Social and Environmental Justice in Foreign Aid: a Case Study of Irrigation Interventions in Western Nepal

Abstract

Debates over the effectiveness of foreign aid have been recently revived both in the development sector and in the academia. International funding agencies have notably adopted new principles to improve aid delivery. Using the particular case study of a set of irrigation interventions in Western Nepal, we argue that these steps will not radically improve the pro-poor outcomes of aid interventions as long as the latter are framed in an apolitical, technical and managerial vision and discourse of development. We propose to adopt social and environmental justice as an analytical framework and vocabulary for action.

Waterscapes of power in Bangladesh: The politics and anthropology of contested access in large‐scale irrigation modernisation

“…Irrigation schemes are complex socioecological systems (Clement et al, 2014; Ostrom et al, 2011), 37 whereby water is seen to have multiple attributes. These include: (a) its mutability and unpredictability; (b) its functioning on various interconnected scales; (c) in some societies as a common property resource (though increasingly commodified), which necessitates collective rules of governance, impartial access and sustainable management; and (d) as in many traditional societies, water has spiritual or religious connotations that need to be understood and respected (see Drew, 2012; Groenfeldt, 2013; Oestigaard, 2017).…”