Elsevier

Land Use Policy

Volume 101, February 2021, 105105
Land Use Policy

Outsourcing governance in Peru’s integrated water resources management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105105Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Market integration & migration cause local water management institutions to decline.

  • Declining local institutions hinders community participation in IWM.

  • Some communities delegate responsibilities “upward” to government & intermediaries.

  • Some communities delegate participation “outward” to legal and water experts.

  • Community participation in IWM is unlikely when local institutions are declining.

Abstract

Participatory water governance has become highly influential around the world as a means for managing water resources. Scholars and practitioners advocate for the inclusion of previously marginalized communities in water resources management through the devolution of power, responsibility, and participation. Where community institutions are weak or missing, experts recommend strengthening or re-building them to enable inclusive decision-making over water resources. Our study looks at devolution in a government-initiated integrated water resources management approach in the Caylloma Province, located in the department of Arequipa, Peru. We used process tracing to analyze 97 qualitative interview transcripts with crop farmers and pastoralists managing water for irrigation, interview transcripts with personnel in water management agencies, and field notes from participant observation in water-related meetings. We found that farmers had limited ability to participate in local institutions for water management due to market integration and labor migration, among other socioeconomic and political stressors. For this reason, transferring more water management responsibilities and decision-making power to community-level institutions without considering the factors that limit their sustainability over time is not necessarily feasible or even desirable by local communities. Instead, strengthening and streamlining intermediary and government institutions at regional scales may be more effective at addressing local needs in watershed management.

Keywords

Environmental governance
Institutions
Community-based natural resource management
Decentralization
Peru
Latin America

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