Your search found 34 records
1 Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Das, Arijit; Mukherji, A. 2013. Towards sustainable community management of water infrastructures: results from experimental games in coastal Bangladesh [Abstract only] In Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). Water cooperation: building partnerships. Abstract Volume, World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, 1-6 September 2013. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) pp.65.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046197)
(0.05 MB)
The government of Bangladesh invested in large scale coastal embankment projects in the 1960s and 1970s, which then played an important role in protecting coastal communities from water related disasters and increasing agricultural productivity. However, maintenance of polder infrastructure has been problematic. Since the 1990s, the government of Bangladesh requires local communities to organize themselves into water management groups and to contribute toward minor maintenance of the infrastructure. Empirical evidence shows that some communities have been able to come together and collect funds for maintenance, while majority have not been able to do so. The purpose of this paper is therefore to understand the factors that determine contribution to maintenance funds by community members. For this, a public goods game was played with community participants at several locations in Coastal Bangladesh. Our results show that economic homogeneity in the group as well ions and recommendations proportional sharing of benefits increases the level of contribution. It also shows that institutional mechanisms that allow communities to be involved at an early stage of project formulation and make monetary contributions towards project implementation are more likely to contribute toward maintenance in the long term than communities who did not undergo such institutional processes.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046497)
(941.20 KB)
Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has been promoted as part of the development discourse on sustainable natural resources management since the mid-1980s. It has influenced recent water policy in Bangladesh through the Guidelines for Participatory Water Management (GPWM) where community-based organisations are to participate in the management of water resources. This paper reviews the extent of success of such participatory water management. It does so by first discussing the changing discourses of participation in Bangladesh’s water policy from social mobilisation to decentralised CBNRM. Second, Bangladesh is used as a case study to draw attention to how the creation of separate water management organisations has been unable to promote inclusive participation. It argues that the current form of decentralisation through a CBNRM framework has not resulted in its stated aims of equitable, efficient, and sustainable management of natural resources; rather it has duplicated existing local government institutions. Finally, it questions the current investments into community-based organisations and recommends that the role of local government in water management be formally recognised.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046498)
(1.16 MB)
4 Mitra, Archisman; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte. 2014. From land reform to pump energisation: a shift in agricultural drivers in West Bengal [Abstract only] In Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). Energy and Water. Abstract Volume, World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, 31 August-5 September 2014. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) pp.33-34.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046649)
(0.06 MB) (1.17 MB)
Introduction and objectives: West Bengal is one of the few Indian states which implemented land reforms, called “Operation Barga” in 1978. The spectacular agricultural growth witnessed in the 1980’s and early 1990’s is attributed by many in the literature to Operation Barga. Nevertheless, it has not been the sole driver of this growth. Indeed in West Bengal, pump electrification rate for groundwater irrigation follows a very similar trajectory as the agricultural growth rate. Our purpose is to estimate the extent to which pump electrification has contributed towards West Bengal’s agricultural growth, by providing farmers a cost effective way (compared to diesel) to access groundwater.
Methodology approach: Based on secondary data from government sources we built a 14 years panel database for 15 districts of West Bengal. Therefore, our approach uses inter-district and yearly variations in the pump electrification rate to measure its effect on agricultural productivity. Our main empirical results are based on regression analysis at the district level. The impact of pump electrification rate is estimated on rice (Aman and Boro) yields and areas, controlling for other timevarying variables including input use, rainfall, road-access, and land-reform. We also examine the trends in groundwater level to understand the sustainability of pump energisation and agricultural growth.
