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Consortium Approach for Capacity Building in Watershed Management in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand: Experiences and Learning.Resilient Dryland Systems Report no. 56.

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/6069/
RDS Report No.50
 
Title Consortium Approach for Capacity Building in Watershed Management in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand: Experiences and Learning.Resilient Dryland Systems Report no. 56.
 
Creator Wani, S P
Sharma, R
Rath, B
Anantha, K H
Basu, K
Reddy, V K
 
Subject Watershed management
Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
 
Description The Comprehensive Assessment (CA) of watershed programs in India undertaken by the ICRISATled
consortium showed that large scope exists to improve the impact for 66% of the watershed
projects by addressing the issues of productivity enhancement, technical back stopping, collective
action, improving community participation, diversification of systems and targeted income-generating
activities for women and landless sections of the community. The CA also identified poor capacity
building as the weakest link for achieving the impact as well as for scaling-up the benefits from
the exemplar watersheds in the country. Participatory management of natural resources in the
watersheds was adopted as the best approach for sustainable management of natural resources
in the rain-fed regions by adopting consortium approach. The consortium approach for integrated
watershed management involved holistic farming systems approach and called for convergence
of interventions from different sectors like livestock, poultry, markets, monitoring and evaluation,
policies, institutions, finances, in addition to agricultural production.
The common Watershed Guidelines of 2008 released by the Government of India have clearly
emphasized strong efforts for capacity building through a new framework by adopting principles of
convergence and participatory collective action. The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation,
Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India in partnership with German International Cooperation
(GIZ), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and National
Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) developed a national consortium
for capacity building for decentralized watershed management and piloted capacity building
for decentralized watershed management through consortium approach in three states in India
viz., Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. The results and the learning from the pilot states
showed that convergence of various departments could be addressed through buy-in and timely
interventions from the top officials of the concerned departments. The champions at state level
played an important role for establishing the consortium as well as ensuring proper functioning of
the consortium for capacity building of the integrated watershed management program (IWMP). It
also showed that support from the national nodal agency/departments is expected by the states
in forming of guidelines as well as technical support through the national consortium. Earlier
experiences of the state department working with externally funded projects by agencies like World
Bank etc., sensitized the departments and were more willing to accept new innovative approaches.
The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) which is a nodal agency for implementation of IWMP in
the country need to take a lead role for developing the national level capacity building strategy for
enhancing the impact of the IWMP through forming national support group for providing handholding
support to the states to operationalize the national capacity building strategy.
 
Publisher International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
 
Date 2012
 
Type Monograph
NonPeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/6069/1/RDS_RP56_Consortium_2012.pdf
Wani, S P and Sharma, R and Rath, B and Anantha, K H and Basu, K and Reddy, V K (2012) Consortium Approach for Capacity Building in Watershed Management in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand: Experiences and Learning.Resilient Dryland Systems Report no. 56. Project Report. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh India.