I . * .. Staffworking Paper No. 2.1 . Coordinating and Support Mechanisms: Options and Prospects for Irrigation Management BY R. Sakthivadivel 1 IMPSA 1 IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT POLICY SUPPORT ACTIVITY Management Institutc(1IMI). Staff Working Paper No. 2.1* ............ ... ,..p ........... \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... .~ ...(. 6 6 7 . ~ c . , i l .................... i - Coordinating and Support Mechanisms: Options and Prospects for Irrigation Management BY R. Sakthivadivel * Prepared as a paper to support IMPSA Policy Paper No. 2 - 'Institutional Framework for the Management of Irrigation Systems and Building Farmers' Organizations.' Dr. R. Sakthivadivel is the Senior Irrigation Specialist, Sri Lanka Field Operations (SLFO) Division, International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI). April 1991. . I I .... ...... .... -.. ..... 1. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Page 1 1 2 2 3 5 5 6 I 8 8 9 10 10 10 11 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1.1 Preamble 1.2 Objectives 1.3 Methodology 1.4 Coordination and Support Services OVERVIEW OF PAST EXPERIENCES 2.1 2.2 INMAS 2.3 Kirindi Oya 2.4 Institutional Strengthening Project 2.5 ISM Project 2.6 Walawe 2.1 COORDINATION OF ACTIVITIES, FUNCTIONS AND AGENCES SUPPORT SERVICES Cultivation Connnittee Under the Paddy Lands Act Farmer OrganiLations for Agricultural Development AGENCY-MANAGED SYSTEMS COORDINATING MECHANISM FOR JOINT-MANAGEMENT SCIIErnS 6.1. Coordination of Financial Management 6.2. Holding Karma Meetings 6.3. Coordination of Support Services 6.4. 6.5. Coordinating Input Services 6.6. Conflict Resolution COORDINATING MECHANISM FOR SELF-MANAGED SCHEMES HIGIXER LEVEL COORDINATION IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS REFERENCES Coordinating with ID and FOs in Providing Water Allocation, Operation and Maintenance Services 11 15 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 19 21 25 Figures 1, 2 and 3 - Pictorial Representation of Different Types of Coordination Systems 26 Table 1 - Uda Walawe Rehabilitation Project Proposed Composition of Committees of Farmer Reps and MEA Officials Activities, Functions and Agencies to be Coordinated at the Project Levels 28 29 27 Table 2 - Table 3 - Table 4 - Types of Support Services, Activities and Functions Level of Coordination, Coordination Committees, and Functions to be Coordinated at each level. 30 1 IMPSA STAFF WORKING PAPER NO. 2.1' COORDINATING AND SUPPORT MECJUNISMS: OPTIc3NS AND PROSPECTS FOR IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Preamble The first IMPSA policy working paper envisions that by the year 2000, farmers will be organized into strong organizations to manage irrigation systems and other inputs, as well as market their produce. The role of the government would be facilitator and provider of basic services to support farmers' self-management. This vision when implemented will lead to the firm control of resources, particularly water and the irrigation systems conveying and delivering water by strong, effective and active farmers' organizations. While the state agencies will share overall control of large macro-level systems through joint management, small and medium sized independent systems and major subsystems of large irrigation systems will be completely managed by locally-based user organizations. Provision of inputs will be decentralized and channelled through farmers' co- operatives, farmer-organizations and other government and non-governmental organizations. Coordination of necessary inputs will also be decentralized and will be brought under the control of the people most in need of them. On the other hand, the government will provide technical services and training to local organizations; will act as a clearing house for research, development and dissemination; and act as a referee to ensure that the rules are followed and exploitation is minimized; the government will also provide assistance to farmers' organizations in planning, and designing rehabilitation and modernization programs, and providing services for their implementation at subsidized rates, involving farmers' contribution of their shares. Under such an environment, coordination and support services to irrigation systems assume greater significance and importance. This Staff Working Paper (SWP2.1) proposes coordinating and support mechanisms for irrigation management. It is intended to be one of the eight SWPs which will be used as an input into IMPSA Policy Paper No.2. "Institutional Framework for the Management of Irrigation Systems and Building Farmer Organizations". The author was assisted in the preparation of this Paper by a Condtation Panel composed of Mls . Wickremaratne (MEA) and Mr. Anura 1 G.T. Jayawardma (IMD), D.W.R.M. Weerakoon (ID), H.A. Widanapathirann, (IMPSA). 2 1.2. Objectives The objectives of SWP2.1 are to identify the coordinating functions both horizontal and vertical that arise from the new participatory management system, outline the mechanisms that should be in place to ensure effective coordination and support, and examine the various options and propose strategies for instituting and promoting effective coordination. Specifically, the paper tries to answer the following questions: 1. What are the roles and functions that need to be coordinated and/or supported in self- and joint-management of irrigation systems? At what &s of the system are the coordination and support required? 2. What are the agencies/organizations that are to be coordinated and supported? What should be the role of private sector in coordinating and supporting functions? What kind of coordination and support mechanisms are now in place or contemplated in the near future in systems under MIRP and TSMP and programmes such as INMAS and MANIS. What are their strengths and weaknesses? 3. 4. What are the outions available for instituting effective coordination and support mechanisms for: a) joint-management of irrigation systems b) self-management of irrigation systems 5. What should be the irnDlementation strategy for achieving effective coordinating and support mechanisms at the project level? What changes in existing organizations and support services are required to implement such a strategy? 1.3. Methodology The SWP2.1 was prepared based primarily on the following: i Review of available literature on past experiences including the pilot projects so far undertaken on participatory irrigation management. Informal discussions with heads of irrigation agencies and senior officials with local experience. ii 3 iii Information and feedback obtained from the consultative workshops covering a wide spectrum of irrigation professionals including decision-makers and farmer representatives. Discussion with IMPSA and IIMI/SLFO staff. Formal discussions and consultations with the consultants and key officials set- up under consultation panels. iv V The special Consultation Panel set up in respect of the development of this paper was composed of, (i) (ii) (iii) G.T. Jayawardena, Project Director (ISMP), IMD D.W.R.M. Weerakoon, Senior Deputy Director (O&M), ID H.A. Wickremaratne, Chief Irrigation Engineer, MEA - MASL. 1.4. Coordination of Support Services . Before we go into the objectives and details of this paper, let us look at what the words coordination and support services literally mean. Coordination refers to: bring into proper relation; cause to function together in proper order; while the word support means: give strength to; lend assistance. What does it mean to participatory management of large irrigation systems? Under this program, the farmers will be assisted to organize as viable groups at field turnouts and distributary levels and encouraged to participate effectively in the management processes of irrigation systems. Organizing farmers into small and cohesive groups becomes necessary for making the participation easier and simpler; therefore, the first and foremost need is to form strong and self-reliant farmer organizations through suitable government support mechanisms; the second aspect aimed at is that the farmer organizations participate in the management process to get the maximum benefit. The management processes in jointly- managed irrigation systems are governed not only by the farmer