1. Session 2: Directions for
agricultural water management in
Cambodia: a discussion
Sanjiv de SIlva
19th March, 2013, Cambodiana Hotel, Phnom
Penh
Water for a food-secure world
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2. Objectives & Key Questions
Water for a food-secure world
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3. Objectives of the Session
• Recognize issues constraining the PIMT
approach to irrigation management
• Generate discussion and debate on options
• Less about seeking consensus; more about
a dialogue with in-country experts
• Acknowledge the significant in-country
research that underpins these dialogues.
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

4. Key Questions
• Try to fix the present system?
– What would it take to do this?
– Is it really worth fixing?
• Consider other models?
– What models are working now? Where are they working best?
– What models should we invest in or explore further?
– What do we do with the existing systems?
• What do we need to do to add value to water?
– What’s done best by the public sector / by the private sector? / by public-private
partnerships?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

5. PIMT & the Current Sittuation
Water for a food-secure world
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6. PIMT not working: Do we have a
consensus?
• Apparent consensus in many evaluations
• ISF collection nowhere near O&M costs
• Poor leadership in water governance (allocation
planning, conflict resolution, etc.)
• Failed to deliver the needed flexibility in water
delivery to make irrigation efficient.
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

7. Many Reasons for Status Quo
• Biophysical and geographic restrictions on
water availability and delivery
• Inappropriate system design and poor
construction impeding equitable water
delivery and intensifying O&M burden
• Absence of hydrological data and
coordination structures exacerbates conflict
over water in dry season
Water for a food-secure world
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8. Many Reasons for Status Quo (2)
• Mandate limited to water: not empowered to
address other factors that constrain irrigated
agriculture
• Vague linkages in legal framework with more
powerful local institutions (e.g. Commune
Councils)
• Low farmer technical and organizational
capacities and insufficient extension services
• Constraints often mutually re-enforcing
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

9. So What are the Options?
Water for a food-secure world
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10. Should we…
• Try to fix the present system?
– What would it take to do this?
– Is it really worth fixing?
• Consider other models?
– What models are working now? Where are they working
best?
– What models should we invest in or explore further?
– What do we do with the existing irrigation systems?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

11. Context is important here
• Session 1: need to investigate irrigation
options (groundwater, more surface
pumping) for conjunctive use
– Substitutes to gravity in some areas and
supplementary in others
• Implies spatial variability and institutional
forms will need to respond to different
irrigation strategies
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

12. Some implications of conjunctive use
• Not a one-size-fits-all approach
• GW will be especially challenging:
– Many individual users/groups
– Attributing pollution/over-extraction to particular polluters
or pumpers is difficult
• Regulatory options
– Command-and-control approaches (e.g. licensing and
metering) is impractical
– Indirect approaches like financial disincentives (e.g.
energy pricing) or incentives (e.g. subsidies)
– Voluntary compliance involving a wide network of actors,
ranging from the private to the public sector
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

13. Intermediate institutions: A missing
link?
• Need for co-ordination at an appropriate
hydrological scale is frequently
acknowledged
– Especially if irrigation strategies become more
diverse
• What should be the appropriate scale?
• Functions and structure?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

14. Successful Irrigation Management is
Not Only About Water
Water for a food-secure world
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15. Value Addition Beyond Water
• Success of AWM: access to water + enabling
farmers to make productive use of that water
• Farmers unable to do this individually. Institutions to
support collective smallholder action can
• A range of modes for doing this are being tested:
private sector entrepreneurs; public-private
partnerships; farmer cooperatives
• Can these support AWM by leveraging private
entrepreneurship and brokering public-private
partnerships?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

16. Renewed Interest in Farmer
Cooperatives (FCs)?
• Promoted as an integrated approach to
agricultural development: production and post-
harvest processes
• Gaining support with government and donors?
• An alternative to FWUCs or another layer?
• A private sector model (shareholding) for public
objectives?
• Can FCs address some FWUC constraints to
benefit smallholders?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

17. Small-scale private sector service
providers
• Provide a range of rural services: well
drillers, pump installers, rainwater jars and
water filter suppliers, individuals who collect
and deliver water, small companies supplying
pipe water to households.
• Creating rapidly expanding water markets with
little public sector assistance. Able to leverage
funds, offer good quality services and
products, and maintain accountability for any
problems that arise.
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

18. Small-scale private sector service
providers
• IDE’s Farm Business Advisors (FBAs)
– Trains independent private micro-
entrepreneurs to provide high-quality
agricultural products; in-kind credit;
technical advice and market information to
small-scale farmers
– Helps low-income households
improve, intensify, or expand market-
oriented agriculture production.
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

19. Small-scale private sector service
providers
• The Cambodia Agricultural Value Chain
Program (CAVAC)
– Linking suppliers to farmers and farmers to
consumers
– Identifies innovations to overcome constraints (e.g.
distance and disconnectedness; poor
infrastructure, and scarce resources and information
– Low-cost irrigation; progressive farmers as change
agents; using input supplier networks to provide
advice to farmers; networks between model
farmers, government agencies and private sector.
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

20. Building synergies?
• So several independent initiatives, some
structured and managed; others more
spontaneous and random, driven by
opportunity and initiative
• Each offers potential to ease one or more
farmer constraints
• Are there opportunities to enhance their
impacts, or will intervention stifle them?
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org

21. Thank you
Water for a food-secure world
www.iwmi.org