Options for ProPoor Water Reforms

1
Options for Pro-Poor Water Reforms

• SIMI KAMAL
• Member GWP TEC
• Chairperson, Hisaar Foundation

2

• Context
• The greater part of the worlds poor reside in
  Asia Pacific region (75 percent)
• The poor in Asia Pacific region are concentrated
  in environmentally fragile ecological zones
• Millennium development goal of halving world
  poverty by the year 2015
• Current trend of establishing Integrated Water
  Resources management
• We have to ask the question can we really
  reduce poverty through water reforms?

3
Scope of Paper

• Experience from the Asia Pacific region
• Case study from Pakistan
• Rationale for pro-poor water reform options

4
What Does Water Reforms Mean?

• The term water reform is usually understood to
  cover
• Governance
• Laws
• Institutions
• Processes
• Regulations

5
Access and Control Over Land

• In Asia Pacific Region
• Economic and social disparities distort access to
  land and water
• Existing social and cultural biases further
  distort the intent of inheritance laws
• Inadequacies of legal structure limits ownership
  and control by poor women and other disadvantaged
  groups

6

• The relationship between water and poverty is
  often determined by some external factors
• Political will and political representation
• Local government linkages and decentralization

7
Four distinct sectors in the debate

• Irrigation systems and poverty reduction
• Land and water rights in relation to poverty
• Reduction of poverty through participation and
  user management
• Environment, poverty and conservation

8
Size of Land Holdings

• In the Asia Pacific region the average farm size
  is now approximately 1.6 hectares.
• In China average farm size has fallen from 0.56
  hectares in 1980 to 0.4 hectares in 1999.
• In Pakistan it has fallen from 5.3 hectares in
  1973 to under 3 hectares in 2004.
• In comparison the average farm size is 67
  hectares in Latin America.

9
Irrigation Systems and Poverty Reduction

• Irrigation has long been seen as a main tool of
  reducing poverty
• It is seen as a package of technologies,
  institutions and policies that underpins
  increased agricultural output in the Asia Pacific
  region
• Past experience has shown that this package has
  not yet fully succeeded in doing away with
  poverty
• Similar irrigation reform packages in different
  contexts have different results

10

• In China irrigation and agriculture have
  developed in the context of a long-term national
  program to eradicate poverty
• Vietnam has adopted fair land distribution
  approach to land (and irrigation water), and
  rural development as a whole
• In Indonesia, irrigation development has been
  part of a large transmigration scheme funded by
  government
• South Asia has adopted policy in which
  distributional issues have largely been ignored
• Irrigation reforms have benefited the poor in
  China and Vietnam much more than in South Asia

11
Irrigation Benefits

• Indirect broader benefits of irrigation usually
  much larget than direct local-level benefits
• This means less impact on local poverty
• Despite overall poverty-reducing nature of
  irrigation, income poverty exists in most canal
  irrigated areas
• Around a third of all households in irrigation
  systems live in overty

12
Water Rights, Land Rights and Poverty

• Water rights are understood and internalized
  largely as customary practices
• Regulations on water rights are often unclear and
  incomplete
• Water users may have little knowledge of the laws
  and regulations that define formal water rights

13
What are Water Rights?

• Water rights may be composed of various bundles
  of rights to access, consume, manage and transfer
• Water rights are usually structured differently
  and are more limited than rights to land and
  movable property
• The term water use rights seems more
  appropriate
• Water rights are usually a form of property
  rights
• Secure property rights can play a vital role in
  expanding opportunities for poor people to escape
  from poverty

14
Reduction of Poverty through Participation and
User Management
15

• Past 25 years have been many attempts to improve
  irrigation management through increased
  participation
• This was driven in part by
• frustration with irrigation operation and
  maintenance
• head-tail inequalities in water distribution
• Neglected repairs
• Lack of resources for maintaining infrastructure

16
(No Transcript)
17
Token particpation

• Meetings held
• Water user associations formed
• Trainings conducted
• These are used to measure user participation and
  management instead ofsubstantive shanges

18
Participation in political vacuum

• Water user groups can end up as political
  pressure groups with aspirtions other than
  equitable distribution of water
• Show little result in terms of increased incomes
  or reduced costs
• No set of agreed indicators on what is pro-poor
  participatory management

19
Water conservation and enviroment

• Policies on water conservation often disregard
  livelihoods of men and women
• The poor depend heavily on environmental goods
• Sometimes one kind of right (for example water
  irrigation right) can take away another (access
  to common enviromental goods)