Analysis, results, conclusions and recommendation: The results indicate the positive and significant effect of pump electrification on agricultural output and areas over the period from 1994-2007. By this time, Operation Barga had reached a peak and the intensity of land reform in the State was stagnant. Indeed, pump energisation took over land reform as a driver of agricultural growth. We note that the effect of pump energisation is more pronounced for boro cultivation which is a water intensive crop cultivated in the dry season and thus requiring intensive irrigation. This result argues that pump electrification (with an advantageous flat tariff rate before 2007) improved the physical and economical access to the water market, which in turn made boro cultivation viable for a lot of farmers. In a context where in West Bengal, most farmers are small and do subsistence farming, increased boro production goes a long way in ensuring food security for millions of poor farmers. These results are of particular interest in view of the recent changes in West Bengal’s policy of groundwater use. First in 2007, the tariff structure of agricultural electric connections has been changed from a flat to a metered tariff. Then starting in 2011, getting electric connection for irrigation purposes had been made easier through the removal of administrative permit requirement in areas with sustainable water tables and through a subsidy for the investment cost. These policies are in parallel accompanied by a new boost in the number of pumps electrified since 2007. Recognising the role of pump electrification in the agricultural growth history of West Bengal therefore helps us to understand the potential impact of these new policies.
5 Buisson, Marie-Charlotte. 2014. Multiple actors, conflicting roles and perverse incentives: the case of water governance and participatory water management in coastal Bangladesh [Abstract only] Paper presented at the Fourth International Rice Congress, Bangkok, Thailand, 27 November -1 December 2014. 1p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046828)
(136.68 KB)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046932)
This article examines the historical evolution of participatory water management in coastal Bangladesh. Three major shifts are identified: first, from indigenous local systems managed by landlords to centralized government agencies in the 1960s; second, from top-down engineering solutions to small-scale projects and people’s participation in the 1970s and 1980s; and third, towards depoliticized community-based water management since the 1990s. While donor requirements for community participation in water projects have resulted in the creation of ‘depoliticized’ water management organizations, there are now increasing demands for involvement of politically elected local government institutions in water management by local communities.
7 Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Pukinskis, I.; Phillips, M. (Eds.) 2015. Proceedings of the CPWF, GBDC, WLE Conference on Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21-23 October 2014. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). 600p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H047106)
(10.00 MB) (11.91 MB)
8 Kenia, Nandish; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte. 2015. How successful are community-led organizations for water management?: evidence from an assessment of water management organizations in coastal Bangladesh. In Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Pukinskis, I.; Phillips, M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the CPWF, GBDC, WLE Conference on Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21-23 October 2014. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). pp.131-146.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047109)
(0.53 MB)
9 Naz, F.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte. 2015. Multiple actors, conflicting roles and perverse incentives: the case of poor operation and maintenance of coastal polders in Bangladesh. In Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Pukinskis, I.; Phillips, M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the CPWF, GBDC, WLE Conference on Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21-23 October 2014. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). pp.147-161.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047110)
(0.40 MB)
10 Dewan, C.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Mukherji, A. 2015. The imposition of participation?: the case of participatory water management in coastal Bangladesh. In Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Pukinskis, I.; Phillips, M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the CPWF, GBDC, WLE Conference on Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21-23 October 2014. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). pp.162-182.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047111)
(0.44 MB)
11 Das, A.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Mukherji, A. 2015. Predicting success in community-driven water infrastructure maintenance: evidence from public goods games in coastal Bangladesh. In Humphreys, E.; Tuong, T. P.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Pukinskis, I.; Phillips, M. (Eds.). Proceedings of the CPWF, GBDC, WLE Conference on Revitalizing the Ganges Coastal Zone: Turning Science into Policy and Practices, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21-23 October 2014. Colombo, Sri Lanka: CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). pp.183-196.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047112)
(0.31 MB)
12 Buisson, Marie-Charlotte. 2015. What does pump sets electrification change? impacts on cropping patterns, productivity and incomes in West Bengal. Paper presented at the ICID 26th Euro-Mediterranean Regional Conference and Workshops on Innovate to Improve Irrigation Performances. Workshop: Irrigation and Energy, Montpellier, France, 12-15 October 2015. 5p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047391)
(0.27 MB) (276 KB)
West Bengal is currently implementing new policies facilitating the access to electrified irrigation for farmers and expects to initiate a second Green Revolution. Based on primary data, this paper aims to estimate the potential impact of these electrification policies. Using a discontinuity design and propensity score methods, we identify that electrification induces a significant change in the cropping patterns and more water intensive crops, especially boro rice, are preferred by farmers. In addition, the cropping intensity is also higher for electric pump owners. However, we cannot identify any significant quantity impact, which means that the yields are not benefitting from an access to electric pumps. On the contrary, there is a significant and positive price effect for boro rice: the farmers irrigating with electrified tubewells have significantly higher value added and consequently higher incomes from their farming activities. Finally, we identify a positive impact of tubewell electrification on the number of irrigations; considered together with the absence of impact on yields, this result questions the sustainability of the electrification policies to manage the groundwater resource.
