Irrigation and drainage services: some principles and issues towards sustainability. An ICID Position Paper

✍ Scribed by Henri Tardieu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 109 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.172

✦ Synopsis

Note from the Editor

This paper represents an official position of the ICID as approved by the International Executive Council in its 55th meeting in Moscow in September 2004. The text as presented below is the exact text as has been approved. For sake of clarity, the principles as accepted have been translated completely into French instead of making a summary in French.

Ce texte repre ´sente une position officielle de la CIID telle qu'elle a e ´te ´approuve ´e par le 55e me conseil exe ´cutif international de Moscou en septembre 2004. Le texte pre ´sente ´ci-dessous est l'exacte version approuve ´e. Pluto ˆt que de pre ´senter un re ´sume ´en franc ¸ais nous avons pre ´fe ´re ´donner une traduction franc ¸aise comple te des cinq principes.

At Cape Town in September 2000, ICID set up a Task Force (TF3 1 ) for ''Developing a Position Paper on Socioeconomic Sustainability of Services Provided by Irrigation, Drainage and Flood Control Schemes in Water Resources Sector''.

As an introduction to the discussion each member of the Task Force answered the two questions below:

Question 1: Would it be fair to charge the full cost of water when the service does not meet the expectations of the users-when the irrigation administration is not ''service oriented''? Is it not an important first step to fundamentally change the service organisation, to dramatically reduce the operation costs and increase the money available for maintenance?

Question 2: Is it fair to charge the full cost (including the capital cost) for projects designed without the farmers' say or designed on the basis of higher world grain prices? Do you agree with the comment of the 2nd recommendation of the 2nd World Water Forum (''Sustainability cost pricing'' vs. ''Full cost pricing'')?

Long debates within ICID have clarified new concepts such as services and contracts in I&D, farmers' empowerment, financial sustainability and ''Sustainability cost recovery'', pricing systems, water allocation compliance, government commitments, . . . but have also raised the sensitivity of the theme, the extreme diversity of approaches according to different cultures, histories and governmental policies. Nevertheless a common paper has been written and approved after several consultations of all the national committees on 11 September 2004.