Summary

Capacity Development (CD) has been of central interest to IPTRID for the past three years. Two recent events have shaped the Programme's direction on this subject.

A workshop held in Montpellier in September 2003 led by the Water Resources, Development and Management Service (AGLW) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the ICID on “Capacity-Building in irrigation, drainage and flood control: issues, challenges and the way ahead”. The event was held during the ICID 54th International Executive Council meeting. It brought together a range of case studies from different parts of the world in order to demonstrate that capacity development should be a central focus of future strategies on irrigation and drainage. Proceedings of the event were published and can be found and/or ordered at the web page of the AGLW Service:

http://intranet.fao.org/offsiteframe.jsp?uu=http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/Default.htm

As a follow-up and given the success of the Montpellier event, IPTRID decided to support a second workshop which was held in Moscow in September 2004. IPTRID-FAO and ICID through its WG-CBTE sponsored the workshop on “Capacity needs assessment for agricultural water management”. The event drew attention to the importance of conducting a capacity needs assessment as a starting point to be able to design and implement a capacity development programme or strategy. A suitable methodology for assessing the capacity needs was presented at that time. Five strategic phases of capacity development were identified:

The first phase is an assessment to define present capacity within the system - where are we now?
The second phase looks ahead to the future desired state, the vision of what capacity is required in the future - where do we want to go?
The third phase compares the present situation and future desired state, identifies the capacity gaps and plans strategies and actions designed to fill these gaps and to reach the desired goals - how do we get there?
The fourth phase is the implementation phase, fulfilling the strategies and undertaking the planned capacity development activities in order to meet the defined objectives - what actions do we take?
The final phase is monitoring and evaluation to feed back experiences into the planning phase - how do we stay there?

The workshop in Moscow essentially covered the first three phases presented above and provided general recommendations in order to set up a Capacity Development Programme. The proceedings of the workshop were duly published and can be found at the following link: ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/iptrid/moscow_icid.pdf

Workshop, Beijing, September 2005

In early 2005, IPTRID-FAO committed its support to one more year of collaboration with the WG-CBTE to conduct another event titled “Design and Implementation of Capacity Development Strategies”. This workshop was held in Beijing, Republic of China, during the 19^th ICID Congress in September 2005. It primarily covered phases three and four of the CD process and was built on the outcomes of previous events in Montpellier and Moscow already mentioned. The objectives of the workshop were as follows:

First, to present a general overview on how Capacity Development activities are being practised in developing countries, including steps followed when deciding to invest in capacity development programmes and how to translate the theory into practical terms and concrete actions.
Second, to provide some guidance for successfully engaging in the process of designing and implementing a capacity development strategy, presenting some real case studies in developing countries.
Third, to provide a platform for further collaboration and networking in the field of capacity development for agricultural water management.

The workshop opened with a keynote paper presented by IPTRID. This was followed by a series of case studies from Nicaragua, South Africa, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Indonesia, India and China which reflected real field examples on design and/or implementation of Capacity Development Strategies. An additional concept paper presented by UNESCO-IHE, Institute for Water Education, introduced the theme of the forthcoming 4^th World Water Forum, namely, ^“Capacity Building and social learning”. Discussions after each presentation with a final plenary discussion allowed in-depth analysis and review of the issues that surround the design and implementation of Capacity Development strategies. A brief description of each presentation is provided in the following paragraphs.

The IPTRID keynote paper looked at defining a principal approach towards designing and implementing an integrated Capacity Development Strategy in developing countries. It was suggested that some preliminary questions related to government goals and priorities, policy implications as well as availability of human and economic resources have to be cleared before embarking on a CD Programme. The paper also discussed the concepts, steps involved in the process and some of the difficulties and challenges when passing from theory to practice. Some concrete examples are given as a reference to start the design of a CD strategy.

Since 1999, major responsibilities to provide public services by the Government of Indonesia have been devolved to regional governments which imply the delegation of authority and responsibilities from central to regional governments. Yet, it seems that the regional capacity to perform in this new role is insufficient at regional level for all sectors including the water resources in general and irrigation in particular. The paper describes a University based Network of water professionals that has been established in order to provide sustained capacity development services to this sector.

