Developing capacity for agricultural water management: current practice and future directions

✍ Scribed by Tom Franks; Carlos Garcés-Restrepo; Ferry Putuhena

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 162 KB
• Volume: 57
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.433

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This paper defines concepts of capacity and capacity development for agricultural water management, and particularly the contributions made by the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) in this area in the recent past. Working from a theoretical framework of overlapping domains of capacity development – the enabling environment, the organisational and the individual domains, with knowledge management as a cross‐cutting theme – the paper reviews previous work in the field and then summarises the range of case studies presented in this special edition which illuminate key aspects of these different domains.

The paper notes the need to accommodate a rapidly changing context for agricultural water management to take account of the increasing demand for water resources in all sectors, and the consequent requirement for support of new approaches to capacity development. These new approaches emphasise the growing importance of authentic knowledge, internally generated learning and self‐development, whether at the level of the organisation or the individual. The paper also recognises the need for continuing and long‐term support of capacity development, particularly in processes of organisational and institutional change, where there is no single set of guidelines or practices which will fit every situation. Specific directions for future work are suggested, including increased attention to monitoring and evaluation of capacity development, and closer links to emerging work on water governance. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.