Camelia Dewan
Department of Social Anthropology, SOAS, University of London, London;
Marie-Charlotte Buisson
International Water Management Institute, New Delhi, India;
Aditi Mukherji
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal;
Community-based natural resources management, Participatory water management, Local government institutions, Bangladesh
Crop-Soil-Water Management
Water management
Water Alternatives 7(2): 342-366
Donors have promoted CBNRM since the 1980s as a means to improve the management of natural resources. Yet, several case studies in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have pointed to weaknesses and limitations of the CBNRM approach, which has provided an avenue for donors to transfer power to nonstate actors as part of a neo-liberal decentralisation agenda. This case study from Bangladesh contributes to the current literature by adding examples of the failed attempts of CBNRM to reach the stated aims of efficient, equitable and sustainable water management. It also calls attention to the ways in which decentralisation through community-based organisations may undermine democratic decentralisation. In Bangladesh, the CBNRM concept was applied to water, a culturally common natural resource key to coastal livelihoods. It is subjected to competing uses, while its management and maintenance help to protect against flooding and disasters. The GPWM were established to ensure that local people from all segments of society could influence water decisions that affected them, with a particular emphasis on the control of gates and canals. At the same time, it departed from previous discourses of people?s participation by focusing on decentralising responsibility to local stakeholders, rather than mobilising their degree of decision-making on development outcomes. Furthermore, it imposed participation and CBNRM on the main implementing state agency, the BWDB, while having removed its Land and Water User Directorate and reduced staff who had the expertise to engage and consult with local communities. It was also apolitical in its nature by limiting representation of local stakeholders to externally created community-based water management organisations, thus obfuscating deep inequalities embedded in society. The GPWM model of quotas has resulted in high degrees of tokenism among women and landless representatives, two groups that are rarely involved in decision-making processes. As externally initiated committees, these WMOs tend to lack both transparency and accountability through their artificial elections, and instead become resources for elites. This model is unable to address underlying conflicts tied to socio-economic inequalities, evidenced by the prevalence of illegal salinity intrusion and the misappropriation of public canals. It has therefore proven unsuccessful in ensuring equitable water management. In addition, the model has proved ineffective as engineering design remains top-down. Participation is limited to consultation while decision-making power remains in the hands of the implementing agency. The WMO model is also unsustainable, as its unrealistic cost-sharing requirements do not take into account the periodic maintenance challenges posed by siltation, river erosion, canal grabbing and illegal cuts/pipes in the embankment further contributing to deferred maintenance. Rather, millions of dollars are spent on each individual donor-funded project in order to create and sustain WMOs, yet these often collapse within two years, a finding corroborated by Mukherji et al. (2009) in their global review of participatory irrigation management. In addition, WMOs are disassociated from the local government structure and established channels for maintenance, and instead rely heavily on project funding and project staff to help sustain them. In contrast, the UP is perceived as embedded in the local government institutional structure, with access to rural employment schemes from the Upazila office. If donors and the government of Bangladesh were to establish a permanent maintenance fund and allocate it through existing local government channels, this would arguably be a more sustainable system to address the acute maintenance needs in the coastal zone. For participatory water management to be sustainable, effective, and equitable, water policy must recognise the politicised nature of water management and the limitations of CBNRM to reach its aims. Until the 1990s, there were alternative approaches to participation, illustrated by the bottom-up grassroots movements from NGOs such as Nijera Kori and BELA. Policy ought to support such movements and, subsequently, the pro-active role the UP can take in the resolution of water management conflicts. With the momentum for change in Bangladesh in 2013 arising out of the Shahbagh movement and the Rana Plaza building fire, the Government of Bangladesh, the Ministry of Water Resources, and donors have ample opportunity to strengthen local governments and move away from a project mentality. For Bangladesh?s coastal water management, that would include formalising the role of local governments in local water management and ensuring their access to the permanent maintenance funds, required to address the severe hydrological and socio-economic challenges facing the coastal zone of Bangladesh. This, in turn, would lead to support for real and democratic decentralisation, rather than for the limited effectiveness of CBNRM in the water sector.
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