Since 2002, Acción Contra el Hambre (Spanish NGO) is implementing a project in Madriz, Nicaragua, with the reduction of poverty as the strategy of intervention. Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) was the main systematic approach to assessing the needs, establishing the priorities and making decisions regarding the planning and development of the project. The RRA made by the NGO, together with the efforts of the extension workers in the region, have demonstrated to be a useful methodology to address the different stakeholders and determine their real needs.

Promoting Farmer Innovation (PFI) was a project implemented in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with the basic objective of improving rural livelihoods and ecosystem dynamics. The extension services in the past were government owned and controlled. As a consequence the frontline extension services were weak and its structure has therefore been one reason for the poor development of agriculture in the region. The PFI approach drew its strength from knowledge and experiences latent within communities and from the recognition that farmers are better able to learn and adopt new ideas when they can see them practised by others who have similar resources of land, labour and capital.

The integration of water resources management of the Central Asian States (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) is based in two principal rivers of the Aral Sea basin. These States organized a strong Partnership for common management and development of transboundary water resources immediately after independence from former Soviet Union in September 1991. The creation of an Interstate Coordination Water Commission has facilitated activities dealing with Capacity Building (CB). In this connection there have been activities in three broad areas: those dealing with cooperation, those dealing with regional organizations and those dealing with national organizations.

The South African National Guidelines on Agricultural Water Use describe government policy to transfer the management of smallholder irrigation schemes to farmers and to broaden opportunities for multiple agricultural water uses to rural communities. The Limpopo Department of Agriculture has taken the lead in the implementation of this policy. The Water Research Commission Guidelines “Developing Sustainable Small-Scale Farmer Irrigation in Poor Rural Communities” were expanded and tested as a means to increase the accessibility of meaningful training and capacity building where small-scale irrigation forms part of integrated sustainable rural development initiatives.

A general review of the capacity development for agricultural water management in China was presented. The average water use efficiency in China is reported as around 45 percent. This low figure can be subsequently linked to the on-going institutional transition of irrigation management from the agencies to the farmers in China. In order to ensure food security, reduce poverty and improve farm livelihoods, the Chinese Government is reforming its management policy on agricultural and water resources. Some measures for this purpose were presented as well as some basic data on current agricultural conditions in China.

Due to the limited availability of water since 2000, water management has become an important issue in recent years in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India. The Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University has initiated a project aimed at improving water management having capacity building as an important element. Activities such as participatory research for capacity building are being undertaken at both the individual level (farmers, technical staff of departments and universities involved in training, study tours, workshops and seminars to enhance awareness, knowledge and skills) and the organizational level (Water User Associations, Departments of Agriculture, Universities, NGOs, etc.).

After the presentations, a final theoretical concept paper dealing with analysis of the way knowledge is acquired and shared was presented. Other important definitions were also analyzed and discussed such as knowledge management and generation, networking and social learning. The objective of this particular paper was, among other things, to link the experiences of the case studies presented at the event with the forthcoming 4^th World Water Forum to be held in Mexico in March 2006. The Forum will focus on “local actions for a global change”. IPTRID, in collaboration with UNESCO-IHE, will participate in a two-hour workshop on the cross-cutting perspective of “Capacity building and social learning”. The workshop titled “Capacity Development Strategies and social learning among stakeholders for a sustainable irrigation and drainage sector” will provide an opportunity to derive lessons learnt from CD exercises that have taken place so far.

The Beijing workshop concluded with a plenary discussion meant to support the process of establishing guiding principles for water and irrigation professionals who work in the capacity development sector. As explained in the previous paragraphs, a wide range of issues dealing with this theme were brought forward during the general discussions. These key issues focussed on:

How to stimulate demand for CD, particularly in view of the numerous other constraints on the time of farmers, agency staff and other actors.
How to establish successful WUAs, taking account of the known difficulties of initiating and supporting community-level processes.
How to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of CD programmes. This requires a focus on assessing the impact and outcomes of programmes, rather than simply quantifying outputs (organizational structures designed, people trained, etc.).
How to upscale successful programmes to reach larger numbers of actors, whilst still keeping in view the need for context and location specific actions.

IPTRID-FAO intends to support a third and final workshop which will constitute phase five on “Monitoring and evaluation of Capacity Development programmes”. This event will be held during the 57th International Executive Council meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in September 2006. This exercise would complete the sequence of steps in the Capacity Development process during these series of events.