Impacts of Colombia's Current Irrigation Management Transfer Program

Abstract

"This paper reports results of a study to assess the impacts of the current national irrigation management transfer program in Colombia. The paper examines the context of transfer, the basic transfer strategy and its impacts in selected systems. Impacts measured include costs of irrigation to government and farmers, financial solvency of the irrigation districts, quality of irrigation operations and maintenance and the agricultural and economic productivity of the irrigation systems.

"In 1976 the Government of Colombia first transferred management of irrigation districts from the government to water users associations for the Coello and Saldana irrigation districts in the Tolima valley in central Colombia (Vermillion and Garces 1996). After a hiatus of a decade and a half, largely due to economic recession and political concerns, in 1990 the government adopted a new national policy to transfer management for all of its irrigation districts to water users associations. In the same year the government resumed transfer of irrigation districts, beginnning with the transfer of the Roldanillo-Union-Toro (RUT) and Rio Recio districts, in the relatively prosperous Cauca and Tolima valleys."