Building human and social capital, NepalMott MacDonald has researched and developed methods for improving participation in water and environmental design and management on many of our water resources projects. These methods were the focus of three DFID-funded Knowledge and Research [KaR] projects. Two of these ‘Guidelines for good governance’ (Nepal) and ‘Equity, irrigation and poverty’ (Asia) focused on participation in irrigation management to achieve poverty reduction. The third, in Brazil, encouraged participation in hydrological monitoring as a basis for community development.

In field work over three years (2002-4), we developed a multidisciplinary process whereby engineers and social scientists worked together with water users for joint diagnosis and identification of problems and testing of solutions for improving water management and governance. Trials were located at seven irrigation schemes across Nepal, India and Kyrgyzstan. By developing skills and relationships, we helped negotiate solutions to problems not only of a technical nature but also in the social and institutional fields. We encouraged stakeholders to work together to improve the governance of water users' associations and the reliability, predictability and equity of water distribution.

We observed improvements in improved social relations, time saving and livelihoods. The studies warn against superficial consideration of stakeholder involvement, finding that ‘users' associations’ in name only can be counterproductive to development. But if done with due care, devolution of responsibilities and establishment of users' associations can play an important role in sustainable and equitable water management.

In NE Brazil, we undertook an innovative project encouraging farmers to adopt new monitoring methods to assess groundwater availability and to come up with their own field indicators of groundwater stress. Furthermore, the project identified under-represented groups concerned with the project goal of poverty reduction and established the basis for integrating them into the communication dialogue. The logic of this participatory and inclusive approach was to use ‘groundwater monitoring’ as a basis for community development and the enhancement of livelihood security.