groups but also by the agency personnel involved in the management activities; agency personnel can provide the necessary technical input and support services to the agricultural production processes; Farmer co-operatives, farmer organizations and other agencies can provide the necessary input services to the agricultural production; farmer groups can provide their long-term understanding of the system and co-operate with the agency officials in a more understandable manner because of their inherent interest in improved system Performance. The combination and wise use of the expertise available with agencies and farmers through proper coordination and support mechanisms is aimed at in achieving better performance of irrigation systems. Both coordination and support services have a symbiotic relationship; without provision of support services, coordination will be effective; provision of support services without coordination will not yield the desired performance effect. I I 4 Irrigated agricultural systems are large, complex and multi-functional systems managed by a host of agencies and farmer organizations. In such systems, coordination is to be carried out at different levels; in the case of jointly-managed systems coordination is to be carried out at two or three different levels of the project; in the case of self-managed syhtems, it is to be carried out at a cluster level possibly within a hydrological boundary; in addition coordination is necessary at the divisional and district levels, at the provincial level and at the central government level; but the activities to be coordinated differ from one level to the other. At the interministerial level, there is a need for coordination of policy decision- making: at the national and provincial levels policy study and policy formulation are to be coordinated; at the divisional and project levels, coordination for policy implementation is important. At the project level, we should be thinking of coordinating three broad categories of activities, which are central to all kinds of irrigation schemes. They are: a) Water supply services activities: water allocation, water distribution, system maintenance, conflict resolution among DCOs, etc. b) Agricultural production advisory service activities: general agricultural extension and water management extension. Commercial service activities: input supplies, credit, marketing. c) Coordination at the project level are governed by a number of characteristics of the system, and/or the organizational structure of the project. Invariably, the scale of the system has a considerable impact on coordination; with the bigger systems decision-making becomes dispersed and decentralized thus making it difficult to coordinate; if the agencies to be coordinated have different jurisdictional boundaries (for example ID is based on project or hydrological boundary while department of agriculture is based on administrative boundary) coordination becomes difficult; coordination also becomes difficult when the agencies to be coordinated are not equal in strength and capabilities (example a strong and powerful agency and weak farmer organizations). In most irrigation systems managed by the ID, IMD and DAS, a committee system is used as a mechanism for coordinating the various activities that provide inputs to a certain process; generally a coordinating committee is constituted with members having decision- making powers or the decision-making body (management committee) itself will take over coordination as one sub-activity. For example the Mdhaweli System uses matrix management with the Resident Project Manager, and with the Block Manager and the Unit Manager acting as coordinators. 5 The tlxm ‘support services’ is distinguished from ‘input services’ in this paper; while support services refer to those activities that indirectly help to achieve certain objectives, input services refer to the set of activities which are directly related to the objectives; It can also be thought that input services refer to tangible inputs while support services refer to intangible inputs. For example provision of fertilizer to the agricultural production process is an input service while extension training for increasing agricultural production is a support service. 2, m I V I E W OF PAST EXPERIENCES In the past, a number of committees such as the Cultivation Committee under the Paddy Lands Act, Agricultural Planning Team (APT) under the Department of Agrarian Services and other coordinating bodies were constituted by the Government from time to time to carry out, implement and co-ordinate activities related to agricultural production processes; however, very little information on their working and critical evaluation of their performance as coordination mechanisms were readily available to us from which we could draw our lessons. So only programs and projects such as INMAS and ISMP which have contributed substantially to implementation of coordination at the project level have been given importance in this review; also a few proposals submitted to the implementing agencies are also included because some of the concepts suggested in these proposals are incorporated in the working paper. 2.1. Cultitation Committee Under the Paddy Lands Act The Paddy Lands Act of 1958 (amended in 1961 and 1964) is significant, in that, it realized the problems of small farmers and the need for institutional development over 30 years ago. It recommended the setting up of Cultivation Committees at village level (each covering about 3 to 4 villages and an area of about 300 acres of paddy land) to mobilize the cultivators and to adopt new technology by concentrating all power and functions pertaining to cultivation at village level in democratically elected bodies by the cultivator themselves. The Cultivatuon Committee was supposed to deal with all cultivation matters at village level while the Department Agrarian Services established at District and National levels attempted to provide all the needs of the farmers, pertaining to credit, marketing, fertilizer, implements, minor irrigation, and crop insurance. The Government also expected that the cultivation committees would implement statutory functions enacted under the Paddy Lands Act, Minor Irrigation Ordinance and the Crop Insurance Act. With the pasing of the Minor Irrigation Ordinance by the Parliament in 1960, the Cultivation Committee and the Commissioner of Agrarian Services were made responsible for all minor irrigation activities. The control of water and provision of the irrigation services became the duties of the cultivation committee. The cultivation committee was allowed to hold Kanna meetings to decide on cultivation dates and was also permitted to engage in self-help schemes to mobilize cultivators for small-scale irrigation projects. 6 The cultivation committee was expected to prepare an irrigated agricultural plan and educate the farmers not only in agricultural techniques, but also in management and community development. As a service organization, the cultivation committee was expected to look after the seed, fertilizer, agro-chemicals and equipment needs of the cultivators. , Unfortunately, the cultivation committees could not function effectively, provide the needed support and services to the farming communities and live upto government and farmers' expectations. There are a number of reasons for this failure, the most important among them being: major flaws and loop-holes in the Paddy Lands Act; insufficient provision or avenues for mobilizing resources to carry out multi-faceted activities; inadequate training provided to cultivation Committee members; unsystematic way of implementing the program; resistance against this program by people having vested interests (land-owning community and vel vidanes) and above, all the half-hearted support from the government and agency officials. 