Water Tenure Reform: Developing an Extended Ladder of Participation

Abstract

"Analysis of participation raises issues not only about how much citizens are engaged in government decisions, but also how much government is engaged in decisions made by citizens and their organizations. Many current policies seek to increase participation in water resources governance, but face questions about the extent to which institutional reforms, such as participatory irrigation management, irrigation management transfer, and integrated water resources management, actually shift power and influence in decisionmaking. Building on Arnstein's "ladder of citizen participation" and subsequent literature on ladders, spectrums and other typologies of participatory governance and co-management, this paper synthesizes an extended scale of participation covering engagement in government decisions, joint decisions, and empowerment to support self-governance and decentralized decisionmaking."