Rethinking commons management in Sub-Saharan West Africa: public authority and participation in the agricultural water sector

Abstract

Promoted for over three decades, participatory irrigation management (PIM) and its organizational upshot the water user association (WUA) have been framed as a solution to the irrigation sector problems. Based on a case study of small reservoirs in two countries of West Africa, Burkina Faso and Ghana, this article shows that the PIM/WUA model is based on narrow visions of the commons and participation and does not account for the de facto pluralism and institutional bricolage that characterize natural resources management. Attempts at institutional intervention should be based on better understanding social relationships and existing processes of decision making.

Keywords:

• governance
• institutions
• pluralism
• water user associations
• West Africa

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Marc Andreini and Philippe Cecchi for their advice all along the research process, as well as Professors Saa Dittoh and Gordana Kranjac-Berisavljevic of the University of Development Studies (Tamale, Ghana), Armel Oueressse, Francine Ki, Ernest Nti Acheampong, Kassoum Ouedraogo, Korotimi Sanou and Bio Mahamadou Torou for their support during data collection. The feedback of two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of the article helped improve the quality of the argument. The author was affiliated to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) when this research was conducted within the context of the Agricultural Water Management Solutions project.

Notes

1. The term ‘social engineering’ is used here to refer to linear models of change whereby blueprints are used to replicate in a new context a structure that may have worked elsewhere (Merrey et al., 2007).

2. We characterized small-reservoir users according to their main farming activity to facilitate data collection, but fully recognize that rural households are engaged in diverse activities at the same time (for instance, most irrigators will also have rainfed plots, as well as a small herd). Fishing was not observed in all small-reservoir sites. Young farmers were not interviewed in all small reservoir sites.

3. Donors include the International Fund for Agriculture Development, the Swedish International Development Agency, the Islamic Bank of Development, the West African Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, for a total of more than USD 50 million to be invested by 2015.

4. Their irrigation potential would be more than 10,000 hectares (i.e. one-third of the country’s irrigation potential); this figure does not account for spontaneous irrigation upstream of reservoirs.

5. Together, it is estimated that they have an irrigation potential of more than 5000 hectares (public irrigation in Ghana is estimated at 9000 hectares; GoG, 2010) and allow watering more than 1 million head of livestock, thus benefiting a population well above 2.5 million persons.

6. Though individual extension agents may have considered slightly differing criteria to judge performance, the consistency of the explanations they gave to justify their scoring during the collective working sessions gives us confidence in comparing the scores given.

7. Land ownership (rather than access or use right) remains a major criterion (whether officially or not) in determining WUA membership, thus de facto excluding women in many cases.