'Participatory' Water Management: Towards a New Horizon
IN his inimitable way, he referred to it as the "musical key-note address - Allah magh de, pani de, chhaya dere tui" a folk song which underscored the paramountcy of water in Bangladesh and by implication its use or management. In the same vein, he concluded his discourse by translating into English a Nazrul song, "Padmar dheure..... " Bengalee love for the Padma, the river that symbolizes life in Bangladesh again, by implication, stressing the cruciality of water management. The editor of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam was acting as the moderator of the one-day "National Conference on "Participatory Water Management" at the BRAC Centre on December 18, 1997 organised jointly by the government of Bangladesh (Ministry of Water Resources) and the Netherlands.
As a 'participant', I took part in the deliberations and observed the methodologies employed in the conference. This article seeks to highlight the objectives and issues and their probable impact on government management of water use (including flood control, drainage and irrigation) via participation of the people.
The programme identified four objectives for the conference :
i) To develop a better understanding of water management practices
ii) To learn about the capacity of people to manage their water resources
iii) To discuss and reach a common understanding on the implications of the nature of water management in Flood Control, Drainage System for the guidelines for participatory water management.
iv) To clarify the future roles of the conference participants in making participatory water management happen.
It is thus crystal clear that the conference was not just for water management per se, but "participatory" water management as a special method.
From the conference objectives, the point to note is the adjective "participatory" before the noun "water management." The conference organises, therefore, appear to be specially concerned about the participation of the people who are affected by the projects for water management. So, participation is the hinge word. Let me try to clarify the concept of participation at this stage and proceed to assess its impact on government management.
Although the Background Information, Programme and other Conference materials have popularized the term 'participation' it seems to me that the term still baffles leaving us with unclear, and nonspecific attributes - somewhat around the focus and yet far from it in terms of who participates, why, and how. It may be useful to examine the key word - participation in such components. The dictionary meaning of participation includes the following : 1. to possess something of the nature of a person, thing or quality; 2. the state being related to a large whole; 3. to take part in something or to have a share in something.
The modern meaning of participation is related to voting and other public or political acts in which people take part - i.e.. participate in decision-making. Of course the phenomenon is a very recent one - of the twentieth century - almost of our own time. The classical political thinkers - Plato and Aristotle - did not specifically consider the matter. With the passage of time - as the number grew, new relationship arose. The discovery of the unknown land and resultant commerce with them, money economy, capitalism, bureaucracy, nationalism, political economy, and spread of education, and many other factors produced - in their combination - representative government - or democracy in popular parlance.
The institutions through which democracy operates include voting, parliament, cabinet, bureaucracy, and the courts. The basic idea is that government - or a group of people elected to run the administration - must be invested with necessary powers. As power corrupts, so the government must be kept in checks and balances - thus making it accountable to the people or their elected representatives.
The routes to democracy have taken three distinct positions : 1) Implementation of consensus (Rousseau); 2) majority determination (Locke); and 3) satisfying differences in kind, quality, intensity, and quantity of interest (Herring) i.e. policy is made by balancing claims of interest and mediating among them. Democratic values rest on three tenets : individual realization, equality of men in their claims for attention, and participation - either directly or through control of leaders. Such values "leave many quandaries in the practical world of policymaking.... Responsiveness is the central theme of democratic morality, but wisdom and tranquillity and order, are competing claims of political purpose". (Redford, Democracy in the Administrative State). To this responsive, responsible, and orderly exposition of participation as a working form of democracy or representative government, some American Scholars and international agencies like the World Bank and USAID have added a few refinements, [like the role of popular participation in development activities like implementation of title IX of the Foreign Assistance Act, 1968.] A conference held at MIT in 1968 identified and emphasized three kinds of participation: 1) participation in decision-making; 2) participation in implementation; 3) participation in benefits. To these, the Cornell University Rural Development Committee added a fourth dimension, 4) participation in evaluation.
These can be exemplified in case of a project under consideration. The affected people can participate in deciding of they are willing to have it. Once this is done, they may share the various elements of work. If the goal is achieved, the people will enjoy the benefits deriving from projects they themselves have some say in designing it and carrying it out. The fourth participation relates to assessing its usefulness or its disadvantages with efforts at correcting those. Of course, such planning and activity presuppose considerable support from bureaucrats, engineers, technicians, apprenticeship, trial and error, and above all, an willingness to learn from errors. Such additions and explanations have served to elaborate a real life meaning and significance of the term participation. As it is applied to project management, particularly water management issues in Bangladesh, more specifications could be worked out in day-to-day experience.