2.2. INMAS [Weerawardena, 19751. I : I The Irrigation Management Division (IMD) of M/LI&MD is presently implementing its Integrated Management of Major Irrigation Schemes (INMAS) program in about 35 major schemes. The general guidelines for INMAS advocate the establishment of a pyramidal committee structure operating on three tiers: field channel groups, distributary channel organizations and the project or sub-project committees. I The field channel groups are informal organizations which are supposed to meet regularly to discuss issues and problems relating to water distribution and maintenance and take timely action. Problems that the field channel group cannot solve can be referred to the distributary canal farmer organization or through them to the appropriate line agency. The field channel representatives selected by farmers under one or more distributary channels form the distributary canal farmer organization (DCO). It is a formal organization with a constitution and a president, secretary, a treasurer, and other office bearers elected by the FC farmer representative members. Meetings of the DCOs are supposed to be attended by field level officers of line agencies on invitation, to discuss problems and find solution to those problems that can be solved at this level. The INMAS Project Management Committee convened by the Project Manager is the apex committee at the project level. The members of the committee include farmer representatives on thc basis of one from each distributary organization, and officials of the line agencies such as ID, LCD, DOA and DAS. One of the basic problems faced by the DCOs and the Project Management Committee appears to be that they do not have legal recognition and have very little resources at their disposal to achieve their objectives. The roles and responsibilities of the Project Management Committee members have not been clearly defined and demarcated; I I i I 7 I most of the time, it acts as a progress monitoring committee rather than a decision making management committee; many of the decision-making agency officials are not regularly attending this meeting. To function effectively and efficiently, any management/coordination committee must be vested with necessary authority and resources; it must have well-defined ground rules for its operation;. it should carry its operation through careful planning, programming, implementing, monitoring and evaluating its performance; to function as a decision-making body, it needs a well-defined management information system. . Presently, the Project Manager has no systematic way of collecting data and using i t for decisionmaking. Data collection is primarily concerned with satisfying headquarters needs rather than those needed to make management decisions. For the Project Management Committee, there is a consensus among all whom we had discussed as to who should be the members of this committee; What is not clear at this stage is: What should be the total number of members in the PMC? What are their voting rights, length of tenure, roles and responsibilities etc? What should be the organizational structure of the PMC? The Project Management Committee, as termed in the INMAS Program is linked to the District Agricultural Sub-committee through project representative which is the main implementing body at the district level for the management of INMAS projects. The District Agricultural Sub-committee is linked to the national level through a Central Coordinating Committee which reviews policy and provides guidelines for implementation. 2.3. Kirindi Oya Kirindi Oya is a recently constructed water short settlement project having coordinationi and management problems between old and new settlers, between government agencies and settlers, and among the implementation agencies (ID, IMD, DAS, LC, etc.). The research carried out by IIMI in Kirindi Oya system under the ADB funded Irrigation Management and Crop Diversification Project, based on several years of field work, recommended the following with regard to coordination. 1. The Government of Sri Lanka appoint a senior person as "Resident Project Director" at the rank of an Additional Government Agent. This person would be responsible for overseeing the establishment of decision rules for future allocations, setting up the mechanism for making and implementing these decisions, developing plans for achieving the long-term objectives of the Kirindi Oya Project, and ensuring effective cooperation among the supporting departments and agencies. To be effective, the Resident Project Director must have full political and administrative support. 8 Tlhe Government of Sri Lanka establish a "WATER ALLOCATION PANEL" consisting of high-level representatives of the concerned government departments and political interests. The Irrigation Management Division establish separate Project Management Ciommittees for each sub-project area which are joint farmer-government committees charged with deciding overall subsystem operational policies given the allocation of water for the subsystem. 2. 3. The Kirindi Oya experience indicates that unless the Project Manager is strong, dynamic and committed, coordination becomes difficult; it also suggests that for large projects, establishment of sub-project committees to solve their local problems and an apex committee at the project level to provide overall direction would be a better arrangement for effective management of the project. In Kirindi Oya, the main bottle-neck is that of allocating water among the competing groups; so it is this critical activity which needs the most coordination. Therefore, a water management panel is suggested to allocate and distribute the available water within different project areas. This suggests that special sub- committees are needed in addition to Project Management Committees to co-ordinate problems of critical importance to a particular project. These problems may vary from project to project. 2.4. Institulional Strengthening Project A study conducted by the ADB funded Institutional Strengthening Project identified that a major weakness of the INMAS M&E system is that the primary source of information was the Project Manager himself. The PM has no systematic means of analyzing the mass of data they propose to gather; moreover, the coordinating role to be played by the Project Manager has not been elaborated. 2.5. ISM Project The primary data source for ISMP M&E system was a very detailed farmer-level questionnaire which has now been very much shortened and made simpler; previously this questionnaire was to be administered by a field-level personnel on the payment of an incentive; now it is to be administered through FOs. In addition, there are two questionnaires to be filled by PM and IE of each project. Although both INMAS and ISMP generate a vast quantity of data they are little analyzed and not used in system management. The major output of both systems is an end season report, meant to guide the project managers to plan their next season program. However, recently ISMP has developed a monthly data collection system for the use of relevant level state officials of various line agencies and the farmer organizations to use and also a post-harvest survey report to be prepared based on farmers' supply of data. ~ 9 In the present system, there appears to be no effective link through coordination between monitoring and evaluation and planning and programming. The result therefore, is a system of planning, monitoring and evaluation where the. three components are compartmentalized, and therefore, inefficient in the generation and utilization of information. As per this study, the major management level in the IMD hierarchy is the Project Management. Actual concrete project- system-level management decisions are taken here. End season Ieports, however, are aimed at the IMD Coordinating Committee at HQ which is a supervisory and policy-making body. 2.6. Walaive In a report to Uda Walawe irrigation system now under the management of MEA, N.G.R. De Silva, (Director, IMPSA) recommended the following: 1. Representatives from farmer organizations together with relevant agency officials to be members of coordinating committees at the project-level as well as at appropriate number of levels lower down. 2. These coordination committees to be the forums for all decision-making in respect of water distribution, operation and maintenance, input supply, system improvements and other aspects in the overall management of the scheme. Set up coordinating committees of farmer representatives and MEA, MECA officers at the distributary, unit (tract), block and project levels. The committee at the tract level will be chaired by an elected farmer representative. The committee at Block level will be chaired by the Block Manager and that at the project level by the Resident Project Manager. As the Project Coordinating Committee may take sometime to be formed (after all Block committees are established and stabilized), it is suggested to institute a (temporary) Project Steering Committee to oversee all the activities. This committee can be dissolved, once the Project Coordinating Committee is functioning satisfactorily. Table No.1 gives the recommended composition of coordination committees of farmer representatives and MEA officials for Uda Walawe Rehabilitation Project. 