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Abstract:
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"Participatory watershed development (PWD) has attracted most popular investment from development agencies and international donors during last two decades. The logic behind such investment lies in a promise to satisfy agenda 21 of earth summit held in Rio. Commitment of Rio summit was further reiterated in Johannesburg summit. During 1993 – 2000, an estimated US $ 13 billion was spent for PWD in developing countries. Enthusiasm was so high that virtually all major development organisations had promoted hundreds of community oriented PWD in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North and South America. Agencies as diverse as World Bank, DFID to the smallest local NGOs in developing countries have promoted PWD paradigm under different banners. India, China, Philippines and Indonesia have large domestic programmes aimed at watershed management. In Australia, Integrated Catchments Management (ICM) is being promoted as a strategic stakeholder oriented approach for natural resource management. In New Zealand, the parallel framework is Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management or ISKM. In North America, PWD approaches have virtually replaced the more conventional approaches to watershed management. Despite this flood of interest and outpouring of funds, however, strong evidence indicates that well intentioned development agencies and specialists are venturing into unknown theoretical and management territory. The complexity and ambition of multi-purpose, multi-scale watershed approaches makes success elusive even in the best of circumstances. Project implementers have to manage an organisational complexity hitherto unheard of in their fields. In addition, co learning methods and information network are needed to deal with plural stakeholders with conflicting goals operating at different scales over time and space. This article critically examines some of conceptual and operating issues for the purpose of working out viable strategies for future projects and programmes particularly in Indian context. Four questions will be explored in the search of lessons learned and offer new directions for PWD:
1. What is the comparative advantage of participation in watersheds?
2. Did PWD suffer from methodological weaknesses?
3. How can an appropriate balance between interests of stakeholders at a local level be achieved and how can the interests of the poor be represented?
4. How can the capacity of individuals and organisations at all levels be raised so as to enhance the qualities of implementations of PWD?
Paper also reviews the fate of 1994 guidelines for watershed development and successive government policies. It is found that PWD implementation although has been successful in several places; has elicited less participation in most government projects."
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