13 Balasubramanya, Soumya; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Saikia, Panchali; MacDonald, K.; Aslamy, Sohrob; Horbulyk, Theodore; Hannah, C.; Yakubov, Murat; Platonov, Alexander. 2016. Impact of water-user associations on water and land productivity, equity, and food security in Tajikistan. Baseline Technical Report. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 131p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047847)
(1.81 MB)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047854)
(3.57 MB)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047855)
(0.61 MB)
After Tajikistan emerged an independent country, major land reforms took place. Large collective farms were broken up into smaller (dekhan) private farms. This created a vacuum, because there was no provision to manage competing needs of water among private farms. Water user associations were created with the efforts of the government, and several international donors, to manage distribution of water between private farms and to share in maintenance of smaller canals. In this paper we provide a brief description of the creation of water user associations, as well as their roles and responsibilities. We then describe the opportunities for increasing livelihoods, and contributing to increased agricultural productivity. Can these WUAs improve access to and distribution of water? Would better irrigations services increase cropping areas? Would yields of cotton improve? Can these be an improvement in crop diversity? We identify the key existing gaps in knowledge, that would provide an understanding of the impacts of these associations on wellbeing. We also describe some of the challenges that may limit the efficacy of these associations. Are these institutions likely to be able to cover their operational costs? Can these institutions serve well as cropping decisions change? Are these institutions likely to represent the needs of female farmers? We identify the key factors that need to be examined more closely, that provide an understating of the resilience of these associations. The answers to these questions would provide important information for policies to support and strengthen water user associations in Tajikistan.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047980)
(156 KB)
Challenges of governance often constitute critical obstacles to efforts to equitably improve livelihoods in social-ecological systems. Yet, just as often, these challenges go unspoken, or are viewed as fixed parts of the context, beyond the scope of influence of agricultural, development, or natural resource management initiatives. What does it take to get governance obstacles and opportunities out in the open, creating the space for constructive dialogue and collective action that can help to address them? We respond to this question by comparing experiences of participatory action research (PAR) in coastal and floodplain systems in four countries (Zambia, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Cambodia) with a focus on understanding how to build more equitable governance arrangements. We found that governance improvement was often an implicit or secondary objective of initiatives that initially sought to address more technical natural resource or livelihood-related development challenges. We argue that using PAR principles of ownership, equity, shared analysis, and feedback built trust and helped to identify and act upon opportunities to address more difficult-to-shift dimensions of governance particularly in terms of stakeholder representation, distribution of authority, and accountability. Our findings suggest that the engaged and embedded approach of researcher-facilitators can help move from identifying opportunities for governance change to supporting stakeholders as they build more equitable governance arrangements.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048235)
(2.29 MB)
Water management in Bangladesh is guided by an intended integrated and inclusive approach enshrined in government legislation since the late 1990s. Based on qualitative and quantitative data collected in the coastal zone, we assess the implementation of these policies with regard to women water uses. First, the analysis of reproductive and productive roles of women establishes that men have a significant role to play in domestic supply, and women use water extensively for small-scale agriculture and aquaculture, the scope of which has been underestimated. However, when considering women's inclusion in community water management and more specifically in Water Management Organizations (WMOs), we demonstrate that women face diverse forms of social barriers resulting in systematic exclusion and self-exclusion from these institutions. Water Management Organizations focus on large-scale productive use of water and are rarely addressing the small scale productive and reproductive uses of water. This creates a gap between water users and water managers, which is exacerbated by class and power relations. The creation of community based water management organisations in the coastal zone of south west Bangladesh has so far not challenged women marginalisation especially in terms of activity limitations and participation restrictions. We conclude by recommending a shift from the inclusiveness policy, which is unable to achieve its goals to a more targeted approach that is relevant in the socio-cultural context of rural Bangladesh.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049254)
