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Contributions from
the Column
Tribune
Clarification needed
No use for user groups
Forgive debt
and keep on lending
8-9/2005
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[ Local ownership ]
No use for user groups
Participation is a word frequently heard in development circles. Sadly, that is often all it is: just a word. The example of a small-scale irrigation project in Ghana shows how local communities can stay deprived of influence in spite of well-meaning participation rhetoric.
[ By Einhard Schmidt-Kallert ]
In most African countries, governmental and paragovernmental attempts to irrigate agriculture have been an abject failure. In the 1980s and '90s at the latest, it became obvious that bureaucratic organisations were not even up to regular maintenance of irrigation systems. Critical observers pointed out that irrigation farming was only viable in the long term if farmers took responsibility for all irrigation aspects – including planning, implementation, facility operation and maintenance.
That sounded convincing and marked the beginning of a paradigm change. From then on, buzzwords like “water user groups” and “management transfers” (shifting ownership from government agencies to the aforesaid user groups) were at the heart of the debate. During the 1990s, all major donors made this paradigm shift. World Bank, African Development Bank and the German KfW – they all revised their philosophy on irrigation projects. In most projects initiated since, the task of forming and fostering rural user groups has been made a priority equal to engineering or construction. And yet there still are not many proven success stories of management transfers to rural user groups. Why not?
The approach works best, as empirical studies confirm, where there is a high degree of trust among the farmers concerned. This is so in relatively small-scale irrigation schemes involving groups which are both socially and ethnically rather homogeneous. But there are not many places in Africa with conditions like that – and even where the criteria are met, programmes do not necessarily run smoothly.
Take the example of the Small-Scale Irrigation Development Project financed by the African Development Bank in Ghana. This project was supposed to introduce irrigation farming in selected villages where farmers currently rely on rain-fed plots. The idea was to help small farmers to make the transition from subsistence to market production, help them to diversify and to raise the general level of food output in the country. The programme encompasses 26 irrigation perimeters with areas between four and 224 hectares. The project has two goals – first, rural development in the sense of installing irrigation facilities as well as preparing fields and, second, support for farmers in the sense of forming user groups and providing training. The entire project is supervised by a project management unit at the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority.
The project was started 2000 and originally scheduled for completion in 2004. But work at nearly every location took longer and the completion deadline had to be revised several times. In 2004, an evaluation team was shocked to find that only one of 26 perimeters – and the smallest at that – was completed. Ten were under construction and all the rest were on hold. In some cases, construction companies had received advance payments but not started working; in others, construction was progressing at a snail’s pace. For work estimated to take six months, some contractors needed more than three years.
In all the communities concerned, user groups had been formed and committee members trained. Because of the hold-ups, rural development and farmer support remained largely unconnected issues. Today, the farmers are committed – so far, to no avail.
The evaluation team also found that farmers had only been involved in planning to a limited extent. All the villages had been informed at an early stage and in what at first seemed an exemplary fashion. The consultants had presented their plans during the initial feasibility study, later they had explained every modification. The farmers knew where the primary and secondary channels would be located and where the pump station was planned. They also knew how much land the new facilities would take up. But as far as the size and technical design of the irrigation perimeters was concerned, the engineers’ plans were not discussed. The technology came from outside and any modifications the target group successfully suggested remained marginal at best.
Farmers without leverage
The farmers asked the evaluation team a lot of sensible questions: “If the irrigation pumps are powered by electricity, why doesn’t the project finance the connection to the power supply?” – “If we grow vegetables in the irrigated fields, we will need a road to the village. Why is there no financial provision for that?” – “Our village is so close to the Volta River. Couldn’t a canal provide gravity irrigation?” By then, the farmers had learned a great deal – but they still had no influence. Their questions, moreover, came years too late. “We pray for the day when the project will be completed,” is a comment the evaluation team heard over and over again.
During the construction phase, user groups were formed in the villages. In some places, existing farmers’ associations were harnessed for this role; in others, new groups were established. After long-drawn-out bidding procedures, the official project management unit selected the contractors. The farmers saw the companies bring in heavy machinery, saw bulldozers drive across fields with no regard for crops, saw labourers dig channels and grade land. So, for a while, work progressed. But then, at many sites, the activity stopped. None of the contractors stuck to the agreed schedule – and there was nothing the farmers could do about it.
The people in the villages did not see that the government’s project management unit tried to put pressure on the contractors and even sought to put projects out to tender again. In many cases, however, these efforts failed because of links between entrepreneurs and politicians. At the same time, the farmers noted that whenever a site inspection was due with representatives from the capital city, work would suddenly resume only to stop again once the inspection was over.
None of this is unusual in Africa. What is regrettable, however, is that this project ended up sidelining the very user groups it had set out to empower. Ultimately, all that remained among farmers was a vague hope that the project management unit staff really did have the interests of the farmers at heart. The farmers respectfully described the officials as a “committed team”. Nonetheless, the relationship remained paternalistic.
Sadly, even if the facilities do one day reach completion, it is by no means certain that the user groups will be able to operate and maintain them. The groups are very keen to take ownership. They have drafted rules, they charge membership fees and keep accounts. But is that enough for sustainability? Probably not, according to past experience. When the first irrigation system was ready for handover and farmers were introduced to their new fields, committee members were unable to read the maps correctly and a great deal of confusion ensued.
In the eyes of the African Development Bank and the Ghanaian government, we are dealing with a small-scale irrigation programme. But for African subsistence farmers, an irrigation perimeter of 124 hectares is a massive affair – with dam or pump station, four kilometres of primary channel and more than 15 kilometres of secondary channels. All the components need to be serviced and maintained. And what if major repairs are required, or if pumps need to be replaced? Where does a user group find the funds required? Such challenges are most likely to overstretch local resources.
Of course, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with transferring facility management to user groups. But experience in the northern Ghana shows that this cannot work out if projects are too rigidly defined by the logic of construction and engineering. Developing the necessary management and organisational skills of a user group takes time and occurs at a pace of its own. If construction will, one day, be completed, the project schedule will be over for good. The user groups will be expected to assume responsibility immediately, without having had any chance to gain experience and to continuously rise up to the challenges. Future projects of this kind should provide for a follow-up phase with support for user groups in the immediate time after construction is finished.
Prof. Dr. Einhard Schmidt-Kallert
works as a regional planner and social scientist for AHT Group AG in Essen. He headed the mid-term review team that monitored the project described in Ghana. He teaches at Dortmund University.
esk@aht-group.com
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