3. 4. 5. 6. 11 Services is further sub-divided into two categories: support for Institutional Strengthening and support for Irrigated Agriculture Management. Many of the support senices will be channelled through the line agencies; however to identify the need for specific support services, arranging for their procurement and implementing it through line agencies need coordination. Table No.3 provides the type of support services, activities contemplated under each type and functions to be performed. 5. AGENCY-MANAGED SYSTEMS Before the introduction of INMAS programme and till recently, most of the large irrigation sysl ems including Mahaweli were predominantly agency-managed systems operated by them with very little consultation with farmers. It was basically a top-down approach of administering rather than managing systems (Fig.1); there were no formal farmers organizations in these systems. Except for the Mahaweli systems, there was very little coordination even among the line agencies operating at the project level. At district level, the sub-committee of the District Agricultural Committee arranged for Kanna meetings where water allocation, water release, crops, cropping calendar and other decisions were made and communicated to the farmers through line agencies attending that meeting. In the case of Mahaweli systems, all the line agencies were coordinated under one roof and farmer requirements were met under matrix management system; there were no formal farmer organizations even in this system. The importance of organizing farmers and involving them in management activities has now been accepted as a government policy and various experiments are being carried out under the INMAS, MANIS and ISMP programmes. 6. COORDINATING MECHANISM FOR JOINT-MANAGEMENT SCHEMES Jointly-managed schemes are those wherein both agency and the FOs share responsibility for operating, maintaining and managing the schemes. In this set up, main system will be managed and operated by the agency while the distribution including maintenance and operation within the tertiary system will be managed by the FOs (see SWP2.2). At the FC turnout level, there is only an informal group. The farmers in a distributary (or more than one distributary in case of small distributaries) will form a distributary level organization (DCO). This is the organization which will have formal structure of an organization; the elected farmer representatives from the turnout groups will form the members of distributary level farmers’ committee to co-ordinate and manage the system below and within the distributaries; the chairman of the organization elected by its members represents it at the Project Management Committee. The PMC consists of members of DCOs, chairmen of sub-project Committees, if there are any, and staff of line agencies. In the INMAS Program, officials of Irrigation Department, Land Commissioner’s 13 respective DCOs and not directly. There should be say, regular periodic elections for DCOs chairmen and FRs of the Project Management Committee. There should be a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating management performance of both the DCOs and the agency officials. There is a need to develop a monitoring and evaluation system; the performance reports in the case of officials should reach higher levels for evaluation; in the case of DCOs it should go to the Project Management Committee. This has just been developed under ISMP. g. Presently, a sizeable proportion of large irrigation systems is agency- administered with very little farmers’ participation. The ultimate objective is that farmers’ organizations will take-over the total management of irrigation systems and agency officials will provide only necessmy technical and support services as requested by the FOs. However, since this process of transformation from agency-administered system to fully farmer-managed system is going to be: slow, it has to be introduced in a phased manner. Therefore, the vision paper suggests that we should move on from an agency-administered mode to a participatory- management mode where both the agency officials and FOs will be involved in managing the irrigation systems. Under the joint-management system, the FOs will take-over the responsibility of managing the distributary and below, while the agency officials provide the required technical anti support services to manage the system effectively and efficiently. After the take-over by the FOs, the agencies will not discontinue their maintenance management support abruptly; they will continue to supplement farmers’ efforts with agency resources to keep the system sustained below the distributary level. It is suggested that all coordination between the turnout groups and the agency officials at that level be carried out by the DCO chaiimen, The agency officials working at that level will be invited to attend DCO committee meetings as and when there is such a necessity; whenever a request comes from the DCO chairman for such an attendance, the agency officials must make it a point to attend such meetings positively and provide necessary technical assistance. The head works and main channels are operated and maintained by the agency officials; it is suggested that the farmer representatives from DCO level will federate into Farmer Organization (FO) committees at sub-project and system levels and get involved in the maiiagernent of the system through representation on the joint Project Management Committee (PMC) (Fig.2). This committee is often referred to such as Project Committee and Project Coordinating Committee. We prefer to call it Project Management Committee 0. It is envisaged that the system level FOO will ultimately take-over decision making in 0 & M of the system. Involvement of elected representatives of FOs in coordinating, decision-rnak.ing and managing the system will have the following beneficial effects: 14 - farmer representatives can provide their long-understanding of the project for since the farmers are the ultimate beneficiaries, they actively participate, making better decisions; - support and implement the decisions made; - combined decisionmaking by the farmers and agencies binds them to honor the decisions. it provides an opportunity for the farmer representatives to get trained in decision-making processes and make them self-reliant managers. The next question is: What should be the structure of the PMC to function effectively? Experience indicates that a committee consisting of not more than 30 members will be an appropriate one to deal with; more than 30 members in a committee becomes unwieldy. It is suggested that the number of farmer representatives should be more than the agency representation in the PMC for the farmers to have an effective say and participation. The agency members who will be attending this meeting can be divided into two groups: those who will be attending all the meetings and have voting rights, and the second group will be those who will be attending only certain selected meetings with non-voting rights. Under the first category, it is suggested to have members from the Irrigation Department, Irrigation Management Division, Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Services and Land Commissioners’ Department. During the formative years of the PMC, one of the agency officials can be the chairman of the PMC; once the farmers become self-reliant and capable of handling their business, the ch,airman of the PMC can be elected from among the members; If an official is the chairman, the vice-chairman will be from the farmer representatives and vice-versa. The secretary of the PMC will always be the Project Manager or an elected official. Generally the elected farmer