Water User Associations

Water User Associations (WUAs) are community-based organizations that share a common interest of well performing irrigation systems. There are advantages associated with WUAs taking over tertiary/secondary level irrigation systems:

WUAs as an expression of common interest of the community facilitate democratization and empowerment by providing an organized forum for the farmers to address their common concerns and interests. The existence of effective WUAs, however, is not sufficient to ensure the system's sustainability. Other crucial elements are needed:

Individual interests serve as a strong incentive for sustaining cooperative arrangements. In addition to individual interest, benefits from cooperation should exceed or should be perceived by the members as exceeding the associated costs. There are trade-offs between the size of the group on the one hand and efficiency on the other hand. For instance, when the size of a group is increased, there are some benefits of economies of scale. However, the increased size of a group also has the potential to increase the number of free riders, decrease the expected benefits from cooperation, increase anonymity, reduce the sense of personal responsibility, and reduce the capacity to enforce community rules.

Albania Irrigation Rehabilitation Project
The development of the WUAs and the Federation of Water User Associations (FWUAs) in Albania resulted in a number of positive social impacts on the rural communities:

The factors that contributed to the success of organizing rural communities in Albania:

• Extremely weak government that is unable to solve irrigation problems,
• Distrust of the government by the farmers, and the crucial role of the irrigation for agriculture;
• Farmers' strong needs that lead to local initiatives;
• An approach where you either "die or try"; and
• Empowerment that is reached by "learning by doing".
  
  Although in some areas WUAs have been successful, many problems persist. In economic terms, for instance, the creation of the right incentives, addressing the questions of sustainability and labor intensiveness, etc., remain at the top of the list. In social terms, questions on how to create responsiveness, partnership and trust, sense of ownership, remain fundamental issues. Additionally, there are a number of other challenges. For example, maintenance is often deferred, WUAs have weak administrative skills (e.g. financial management), attempts by politicians to use WUAs to get elected, lack of interest by the members of the WUAs grow, and how to organize support to WUAs beyond the project. Also, although the WUAs are set up based on democratic principles, there is a possibility that WUAs might turn into their own governing bodies without adequate democratic checks and balances. In this regard, good management practices of maintaining transparency, establishing internal and external controls, and building trust remain fundamental problems. Information campaigns (leaflets, TV programs etc.) and training programs are crucial in raising awareness and increasing the capacity for good management practices.