Brief description of document
     
    Title Property rights and collective action in the devolution of irrigation system management.
This paper was prepared for the Workshop: "Structuring the Devolution of Natural Resource Management to Local Users".
Puerto Azul, Philippines, 21-25 June, 1999.
(44 pages)
         
    Author   Douglas L. Vermillion
         
    Organisation   Workshop sponsored by CGIAR System-wide Program on Property Rights and Collective Action and the Food and Agriculture Development Centre (ZEL) of German Foundation for International Development).
         
    Year   1999
         
    Summary/
Introduction		        The purpose of this paper is to identify policy recommendations and research priorities which will lead to more effective efforts to devolve the management of irrigation systems from governments to water users associations. This paper focuses on the question, “What are the essential motivating factors which will invoke collective action among water users to ensure effective and sustainable management of irrigation systems after devolution?” We will see that the most important motivating factors are property rights, broadly defined, which provide security and incentives for farmers to invest in irrigation management. How devolution programs are structured and implemented can also shape farmer perceptions about related property rights, and hence, can have an important impact on collective action among water users.

     In brief, our analysis is structured as follows. How irrigation management devolution programs are structured, or organized, will determine what kinds of property rights are given to water users. What property rights are held by water users will, in turn, determine to what extent farmers are willing to provide collective action for irrigation management. The quality of management will, in turn, effect how well irrigation systems perform and what outcomes they produce, such as financial viability, condition of infrastructure and agricultural productivity.

      Key obligations which may be attached to property rights are financing construction and maintenance of infrastructure, financing costs of service provision and following rules regarding use or protection of the resource.

     Applying these concepts to irrigation, we broadly consider irrigation infrastructure, water, land, funds owned by an irrigation organization, legal status of an irrigation organization, and a license or commission to provide an irrigation management service to all be potential types of property, to which rights and obligations may be attached.

     Following Meinzen-Dick and Knox (1999), devolution is the transfer of rights and obligations over resources to resource users groups. For irrigation, this normally involves transfer of rights and responsibilities for irrigation system management from the government to local water users groups. Collective action is the coordinated behavior of groups toward a common interest or purpose.
         
       

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