representatives will hold office for two years; they may be allowed to get re-elected if they wish to do so. In order to carry out its function more effectively and efficiently, it is suggested that: 1. the PMC be vested with adequate resources, legal power and government back-up; ii. the attendance of the agency officials to the PMC must be compulsory and form part of their duties; Funds provided by the government to the line agencies are to be spent only wrih the concurrence of the PMC. iii. 15 adequate provisions must be made to provide necessary infra-structural facilities and staff to the PMC to carry out institutional development activities, support services, monitoring and evaluation work and maintain a management information system. iv. The activities envisaged for the Project Management Committee are as follows: 6.1. Coordination of Financial Management The Project Management Committee can play a significant role in coordinating the management of funds allocated to the project level line agencies. During the formative years the FOs may not become self-sustaining, and therefore, funds allocated to the project are to be utilized for operating and maintaining the total system including those turned over to FOs. It is therefore essential that broad guidelines be prepared for the allocation of funds between FOs for operating and maintaining the distributary channels and the agency for operating the main system (head works and main channels); proper utilization of allotted funds for O&M works of the conveyance and distribution systems can be effected through concurrence of work plan and budget by the PMC before implementation. 6.2. Holding Kanna Meetings The I'MC must have the power to conduct the Kanna meeting. . This meeting may be considered equivalent to calling the General Assembly of all the farmers. Holding effective Kanna meetings need considerable preparation on the part of both FOs and the agency officials; first the FOs must decide and obtain information from the turnout groups on their choice of crop, cropping calendar, input and support services required; the information collected at the project level is synthesized and sent to various line agencies to identify whether the requirements of the FOs can be met, both in terms of available resources and time fr'me, and make necessary preparations to supply the needed inputs. To match the demand with supply, a Pre-Kanna meeting is called for to discuss and arrive at certain agreed conclusions and recommendations. These agreed recommendations are then ratified at the Kanna meeting. This is an important phase in irrigated agriculture. 6.3. Coordination of Support Services Support services being an important component for establishing participatory management in irrigation schemes, it is suggested that the PMC facilitate coordinating the fallowing aciivities with concerned agencies: 1. ii. assist and facilitate formation and strengthening of FOs; arrange for training to acquire skills, and knowledge in operating, maintaining and managing their systems; 16 help in restructuring of agency officials in formal agency management process including decision-making, authority structure, communications and incentives; help in providing technical support services for efficient water management and extension services. ... 111. iv. 6.4. Coordinaiing with ID and FOs in Providing Water Allocation, Operation and Maintenance Services , . I Water allocation and distribution among FOs and routine maintenance of canals are very important activities for successful crop production; although the ID would be able to take care of main system operation, coordinating the activities right from the time of taking up maintenance management of the canal, preparation of operational and rotational schedules, implementation of the schedules, monitoring and evaluation of the canal performance are important activities needing the coordination of FOs and ID at the project level; coordination becomes critical when there is a short supply at the beginning of a season. Crop planning and water allocation for different zones needs coordiniation of ID, FOs and DOA. 6.5. Coordinating Input Services It is suggested that the PMC will deal only with distributary level FOs for coordinating the input services. Below the distributary level the DCO chairman will take- over the coordinating function. Ensuring the timely supply of other inputs besides water is a universally important function which may often be effectively performed through good coordination with another specialist-agency support rather than through direct control. The extent of direct management involvement in these fields should be determined by the effectiveness of existing commercial institutions. Also, the skills required for buying and selling are substantially different from those involved in the provision of services such as water supply and agricultural extension, and there are obvious savings to government, especially in terms of scarce administrative man-power, if effective commercial institutions can be developed in the co-operalive or private sectors. Primarily, the PMC will deal with farmer organizations, co-operatives and private firms? in providing fertilizer, pesticides, seeds, farm power, agricultural implements and labor; banks and co-operatives to provide credit and crop-insurance; with private traders, CWE and other marketing agencies to provide marketing, storage and processing facilities; and the Land Commissioner's office and other Community Development offices for 'There was difference of opinion between the writers of this paper and the expert panel on the use of terininology: private: firm and non-governmental agencies; the writers have preferred the terminology - private finns. I I r I 17 providing infra-structural facilities for the settlement. Once the DCOs become recognized, then these would be easier to deal with than with individual farmers. 6.6. Conflict Resolution On jointly-managed systems, if FOs or implementing agencies feel dissatisfied with others’ performance, or if there are conflicts among farmers or among FOs that cannot be resolved easily, a mechanism is required for solving these disagreements. It is suggested that the PMC or a sub-committee of the PMC should play this role; both farmer and agency representatives participate in the sub-committee but not the members who are parties to the dispute. The decision of PMC is final and should be binding. For any reason, if an agency does not agree to abide by the decision, the PMC may appeal directly to the Secretary of the National and Provincial Ministry under which the agency falls. 7. COORDINATING MECHANISM FOR §ELF-MANAGED SCHEMES Irrigation systems which are having smaller command areas come under self-managed systems (see SW2.S). Self-managed systems and systems having command area upto 1000 acres and fed by inter-provincial rivers may come under the provincial council set up. The smaller systems will have two types of catchments namely free catchment and combined catchment. Systems with free catchment are those having their own catchment not intercepted by other schemes. In the case of systems with combined catchments, part of the water supply will be from their own catchments and the other part supplied through upstream systems. Such systems are sometimes referred to as cascade type systems. The self-managed systems will be managed entirely by FOs. Water acquisition and distribution within the system as well as maintenance of the system will be undertaken by FOs. Each system will have its own project management committee. All such schemes falling within a hydrologic boundary will form a cluster and will have a coordinating conmittee to look into the water-related activities and conflict resolutions, if any. In this committee, there will also be a representation from a major system, if such a system falls within the hydrologic boundary. For self-managed systems (in a cluster) lying within a hydrologic boundary, a coordinating committee will be constituted (Hydrologic Boundary Coordination Committee (HBCC). The elected farmer representatives from these systems will be members of the HBCC along with agency official members at that level. The basis on which the HBCC is formed is as follows: a. As far as possible, the HBCC is formed based on the hydrological