Existing Water Management Organisation
The existing water management system may be said to consist of - beginning with the Ministry of Water Resources (MOWR) at the top and Project Council (PC) at the bottom (a top-down bureaucratic organisation the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) just appears somewhat in between the MOWR and the special organization set up for specific purposes) - Systems Rehabilitation Project (SRP), Flood Project Coordination Organization (FPCO), Water Users' Group (WUG), Water Users' Committee ( WUC), Water Users' Association (WUA), and Project Council (PC). One has to assume that the various officers like Chief Engineers, Superintending Engineers, Executive Engineers and Sub Divisional Engineers (SDE) or Assistant Engineers and many others must have something to do with water management projects /systems whether directly or indirectly associated with special bodies mentioned. Such associations or relationships may not be based on 'participatory' management as these are basically bureaucratically organized.
Why is Participatory Management Needed?
A one-sentence reply may be that water use or management affects everybody - big or small, high or low - so everybody must be involved. What touches all must be decided by us. Fine, but what is the structure suitable to involve everybody in water management? The conference organisers' view is that "water management systems are not affecting agriculture alone. All people, regardless of their gender, occupation, and socio-economic status are legitimate stakeholders" of Flood Control, Drainage (FCD) systems. Organising all these stakeholders in one or several organizations is not effective.
The word stakeholder may create confusion as all don't have stakes, some do, as these people hold stake in various measures - high, medium, low. So the interest of such so-called stakeholders varies according to their interest, share, and risk. They are not a homogeneous group; some are better-off, while some are worse-off. How to strike an optimum balance between the two is a crucial question. Justifiably, Mahfuz Anam called attention to use simpler terms with more clarity.
The Implications
Obviously , many people, many groups, interests associations, and even special circumstances are involved. So the situation demands several structures and flexible arrangements. The conference focused on such matters or issues.
These could be discussed under three heads, viz, 1) Socio-economic Issues; 2) Institution Issues; and 3) Water Management Issues.
Socio-economic Issues
Locally elected bodies - such as the Union Parishads (UP) are legal bodies, have legitimacy and represent the needs, interests and problems of the local people. The Gram Parishad (GP) passed by Parliament and now in the process of formation through UP elections - will be more directly involved. As at present UPs have very little to do with water management. They may be authorised to include water management functions in their official list of duties and a framework worked out to enlist the willing cooperation of the common man needed so much in such matters.
There are informal structures in the rural areas - the salish, matbor, imams, who could exert their influence in securing the needed cooperation in a major task that affects local and woe of everybody. The government resources are generally shared between stakeholders and the Water Management (WM). Agency which tends to work in favour of the rich, middle class farmers and against the small, landless, and the poor. Given the objective situation in Bangladesh, the benefits of government programmes or projects are enjoyed by the rich. The poor have neither the time, interest and the stake. They might not care - they suffer anyway. So, how to develop a system that is at once representative and useful? These issues must be sorted out by trials and tribulations. My limited experience in the rural areas suggests that all project - whether sponsored by GO or NGO - have tended to by-pass the locally elected bodies take the UP.
Institutional Issues
As we have just noted, UPs have little or no role in WM at the moment, new roles may be assigned to UPs or GPs now in the offing. Ideally located, such bodies as UPs or GPs can address the institutional issues by undertaking care or management of FCD-systems. Their installations may be left to MoWR or BWDB, of their day-to-day management - repair, care, supervision, etc - may be left to WUGs, WUCs, WUA, or PCs - as at present. In that case, what will be the appropriate relationship between UP/GP on the one hand, and WUG/WUC/WVA/PC on the other? It appears from the (Programme p.2) that the WM-system committee counts of all the UP chairmen. Whether the UP chairman have the line and interest to give to water management will be another question.
The Thana Development Coordination Committee (TDCC) is a coordinating agency consisting of thana level officers and UP chairman. It has not been known to be very effective as it lacks effective leadership. It has replaced the Thana Parishad. The present government is known to have said in favour of reverting back to the Thana Parishad. In case of TP big revived and allowed to operate with necessary powers and resources, it might be useful to take charge of WM projects with technicians and representatives of the people performing assigned functions. Pending the expected thing to happen, TDCC may be recast with greater representation of the people - project-wise. This might require special administrative arrangements and their accountability to an appropriate forum. As of today, TDCC is not accountable to any elected body.