20
Struggling to Address Poverty Through Water
Reforms The Case of Pakistan
21
Pakistans Water Scenario

• The vulnerability of the vast Indus Basin
  irrigation system and greater need for operating
  flexibility and assurance is now accepted in
  Pakistan
• High population growth
• Persistent poverty
• Lagging growth in the rural sector
• Looming constraints on water resources for
  irrigation
• Poor development and management strategy

22
Poverty Conditions

• Realities of water availability, its regime, the
  climate, weather, delta conditions and the market
  have changed
• The way of managing farms and using water at farm
  level has not
• About 45 of cultivable area is under
  cultivation
• Poor management and distribution of irrigation
  water has rendered a large area of land
  uncultivable

23

• Low crop yield
• Thousands of local farmers whose livelihood
  depended on agriculture are facing economic
  hardship
• 97 percent of 140 MAF of surface water used in
  irrigation, managed by public sector
• Unchecked exploitation of groundwater in private
  sector (20 MAF)

24
Comparison of Productivity Per Unit of Land and
Water
25
(No Transcript)
26
Low Irrigation Charges as a benefit to Poor

• The very low irrigation service charges in
  Pakistan are justified on account of poverty and
  are assumed to benefit the poor
• In the setting of inequities in land and water
  distribution the low level of irrigation charge
  does not necessarily benefit the poor
• Low charges lead to under-spending on OM works
  and the system performance is very poor

27

• The application of a single level of irrigation
  service charges across areas and system has led
  to a situation where the poor landless farmers
  end up subsidizing the rich landowners.

28
Land Tenancy System Poverty

• The existing pattern of land distribution
  in Pakistan is not egalitarian
• Organization of production is heavily
  dominated by sharecropping arrangements where
  the tenants are insecure
• Unless the tenants position is improved, the
  landowners are likely to receive a lions
  share of the total benefits of watercourse
  improvement, a substantial part of which is
  being subsidized by the government.

29
Water Sector Reforms

• Government of Pakistan has embarked upon water
  sector reforms in the country
• These have been implemented in parts of the
  irrigated areas of the two larger provinces,
  Punjab and Sindh
• These reforms have combined irrigation and
  drainage functions into single Provincial
  Irrigation and Drainage Authorities supported by
  Water Management Ordinances 2002
• The idea is to move towards farmer management of
  both irrigation and drainage

30
Participatory Institutions Set Up as Part of
Water Sector Reforms

• Area Water Boards (AWBs)
• Farmer Organizations (FOs)
• Watercourse Associations (WCAs)
• These participatory organizations are to slowly
  take over the rehabilitation and maintenance of
  10 canal command areas

31
The Reality on the Ground

• In theory the system sounds equitable and
  feasible
• The problem arises in the way the Ordinance
  defines a farmer who may become a member of the
  Farmer Organization
• This farmer is one who owns land
• This leaves out the majority of farmers that
  actually deal with water on a daily basis and
  till the land the poor landless sharecroppers.

32
What Can be Done

• In order to enhance the probability of the
  benefits of water rehabilitation and
  infrastructure development reaching the poor
  landless farmers, the inclusion of both men and
  women from this group is necessary in the WCAs
  and FOs
• Such inclusions many not be forthcoming
  substantively in the short term
• It can be fostered through offering
  infrastructure development and repair investment
  incentives on high priority to those WCAs and FOs
  that include landless sharecroppers and women

33
Official Government Policy

• Integrating irrigation, hydropower and
  agricultural development investment
• Modernizing both the water infrastructure and the
  institutional and governances management systems
• Balance of investments in water infrastructure
  and water management
• Balance in supply management and demand
  management
• Secure water entitlements or rights

34
Government Strategy

• The new initiatives in the water sector are
  modeled to recover the maintenance and
  restoration cost
• Water Conservation
• Renovation of remaining 90,000 watercourses
  (45,000 out of 135,000 have already been lined)
• Improving watercourse maintenance
• Organizing sustainable water users associations
  (WUAs)
• Introducing water saving irrigation technology

35
Realities!

• Expenditure on water supply and sanitation
  (normally held to be the most pro-poor of water
  programmes) for the year 2006-2007 was projected
  as 0.12 of the GDP
• Current annual development plans claim to spend
  approximately 40-50 percent each year on water
  infrastructure resources development the type
  of development that does not generally benefit
  the poor
• Not clear how water entitlements and rights are
  to be secured
• Not clear how the demand for more irrigation
  water will be balanced with need for conservation
  and environmental flows
• The mighty river Indus has no water downstream
  from Kotri Barrage for 10 months of the year and
  the Indus delta has been effectively destroyed.

