No abstract

Irrigation performance assessments are important tools that irrigation service providers at various levels of the water management hierarchy can use for monitoring, benchmarking and self-improvement. Despite the recognition that irrigation performance can and should be assessed from a variety of perspectives, the perspectives of the users, farmers, have received surprising little attention. This is even more apparent given the widespread context of irrigation management transfer reforms throughout the world aiming at effective user empowerment through farmer-owned and driven water users associations. This paper attempts to partially fill this gap by exploring and sensitizing farmers' views about irrigation service and related performance dimensions using qualitative research methods. Based on focus group discussions with a purposive sample of farmers from a range of water users' associations in Central Asia and a grounded theory approach the study lays a conceptual foundation for future practical applications. RÉSUMÉ L'évaluation de la performance d'irrigation est un outil important que les fournisseurs de services d'irrigation de différents niveaux peuvent utiliser pour la surveillance, l'analyse comparative et l'auto-amélioration. Malgré la reconnaissance que la performance d'irrigation peut et doit être évaluée à partir d'une variété de points de vue, ceux des utilisateurs, en l'occurrence les agriculteurs, ont paradoxalement reçu peu d'attention. Cela est encore plus flagrant si l'on considère que la tendance actuelle au niveau mondial est de pousser à la responsabilisation des agriculteurs en leur confiant la gestion de l'eau à travers des associations d'usagers. Ce document tente de combler partiellement cette lacune en explorant et en sensibilisant les opinions des agriculteurs sur le service d'irrigation et à la performance afférente, et ce en utilisant des méthodes de recherche qualitative. Sur la base de discussion avec les groupes focus, constitués d'un échantillon raisonné d'agriculteurs issus d'une gamme d'associations d'usagers de l'eau en Asie centrale, et d'une théorie à base empirique, l'étude établit un fondement conceptuel pour de futures applications pratiques.

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a widely recognized management framework that is currently being adopted throughout post-Soviet Central Asia to inform and guide national water sector reforms, and to keep up with the pace of the faster moving land reforms taking place in the region. With hydrographic principles and public participation being at the core of this framework, the process in the region has started with the reform of on-farm irrigation systems by creating water users associations (WUAs), transferring irrigation management to them and introducing irrigation service fees. This paper draws on the experiences, over four years, of three study WUAs set up in the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Aiming to explore the differences in institutional environment and arrangements in these three countries for establishing WUAs, as well as assessing WUA performances (particularly from users' perspectives), the study reveals that it is not only the newly-established institutional arrangements in the irrigation sector but also their internal operations, coupled with other important factors such as size of area farmed, overall viability of agriculture and a wider economic context that crucially determine overall irrigation performance

While best practice in water management typically calls for the use of a basin-level approach, specific guidance in the absence of basin-level management is fairly scant. This paper reviews the experience of the Syr Darya basin to identify insights related to second best practices for water management at scales below the basin level. This paper first presents the causes for the disintegration of river basin management within the Syr Darya, which include both changes in operation of the Toktogul reservoir and rising water demands due to shifts in agricultural production and land ownership. Focus is then devoted specifically to small transboundary tributaries, where bottom-up cooperation has continued or reemerged in recent times. This paper concludes by highlighting the limitations to singular focus on sub-basins and tributaries, suggesting a balance between more intense cooperation and water control on tributaries and a loose overarching framework at the basin level

This paper draws upon experiences in Central Asia with irrigation management transfer arising from a development project currently underway in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia. One of the main features of the project is that it gives much attention to social mobilization in order to bring required water management change and get those at the grassroots duly organized, educated and empowered to truly self-own and manage their community-based organization. The paper, through analysis of users' perception before and after the mobilization, documents the changes in, attitudes and knowledge of, and the performance of water users' associations through, users' perspectives. Though no major breakthroughs have been found so far in the quality of irrigation and drainage services provided, there are clear indications that increased grassroots knowledge and awareness about water and irrigation management through intensive mobilization, regular involvement and exposure of the entire water user community to WUA management, planning and operation matters and decision-making do have a positive bearing on their attitudes, behaviours, capacities and skills, adding considerably to their overall social capital and thus enhancing their chance for a better livelihood.