boundary coming under the jurisdiction of the irrigational personnel of that area. The members of the committee are the elected FRs and at least two officers b. 18 of the line agencies (mainly irrigation and agricultural extension). The irrigation officer will be the secretary of the coordinating committee and the chairman will be from among the FRs. Within this hydrological boundary, if there is a major irrigation scheme, then one of its representatives in the PMC will also be a member of the HBCC. For the coordinating committee to be effective, the jurisdiction of both the irrigation and agricultural extension person should be the same; they act as a team in providing assistance to these small-scale systems. The HBCC can be considered equivalent to Project Management Committee in a jointly-managed system. It's linkage with higher level coordinating bodies such as AGA, Provincial and National councils will follow the same pattern as that of the jointly-managed schemes? C. d. e. 8. HIGHER LEVEL COORDNATION In addititon to project level coordination, higher level coordination is also necessary in certain area of activities which differ from level to level. As one moves from project level, the coordination activities, efforts and frequency will become less and less. A suggested level of coordination and their functions are given in Table No.4. Higher level coordination starts from divisional level; within a division, there may be three broad types of irrigation systems: first, is an inter-provincial system passing through that Division; it will have its own (coordinating) Project Management Committee; second, is one or more medium or large irrigation systems having their own Project Management Committee; and third is a cluster of small irrigation projects lying within a hydrologic boundary and coordinated by a Hydrologic Boundary Coordinating Committee (HBCC). A division may have one, two, or all the three types of systems described above. The representatives of the coordinating committee will be the members of the Divisional Coordination Committee. The difference between what is suggested here to that suggested by N.G.R. de Silva to the Department of Agriculture Research and Development, is that FOs are coming from hydrologic boundaries rather than village boundaries. This has certain advantages when water becomes a crucial input for agricultural production. Following are some of the characteristics for the suggested coordinating committee: 1. Initially, when the FOs are in the process of building self-reliance, the chairmen of these committees will be from among the agency officials; once the farmers become confident and capable of handling their own business, then an elected representative from the members can be the chairman. i L 7 ' 19 2. An agency official can be the secretary of each of these committees. The number of farmer representatives will always be greater than the number of agency officials. The total number of members in each of these committees can be upto a maximum of 30. The various functions to be coordinated and decisions taken are given in Table No.4. 3. 4. 5. The inter-provincial river systems having their own coordination committee will come directly under the national level coordinating committee. They will depute their representatives to participate in the lower level coordinating committees such as provincial, district and divisional. 9. IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY Implenientat ion of coordination and support mechanisms can be thought of under three broad categories: a. Creating necessary infra-structural facilities at the project level to introduce coordinating mechanisms. b. Establishing necessary coordination committees at different levels of the project and provide with necessary legal and resource backup. c. Improving the working of coordination committee through better planning, monitoring and evaluating its activities. The following are the suggested implementation steps: a. Implementation of coordination and support services is very essential for successful participatory management in irrigation systems; as participatory management becomes embedded in the management processes, the roles and functions of the government and private agencies have to be transformed to provide the necessary support and input services; this needs a change in the pattern of behavior of agency personnel, change in the organizational structure including management processes. Therefore, agency restructuring is a very important pre-requisite for implementation of institutional and support services. Formation of strong and viable FOs, DCOs and FOs committees at sub- project and project levels is a very important infra-structural development to b. 20 be attended to prior to installing effective coordination mechanisms. I C. A good and simple monitoring and evaluation system is very essential to the success of the coordination program. Information generation must start from the grass-root level of farmer groups at the turnout level, collated and synthesized at each level of FOs and reach the Project Management Committee for analysis and decision-making; similarly information flow on decisions taken at the PMC must flow back to the farmers through the same channel in reverse direction. Information collection, analysis, decision-making and dissemination are very important processes in management and coordination of activities. This must be achieved through effective participation of farmer organizations. Agency support services to institutional strengthening is very important; The agencies should establish an institutional development division under each project management committee to facilitate and guide the internal process of change and reform within the agency; act as a catalyst; facilitate and guide the process of building and strengthening farmers' organizations; and assist and arrange for training and technical support services for efficient operation, maintenance of the system, water management and extension support services. Implementation of coordination services should be gradual; it should be a learning process approach and should be introduced in a limited number of pIojects; it is suggested that in the first phase, these services be introduced into those projects which are taken up under the INMAS Program; in the second phase let these services be extended to other joint-management projects and lastly to self-managed schemes. In implementing this program, the lesons learned from ISMP must be evaluated and those aspects which are found useful included in the detailed planning phase for implementation; till WB have full complement of the Project Management Committee a Steering Committee will be set up to attend to the works of Project Management Committee; this committee will have representation of agency officials, private traders, and farmer representatives. As and when the Project Management Committee is formed, the Steering Committee ceases to function. d. e. f. The Project Management Committee must be provided with adequate legal power and resources (both human and material) to discharge its duties effectively and efficiently; some of the legal powers required are: to hold Karma meetings, to receive government funds and account for it; to arbitrate and provide conflict resolution; and to manage the project through internally and externally generated resources. The entire wccess of the Project Management Committee depends on how effectively and efficiently it is able to plan different activities during annual, g. r 7' 21 seasonal and in-seasonal cycles, program its activities, prepare a detailed work plan, implement it through proper coordination, monitor and evaluate its outcome. It is a dynamic process; in order to improve its performance, it needs to have a feedback mechanism from FOs. Detailed planning and execution through proper coordination is very important for the functioning of Project Management Committee. This is illustrated with respect to one activity relating to the cultivation calendar and crop planning through Kanna meeting. This has at least three major groups of people providing inputs to the decision-making process; first from the farmers: the type of crops to be grown; areas of each crop to be grown, their input requirements in terms of