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Community watershed management in semi-arid India: The state of collective action and its effects on natural resources and rural livelihoods.CAPRi Working Paper No. 85

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Title Community watershed management in semi-arid India: The state of collective action and its effects on natural resources and rural livelihoods.CAPRi Working Paper No. 85
 
Creator Shiferaw, B
Kebede, T
Reddy, V R
 
Subject Watershed management
 
Description Spatial and temporal attributes of watersheds and the associated market failures
that accelerate degradation of agricultural and environmental resources require
innovative institutional arrangements for coordinating use and management of
resources. Effective collective action (CA) allows smallholder farmers to jointly
invest in management practices that provide collective benefits in terms of
economic and sustainability gains. The Government of India takes integrated
watershed management (IWM) as a key strategy for improving productivity and
livelihoods in the rain-fed and drought-prone regions. This study investigates the
institutional and policy issues that limit effective participation of people in
community watershed programs and identifies key determinants for the degree of
CA and its effectiveness in achieving economic and environmental outcomes. We
use empirical data from a survey of 87 watershed communities in semi-arid Indian
villages to identify a set of indicators of CA and its performance in attaining desired
outcomes. Factor analysis is used to develop aggregate indices of CA and its
effectiveness. Regression methods are then employed to test the effects of certain
policy relevant variables and to determine the potential effects of CA in achieving
desired poverty reduction and resource improvement outcomes. We find a positive
and highly significant effect of CA on natural resource investments, but no evidence
of its effects on household assets and poverty reduction outcomes. This may be
attributable to longer gestation periods for realizing indirect effects from collective
natural resource investments and the lack of institutional mechanisms to ensure
equitable distribution of such gains across the community, including the landless
and marginal farmers.
 
Publisher International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
 
Date 2008
 
Type Monograph
NonPeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/5275/1/CAPRi%20WP%2085-BS.pdf
Shiferaw, B and Kebede, T and Reddy, V R (2008) Community watershed management in semi-arid India: The state of collective action and its effects on natural resources and rural livelihoods.CAPRi Working Paper No. 85. Working Paper. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India.