(0.48 MB)
Global discourses have advocated women's empowerment as a means to enhance food security. Our objective was to critically review the causal linkages between women's empowerment and food availability and access. We relied on mixed methods and a cross-country analysis, using household survey data from Bangladesh, Nepal and Tajikistan and qualitative data from Nepal. The quantitative analysis highlights the diversity of patterns linking empowerment and food security indicators and the roles socio-economic determinants play in shaping these patterns across countries. The qualitative analysis further stresses the need for a truly intersectional approach in food security programmes that supports challenging the structural barriers that keep marginalised men and women food insecure. Lastly, our findings call for informing standardised measures of empowerment with an assessment of local meanings and values.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H049571)
(2.98 MB)
The coastal region of Bangladesh is prone to natural disasters and these events are expected to worsen as a result of climate change. Combined with anthropogenic factors, these events challenge livelihood opportunities, especially crop production. Waterlogging, tidal activity and the lack of proper drainage facilities are major constraints to agricultural production in these areas.
The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) tested, at pilot scale, the combination of innovative agricultural technologies with improved water management to overcome these challenges.
This report assesses this intervention by observing the effects, measuring the short-term impacts and understanding the perceptions. The results highlight the need to integrate the interventions into the local context, and acknowledge that institutions and markets need to mature to harness the benefits from innovations. It also underlines the potential of multi-scale interventions combining plot-level and farmer-led innovations, community management and rehabilitation of large schemes.
20 Belaud, G.; Mateos, L.; Aliod, R.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte; Faci, E.; Gendre, S.; Ghinassi, G.; Gonzales Perea, R.; Lejars, C.; Maruejols, F.; Zapata, N. 2020. Irrigation and energy: issues and challenges. Irrigation and Drainage, 69(S1):177-185. (Special issue: Innovations in Irrigation Systems in Africa) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/ird.2343]
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049658)
(0.28 MB)
Water-efficient agriculture has implied a large increase in energy consumption for irrigation in recent decades. In many irrigation systems, energy costs are now threatening their sustainability. However, new opportunities have arisen for the use of renewable energies in the irrigation sector. These are some of the aspects of the multifaceted multiple-actor ‘water–food–energy’ nexus. Technical, economic and environmental issues are linked in many ways, involving farmers, water users’ associations, energy suppliers, engineers and other stakeholders. The ICID session ‘Irrigation and energy’ triggered discussions on these multiple dimensions. This paper presents a synthesis of the presentations, discussions and conclusions.
Four main questions are addressed: How do irrigation productivity and sustainability of water resources exploitation change when farmers have access to energy? What do we know about energy efficiency in irrigation systems, at farm and collective network levels? How can this efficiency be optimized by using advanced technologies, modelling tools, improved management? Is energy production an opportunity for irrigation systems?
These questions have been posed based on multiple case studies from different parts of the world. The BRL network, in southern France, illustrates advanced strategies and opportunities to reduce energy consumption and develop energy production at a network level. General conclusions are drawn from this synthesis, illustrating trade-offs and synergies that can be identified in the irrigation sector at different scales, while opportunities for future research are proposed.
Powered by DB/Text
WebPublisher, from