Is There an Alternative for Irrigation Reform?

Diana Suhardiman and Mark Giordano

World Development, 2014, vol. 57, issue C, 91-100

Abstract: Poor performance of government-managed irrigation systems persists in developing countries despite numerous policy interventions over the last four decades. We argue that many of these interventions have failed, because they did not recognize irrigation bureaucracies as prime actors in policy change. This paper examines the varied actors and agendas within irrigation bureaucracies, highlighting the dichotomy between “hydraulic missions” on the one hand and direct service provision to farmers on the other. To increase the significance of future reform, bureaucracies must be considered as explicit actors, and reform efforts should derive from better understanding of the farmer–agency interface.

Keywords: irrigation bureaucracies; irrigation system performance; policy reform; hydraulic mission; farmer–agency interface (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X13002672
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:57:y:2014:i:c:p:91-100

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.11.016

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().