Public Participation in Development Planning and Management: Cases From Africa and Asia by Jean-claude Garcia-zamor

Author:Jean-claude Garcia-zamor [Garcia-zamor, Jean-claude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, African Studies, African, Social Science, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781000308662
Google: MFyvDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-09-16T12:58:31+00:00

Initial Activities

A Water Management Research Group was constituted within ARTI to carry out its responsibilities under the project, with just three research and training officers (R&TO). A fourth R&TO, not assigned to the group, was at this time beginning graduate studies at Cornell and became part of the water management group at Cornell supporting the project. ARTI prepared a draft plan for socioeconomic monitoring, evaluation and research, while the Cornell group tackled questions of farmer organization strategy, building on its knowledge of similar efforts elsewhere. Two members of the Cornell faculty visited Sri Lanka briefly during the fall of 1979 to assist in training field investigators and refining the data gathering instruments.6

The Initial conclusion was that the mandate given ARTI and Cornell in the project paper to develop, test and extend a model for farmer organization was not appropriate. No single "model" (blueprint) was likely to be optimal for the whole project area given its hydrological and sociological diversity, and moreover, no systematic testing would be possible under the constraints of working within a government-run project. Instead it was decided to seek development of a "process" for introducing farmer organization, not specifying in advance much about the nature or structure of such organization. Such specificity would be introduced on an experimental basis as more became known about the situation and needs in Gal Oya and would be modified as experience was gained.

By January 1980, ARTI had formulated a program of socio-economic research approved by AID and ID. Also during that month, the author, Walt Coward (a rural sociologist from Cornell) and David Korten (an administration specialist with the Ford Foundation In Manila, assisting the National Irrigation Administration with introduction of farmer organization in the Philippines) visited Sal Oya for the first time with members of the ARTI Water Management Research Group (C.M. Wijayaratne, M.L. Wickramasinghe, and H.A. Rambanda) to assess the situation.

It quickly became clear that the situation was much more complicated than the project design team had appreciated. For example, there were large areas cultivated with drainage water which were not officially recognized; it was not clear how they would be related to the recognized water users, since gains in water use efficiency by the latter would cut the supply of water to the former and create a serious conflict situation; also since the former were not legal cultivators, their status was ambiguous. The appropriateness of what Korten had proposed as a "learning process" approach to rural development became very much apparent. The most important new appreciation we gained was that given the tense, even conflictual relations between farmer's and technical staff of the ID, our task could not focus narrowly on "organizing farmers." Much of the so-called water "waste" by farmers reflected the uncertainty of water deliveries and the poor management of the main system. We formulated as a group the proposition (subsequently modified as discussed later) that unless and until the staff of the Irrigation Department changed their behavior and attitudes, one could and should not expect farmers to change their behavior and attitudes.

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