36
Rationale for Pro-Poor Water Reform Options
37
Defining Pro-Poor More Clearly

• Any arguments for and policy for pro-poor water
  reform must clarify what is meant by the term
  pro-poor
• Too often pro-poor intervention is taken to mean
  any investment or programme that creates physical
  facilities and institutions, the socio-economic
  performance of which is seen in terms of
  aggregate benefits to society as a whole not
  specific benefits to defined groups of the poor.

38
Measuring the Pro-Poor in Water Reforms

• For water reforms to be pro-poor, the criteria
  should be not only be the change in the
  structures of water institutions, the new laws,
  the number of hectares developed or
  rehabilitated, but also the number of households
  and persons who benefited and by how much.
• We need to be able to measure not only the
  aggregate productivity benefits but also the
  various types of benefits (economic, social,
  development, political) and the share of the poor
  in total benefits

39
Need for Separate Sets of Indicators

• To define specific benefits to the poor and then
  to measure their achievement requires different
  sets of appropriate indicators for different
  contexts
• For water entitlements as part of access to
  environmental goods
• For water rights as groups, individuals and
  institutions in irrigation and agriculture
• For access to potable water in rural and urban
  contexts (where the poor may pay many times more
  than the rich).

40

• A look at Asia Pacific experiences has shown that
  no single set of water reform interventions have
  been sufficient for effective poverty alleviation
  in all water sectors
• A balanced and realistic approach is required
  under each set of circumstances
• An effective package of pro-poor water reforms
  may require interventions in areas other than
  water
• This points towards more proactive use of IWRM
  approaches that calls for a balance among water
  efficiency, equity and environmental
  sustainability

41
Approaching Different Water Reform Sectors

• We have seen how different factors impact upon
  different sectors of water use and management
• To be pro-poor each of these sectors would have
  to work with different sets of interventions
  under different conditions
• Sometimes reform processes will have to create
  the necessary conditions first, within which
  pro-poor approaches can be realized

42
Pro-Poor Irrigation Reforms

• Irrigation and agriculture reforms are likely to
  generate significant outcomes for the poor only
  if some or all of the following conditions exist
  or can be created
• - Land holdings are more or less of the same size
  (and not skewed between some huge farms and many
  tiny ones) or land is better distributed through
  land reforms
• - Farmers are socio-economically homogeneous (ie
  all hold land titles rather than some owning land
  while the others are landless and caught in a
  system of sharecropping land tenure) and can
  compete for benefits equally
• - Irrigated agriculture is profitable as a whole

43

• - Actual benefits of irrigation go to all types
  of farmers (both land owners and the landless)
  and can be easily calculated
• - There are incentives in place for better
  managing service delivery and quality
• - Farmers pay for water based on satisfactory
  service delivery (ie service providers are made
  accountable)
• - Irrigation schemes and programmes are
  specifically designed to benefit the poor by
  putting in specific conditions for investments,
  repairs and rehabilitation of water
  infrastructure

44
Water Rights Reform

• In terms of water rights as a means of
  alleviating poverty, in situations where land
  ownership determine water rights, it is land
  ownership that needs to be tackled effectively as
  a pro-poor intervention
• In cases where a right to quantum of water is
  determined by type of use, tradition or legal
  entitlement, water reform will need to ensure
  that all those that are entitled are clearly
  defined as such, through legal recourse.

45

• Given that the Asia Pacific region has millions
  of farmers, both land holding and landless, and
  millions of people who have direct environmental
  entitlements, it would be extremely challenging,
  if not impossible, to recognize individual water
  rights
• Water rights can be held by collective
  organizations such as water user associations,
  local government and water utilities.
• However in a region of many inequalities, this
  option would be open to abuse
• The argument for the role that secure rights to
  land can play in reducing poverty are much more
  compelling in the Asia Pacific context than water
  rights

46
Poor-Poor Participation Reform

• As yet no set of agreed indicators to show
  poverty reduction or degree of pro poor-ness as
  a result of stakeholder participatory and user
  management of water
• Water reform options in this area are likely to
  remain perfunctory
• Indicators need to be developed
• Ways found to determine the direct and impacts of
  participatory decision-making and user
  management, especially in circumstances where the
  participants are socially or economically
  unequal.

47
Water Conservation Reform

• There has been perhaps the greatest thrust in
  terms of water reform initiatives in this area
• There has to be a stated and proactive pro-poor
  affirmative action (of the type seen in womens
  empowerment movements and interventions)
• Conservation attempts often end up displacing the
  very poor whose survival depends on environmental
  entitlements
• Water conservation projects can undergo a process
  to explicitly state the number of poor people,
  the nature of their water entitlements, and how
  they can be helped to come out of poverty (or at
  least be prevented from becoming even poorer).

48
Thank You!