more years, earlier misunderstandings and impediments in the way of institutional reforms of the irrigation departments appear to be fading away. Many FOs, AWBs and PIDAs have started functioning. Of course, there are few reversals here and there but overall the reform program is pretty much on tracks.

In order to avoid chaos in the irrigation sector, now is the time to double the efforts for capacity building: by deriving job descriptions of each player, official or farmers’ representative; assessing training needs based on strengths and weaknesses identified for each relevant individual or group of individuals and then providing required understanding and skills to ensure a high performance in delivering irrigation service. This is why the capacity building is quite a bit more than mere imparting a general awareness and understanding about reforms.

Initially, the NDP Training Project offered off-the-shelf and tailor-made training courses for farmers as well as the irrigation staff. It did help to increase awareness and interest in the reform program but to sustain and enhance the performance of the irrigation service, there has to be a focus on capacity building of relevant individuals with their specific job description and functions in the light of weaknesses identified though TNA. It is, obviously, a hard job but we should find qualified and credible entities to accept this challenge.

Who should undertake this extremely critical assignment? Because of some inherent resistance as well as lingering suspicions about outside agencies, most provinces tried to make use of their revenue staff and retired officers of different irrigation departments. Frankly, it was not expected to be an effective approach as the trainers either hated the reforms or had a little familiarity with the ground realities related to the operation and maintenance of irrigation systems under the changed scenario. In any way, it is hard even for farmers and irrigation officials to imagine the kind of skills and understanding required as there remain many ifs and buts about the new functions of each player.

What kind of entities should take up this challenge? In my opinion, we need organizations which have a long history of making practical contributions in water resource management and an extensive role in conceiving, presenting and demonstrating different pilot aspects of institutional reforms in the irrigation sector at the national as well as at the international levels. Considering the sensitive nature of the reforms, only neutral bodies with immense credibility of knowledge and skills can dare to guide this process.

I sincerely feel that we are lucky to have at least two such international and professionally sound entities in Pakistan; they are IWMI-Pakistan and International Chapter of Participatory Irrigation Management Network /IN-PIM.

IWMI has been around in Pakistan for almost two decades. Nationally, IWMI was a partner to initiate institutional reforms in the irrigation sector. It has also remained engaged and involved with different irrigation departments. Internationally, this Institute has made enormous contributions in the ongoing irrigation reforms from the Philippines to Central Asia and South Africa to Latin America.

Last year, IN-PIM has established its headquarters in Islamabad. This Chapter is affiliated with the World Bank. Its sole function is to arrange seminars to share and document global experiences in participatory irrigation management.