fertilizer, pesticide, seed, labor, credit, etc. and the possible date to start cultivation (this information is to be obtained from the FOs and collated to get the figures at the project level); the second from the Department of Agriculture: the suitability of crops; cropping calendar, pest attack and marketing potential etc; the third from irrigation agencies: water demand for the proposed cropping systems and water supply available; the maintenance and operation problems for delivering the required quantity of water. All this information must be used by the PMC to decide about the cultivation calendar and crop planning; once the decision is made, this must be communicated to the concerned agencies to get the necessary inputs in time to start the season with crops planned. All these aspects need a meticulous planning, coordination, implementation, monitoring and feedback. One of the ways of coordinating these multifarious activities is through decentralized sub-committee systems with overall supervision. h. In this process, farmer organizations and private agencies must be used to the maximum extent possible along with agency officials within the project. There must be sufficient incentive systems for the agency officials to participate and provide their best possible input. In the long run it is expected that each project will function as independent units having its own management personnel and managed fully by the farmer organization. 10. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 10.1. Irrigated agricultural systems are large, complex and multi-functional; and are managed by a host of agencies and farmer organizations. Decisions on varied topics related to agricultural production and marketing are made by different actors at various levels; in such systems, coordination becomes an extremely important element; coordination is to be carried out of the activities of farmer organizations at different levels and of different agencies providing technical, input and support services. 10.2. It is recommended that in jointly-managed systems, the main coordination can take place at the system level, while in self-managed smaller schemes, it can take place at sub- 22 watershed level based on hydrologic boundary. Nigher level coordination will be carried out at divisional, district, provincial and national levels. The FOs may federate into project level committee!i as shown in Fig.2. In such systems, it is recommended that: a. all coordination between the FC turnout groups and the agency officials at that level be carried out by the chairman of the DCO; the agency officials working at that level will be invited to attend DCO committee meetings as and when there is a necessity; whenever a request comes from the DCO * chairman, the agency officials must make it a point to attend such meetings positively, and provide necessary technical assistance; farmer representatives from the project level FOs committee will get involved along with the agency officials at the Project Management Committee in coordinating, decision-making and managing the system; in may schemes, project level coordination will be sufficient; only for larger schemes, additional coordination at sub-project level may be necessary; in those cases, a sub-project management committee can be constituted; jointly-managed schemes may be either Provincial Council or Inter-Provincial. In the inter-provincial schemes which are managed by the Central Government coordination becomes a little difficult because agriculture is a devolved subject while inter-provincial irrigation is not. One suggestion is that in the inter-provincial schemes, the provincial officer in charge of agriculture of that project will be a member of the PMC of inter-proyincial schemes. , b. c. d. 10.3. At the project level, there are four broad categories of activities to be coordinated. Three of them are cenrral to all kinds of irrigation projects, and the fourth one is optional depending on the particular nature of local objectives and context. They are: water-supply activities comprising water allocation, water distribution, system maintenance, conflict resolution, etc., agricultural production advisory service activities covering general agricultural extension and water management extension; commercial service activities which include input supplies, credit and marketing; and basic infra-structural and social service activities. i . I 10.4. Jointly-managed schemes are those wherein both agency and the FOs share responsibility for operating, maintaining and managing the schemes. In this set-up, the main system will be managed by the agency while the distribution within and including tertiary system will be managed by the FOs. 10.5. It is recommended that the PMC have not more than 30 voting members; the number of farmer representatives be more than the agency representation; members from ID, IMD, DOA, DAS and LCD be regular representatives, while representatives from other departments and non-governmental organizations attend only on invitation at certain 23 meetings. During the formative years of the PMC, one of the agency officials can be the chairman; once the farmers become self-reliant and capable of handling their business, the chairman of the PMC can be elected from among the members of the system level farmer organizations; if an agency official is the chairman, the vice-chairman will be from the farmer representatives and vice-versa. The secretary and treasurer of the PMC will be selected from among the official members of the PMC. Generally, the elected members of the PMC will hold office for two years; they may be permitted to get re-elected if they wish to do so. 10.6. In order to carry out its functions more effectively and efficiently, it is recommended that: a. the PMC be vested with adequate resources, legal power and government back-up; the attendance of agency officials to the PMC must be compulsory and form part of their duties; funds provided by the government to the line agencies are to be spent only with the concurrence of the PMC; adequate provisions must be made to provide necessary infra-structural facilities and staff to the PMC to carry out institutional development activities, support services, monitoring and evaluation work and maintaining a management information system. b. c. d. 10.7. The broad areas of coordination on which PMC should concentrate in the initial years are: financial management between line agencies and FOs, holding Kanna meetings, support services, water allocation, distribution and maintenance management, input services and conflict resolution. 10.8. It is recommended that in self-nianaged schemes, coordination at the project level be carried out by the Project Management Committee. Water acquisition and distribution within the scheme, as well as maintenance of the scheme will be undertaken by the FOs. All such schemes falling within a hydrological boundary (sub-watersbed) will form a cluster and will have a coordinating committee to look into the techrtical, input and support services, allocation of resources, and for any special repairs, etc. The Hydrologic Boundary Coordinating Committee (HBCC) will have elected farmer representatives as members along with agency officials at that level. At least two officers of the line agencies (mainly irrigation and agricultural extension) will be represented in the committee. The irrigation officer will be the secretary of the coordinating committee 24 and the chairman will be from among the FRs. Within the hydrological boundary, if there l is a major irrigation scheme, then one of its representatives in the PMC will also be a member of the HBCC. . I ~ The HBCC can be considered equivalent to Project Management Committee in a jointly-managed system. Its linkage with higher level coordinating bodies at sub-divisional, divisional, provincial and national level will follow the same pattern as that of the jointly- managed schemes. 