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 The Land and Water Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) of the United Nations and the International Network on Participatory
Irrigation Management (INPIM), with the support of the Ford Foundation,
held the International Email Conference on Irrigation Management Transfer,
in June 2001. The specific aims of the conference were to initiate
exchanges about experiences world-wide with Irrigation Management Transfer
(IMT) and to identify various factors leading to success or failure.
Why Irrigation Management Transfer - IMT
In recent years, many countries around the world have embarked on a process
to transfer the management of irrigation systems from government agencies
to water users associations (or other private sector entities). Professionals
in many countries are in the process of considering or adopting such reforms.
Some are still unsure about whether to adopt reforms and how to design
and implement them.
There is a desire among many to share in a world-wide forum questions
and experiences about how to design and implement IMT. The Conference
was designed to create a platform for this. It also provided a networking
opportunity for participants. The Conference was held in two sessions.
First Session
The First Session was held in June 2001. It included registration and
collection of basic information about participants, including their priority
topics of interest. Participants were invited to read and respond to an
Overview Paper and make further comments and
suggestions on priority issues.
To this end background material was posted on the Conference web site
with case study papers about IMT in Mexico,
Turkey, USA, Indonesia, Colombia, India and the Philippines, and short
profiles of IMT experience in a range of other countries. A synthesis
of the comments were distributed among participants but interactive exchanges
did not begin until the Second Session.
Second Session
The Second Session was held in September and October 2001. On each Monday
starting from 4th September onwards, a short 2-3 page Issue Brief on a
selected topic was prepared by a Topic Moderator and disseminated to all
participants. Participants were then be invited to submit comments on
that topic via the list server address. In the Second Session, exchanges
on a given topic continued for several weeks, depending on interest.
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