Water Management Issues
Water management has been a perennial matter in Bangla-desh and predates any gove-rnment intervention FCD-systems now in operation - is required to ensure the people's participation during the phases of the project cycle. FCD (Flood Control Drainage) systems are different from irrigation (I) system. They are public good infrastructures. The government manages the FCD-system which precludes handing these over to the so-called stakeholders. A division of responsibilities and tasks is necessary. How can this be structured into functional relationships? Flood Control and Drainage (water conveyance) are two different components of the FCD-systems. The so-called stakeholders are responsible for the water conveyance. Indeed, they are the ones who need water to be conveyed or carried to their land. So, their stake is clear. What is the stake of the common man on this? Most of them have no land - so that there is no question of carrying water to their lands.
Of course, flood control is a democratic task which affects the poor and the rich equally. Here, the roles of both groups are clear - cooperation at all costs. They willingly join efforts at controlling floods providing necessary goods and series to the government effort.
So, WM issues are multifaceted and require different approaches. Though trials and errors, these approaches need to be perfected.
Other Issues
Many efforts of the government require legal frameworks - Acts, Laws, and Rules framed thereunder - within which the proposed WM bodies are required to be functioning. Experience in this field does not appear to be happy one. A Bill to provide for people's participation in FCD/I projects was worked out to be placed in the Parliament. For reasons unknown, it was later retracted (Background Information) although the "Guidelines for People's participation in Water Development Project" (GPP) was endorsed by the MoWR in 1995. To make the WM projects effective and useful to the people, a legal framework will be necessary, but yet it is still far from coming.
Farmers who pay Tk. 700 per acre to the Pump Manager/Collector. The latter are not passing the monies so collected to the BWDB. He is also not responsible to Water Users' Group (WUG). If this is true, there is a privatisation of a public good in irrigated water. Most probably, the big farmers monopolise whatever this is to monopolise. They have so far done so in all projects - public or private. These can be no effective role for the people in such an objective situation.
The Ideation
Yet, the aspect of people's participation in projects that affects people is most welcome and in keeping with the democratic urges of the people and the promises and practices of the government. Now, it is the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) which is endeavouring to involve people in WM projects. Indeed, MoWR has been making such attempts since 1994. The Foreign Minister claims that "the present government has taken steps to strengthen the local government bodies with UP as the focal point of development... the government is pledge-bound to ensure the participation of rural people in development activities..." (The Bangladesh Observer 17-12-97). Slogans like "Education/Health/Housing/Food for All, etc., if converted into programmes/projects would require the participation of the people to make them a success. The Prime Minister has been on record to reiterate the concepts of 'accountability' and 'transparency' of administration. All these attempts, slogans and concepts point up the participating management case. An idea today is tomorrow's project.
Paolo Freire's idea of 'conscientization' in Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Education for Critical Consciousness has helped to enlarge the horizon of the people in terms of changing their life style. So have the ideas of empowerment of the poor and women and constructing programmes for effective development (Cernia); rural development participation (Uphoff, Cohen, Goldsmith); Panchayati Raj in West Bengal (Webster); people's participation, Local Government, and Rural Development (Westergaard) and 'Participatory Rural Appraisal' PRA 'Project with People' (Chambers), and Project with people (Oaklay); so, participation is no more in the 'ivory tower' of imagination, it seems to have started a descending or landing process, however remote. The Participatory Water Management Conference may go down as a stepping stone in the history of democratic administration in Bangladesh. Let's go to the people and learn from them: their needs and requirements, potentialities and limitation, cooperation and constraint.
Conclusion
Finally, word of caution. Participation is indeed democracy at work. And democracy - a lifestyle of sharing sunshine and shower together - is a matter of cultivation. One must not expect to work wonders overnight. Rather, slow, systematic and sustained care in preparing the people: working together, sharing and suffering, and eventually 'learning by doing.' Geof Wood's cautious optimism deserves a consideration:
"Bangladesh does not enjoy such condition, [... long established democratic conditions and strong civil institutions ...] and this underpins the anxieties (shared by many) regarding the participation of affected groups of people in the decision-making which will have a profound impact upon their livelihoods. Water management in Bangladesh cannot be separated from the principle of shared participation ... management. And if the appropriate institutions and trust between officials and local people does not exist, then it has to be created as part of the water management process than seen as an inconvenience..."
Let's give it a try.
The writer is a teacher.This article has been written as an humble response to the challenge of Mahfuz Anam who reminded the conference that the participants tend to forget its message or follow-up after the conference is over.
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