10.9. In addition to project level coordination, higher level coordination is also necessary in certain area of activities which differ from level to level. As one moves from project level, the coordination activities, efforts and frequency will become less and less. A suggested level of coordination and their functions are given in Table No.4. Higher level coordination starts from divisional level; within a division, there may be three broad types of irrigation systems accommodated. First, is an inter-provincial system passing through that Division; it will have its own (coordinating) Project Management Committee. Second, is one or more medium or large irrigation systems having their own Project Management Committee; and third is a cluster of small irrigation projects lying within a hydrological boundary and coordinated by a Hydrological Boundary Coordinating Committee (HBCC). A division may have one, two, or all the three types of systems described above. The representatives of the coordinating committee will be the members of the Divisional Coordination Committee. The difference between what is suggested here and that suggested by N.G.R. de Silva to the Department of Agriculture Research and Development, is that FOs are coming from hydrological boundaries rather than village boundaries. This has certain advantages when water becomes a crucial input €or agricultural production. Following are some of the characteristics for the suggested coordinating committee: a. Initially, when the FOs are in a transition stage and in the process of building self-reliance, the chairmen of these committees will be from among the agency officials; once the farmers become confident and capable of handling their own businesses, then an elected representative from the merhbers can be the chairman. An agency official can he the secretary of each of these committees. The number of farmer representatives will always be greater than the number of agency officiak. The total number of members in each of these committees can be upto a b. c. - maximum of 30. 25 I . d. The various functions to be coordinated and decisions taken are given in Table No.4. e. The inter-provincial river systems having their own coordination committee will come directly under the national level coordinating committee. They depute their representatives to participate in the lower level coordinating committees such as provincial, district and divisional. 10.10. in Section 11 of this paper. The steps suggested for implementing coordinating are mechanisms spelt out REFERENCES 1. IIMI. 1990. Final Report on the Technical Assistance Study (TA 846 SKI). Irrigation Management and Crop Diversification (Sri Lanka). V01.2. Kirindi Oya Project. 2. Weerawardend, LK. 1975. The Paddy Lands Act of 1958. Lessons of an Experiment. Evaluation Studies No.3, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Colombo. 3. IMPSA 1991. Policy Working Paper No.1. IMPA Secretariat, IIMI (SLFO), Colombo, Sri Lanka. 4. De Silva, N.G.R. 1990. Walawe Irrigation Project: A Proposal for Organizing Farmer’s through NBA. Submitted to Mahaweli Economic Agency, Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Personal Communication). De Silva, N.G.R. 1990. Farmer Organizations for Agricultural Development. Draft Paper submitted to the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Research, GOSL, Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Personal Communication). 5. 27 Table 1. Uda Walawc Rehabilitation Project Propoied Composition of Cwrdination Cornmillees of Farmer Reps and MEA Officials. COMPOSITION KEY OFF'ICE BEARERS LEVEL FIRR MEA OFFICIALS PROBABLE CHAIRMAN VICE SECRETEARY ASST.SECRETARY TOTAL MEM. C H A M A N Tract All Unit Between FR FR unit w Turn Manager 25-30 Manager O"f FA Leaders in hi gat ion Unit Oficer Block All Black D-Canal Manager FOO AC Chairman in IE Block LO CDO HA About 25 Project Chainnan W M About other (5)Block reps. Managers fmm ISRF'M(A) each C E of Manager(lands) thc DRPM (CD) (5) BO Black level POO. and All 25 Blwk FR MEA FR Manager Officer (elected) Project FR MEA FR Manager ~ ~ . . ~ ~ NOID: 1. 2. 3 . 4. I1 should bs ensured that the numhet of FiRR exceeds the number of MEA officiala, in all commitless The total number of members of any cormnitlee should not exceed 25 or 30 !he most Other Mahsweli Officers may be included in !he commitlees as necessary Represenlalives from MECA and NBA will also be included in all the conunittees for the duration of the rehabilitation pmgramme only 5 . 6 . The (tcmparary) Project Steering Cornminee, mentioned in para 6.4, has not been shown in the above than Although it is augg~aled that the Unit manager should bo the Secrelary of the Tract Committee, it may be necessery for this poS to be held by the lmgation Technical Officer of the B C ~ B at least for thc initial period or the rehabilitalian programme. However, this will be a mailer for decision by the Tract Commiltcs itself. Fl(- Farmor Ropresenlrtivos. 28 I Table 2. Activities, Functions and Agencies to be Coordinated at the Project Levels. I I I I Activities Functions to be Coordinated Agencies to be Coordinated 1. Water S~ipply Water supply, allocation, dis- ID, Service tribution and water demand. IMD System Operation and Maintenance. MEA Essential Structural Improvement FOs and System Rehabilitation. Conflict Resolution. Monitoring and Evaluation. Main System Management. 2. Agricultural Extension Services - Crop DOA, Production planning, Crop Calendar, Crop Private Sector Advisory and Crop insurance, Water FOs Service Manaeement (On-farm Water Bank Management) Post harvest ID Technology, Training and Education. ' I ! * 3. Commertkil Farm power, seeds, fertilizer Private Sector Services agro-chemical, labor supply, FOs credit, marketing. Paddy m e t i n g Board CWE Banks DAS 4. Basic Infra- Domestic and industrial water FOs structure and supply, housing, roads, schools, Environmental Social Service electricity, health services, Authority off-farm activities including Land Commissioner livestock environmental and other Government protection. Agencies, and Banking Institutions. 1 7 ' 29 Table 3. Type of Support Services, Activities and Functions. Type of Services Activities Functions 1. Agency Support a) Staffing Filling vacancies; adding new positions where needed. Assessing present training and skills of staff and identifying deficiencies. I , b) Assessment c) Training Management training and disciplinary training. d) Coordination e) Resource Mustering adequate budget Mobilization support and balancing. Coordination among the line agencies. f ) Legal backing and delegation of power delegation of powers. Legal support, creation of water counts and Organization Support Services a) Institutional Strengthening 2. Farmer a) Structure Institutional strengthening through I 0 and IDO. b) Meetings Help organize and conduct meetings. c) Training Use developed training modules, and if necessary, develop additional training modules and conduct meetings. b) Irrigated Agriculture Management d) Level of activity Single or multi-functional activities. a) Operation Planning and implementation b) Maintenance Planning and Implementation c) Rehabilitation Planning and implementation d) Crop diversifi- Planning and implementation cation e ) Resource Government cost-allocation Mobilization and farmers’ shramadana. 30 Table 4. Level of Coordination, Coordination Committees, and Functions to be Coordinated at each level. No. Level Chairman Members Functions Frequency of of of the to be of Co-ordina- Co-ordina- Co-ordina- Co-ordina- meeting tion tion tion ted Committee 1. Divisional GA Chairmen Policy Bi-monthly level of PMC and HBCCs, agency officials at Divisional level. FRs from Project I level. implementation, Resource allocation; services; Monitoring & Evaluation Input Services. support I_ -~ 2. District GA Elected Policy Quarterly level Representa- implementation Pre- & Agricultural from Kanna Season Sub- Divisional meetings; committee level, Resource (District tives, including Post- AGAs, allocation; District support level services; .- 3 . officials. Monitoring & Evaluation. Input Services Provincial Provincial Elected Policy Frequent level Director Representa- formulation; enough? of tives from Support Not Irrigation District services; Quarterly? level, Monitoring GAS, AGAs Lb Evaluation. Provincial Input Services. level officials connected with irrigated agriculhrre. ________ ____ 4. National Secretary Representa- Policy Bi-annual level MIUIMD tives of study; Sub- Ministry of Policy Committee National Agricultural Council Agriculture, formulation; Irrigation, Monitoring and Provin- & Evaluation cia1 Council Input Services. Representa- tives. FRs from Provincial level. c T 7'