Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India

Since the 1990s, India invested more than one billion USD in participatory watershed development. Amongst other interventions, the rehabilitation of small-scale water harvesting infrastructure is a main focus. Nevertheless, despite its multiple economic and ecological benefits, many communities fail...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Falk, Thomas, Kumar, S., Srigiri, S.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Elsevier 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/107265
_version_ 1855513282730786816
author Falk, Thomas
Kumar, S.
Srigiri, S.
author_browse Falk, Thomas
Kumar, S.
Srigiri, S.
author_facet Falk, Thomas
Kumar, S.
Srigiri, S.
author_sort Falk, Thomas
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Since the 1990s, India invested more than one billion USD in participatory watershed development. Amongst other interventions, the rehabilitation of small-scale water harvesting infrastructure is a main focus. Nevertheless, despite its multiple economic and ecological benefits, many communities fail to maintain the structures. External support in this regard focuses largely on the promotion of blueprint solutions such as community water funds or organizational capacity development of Water User Associations. Little attention is paid to supporting the communities in developing rules related to the actual water and water infrastructure management. In this study we explored how experimental games closely framed to local conditions can help to better understand coordination challenges and develop institutional capacities related to managing small village reservoirs in Rajasthan/India. We played artefactual public good experiments with 300 water managers and combined the games with discussions. The approach created awareness for the cooperation challenges, facilitated debate related to possible solutions and helped to better understand cooperation patterns. Our results suggest that participants were playing substantially better than the predictions of standard economic theory but also substantially better than the behavior observed in real life. The discussions showed that the players connected the game to their real life experiences. They highlighted challenges but also gave examples where cooperation in the community is working well. The games allowed them to experiment in a compressed way with different institutions which deepened the discussion.
format Journal Article
id CGSpace107265
institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Elsevier
publisherStr Elsevier
record_format dspace
spelling CGSpace1072652024-11-21T16:53:36Z Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India Falk, Thomas Kumar, S. Srigiri, S. watershed management capacity development games for sustainability social learning facilitation tools Since the 1990s, India invested more than one billion USD in participatory watershed development. Amongst other interventions, the rehabilitation of small-scale water harvesting infrastructure is a main focus. Nevertheless, despite its multiple economic and ecological benefits, many communities fail to maintain the structures. External support in this regard focuses largely on the promotion of blueprint solutions such as community water funds or organizational capacity development of Water User Associations. Little attention is paid to supporting the communities in developing rules related to the actual water and water infrastructure management. In this study we explored how experimental games closely framed to local conditions can help to better understand coordination challenges and develop institutional capacities related to managing small village reservoirs in Rajasthan/India. We played artefactual public good experiments with 300 water managers and combined the games with discussions. The approach created awareness for the cooperation challenges, facilitated debate related to possible solutions and helped to better understand cooperation patterns. Our results suggest that participants were playing substantially better than the predictions of standard economic theory but also substantially better than the behavior observed in real life. The discussions showed that the players connected the game to their real life experiences. They highlighted challenges but also gave examples where cooperation in the community is working well. The games allowed them to experiment in a compressed way with different institutions which deepened the discussion. 2019-07 2020-02-25T12:18:10Z 2020-02-25T12:18:10Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/107265 en Limited Access Elsevier Falk, T.; Kumar, S.; Srigiri, S. 2019. Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India. Agricultural Water Management 221 (July 2019): 260-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.05.005
spellingShingle watershed management
capacity development
games for sustainability
social learning
facilitation tools
Falk, Thomas
Kumar, S.
Srigiri, S.
Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title_full Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title_fullStr Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title_full_unstemmed Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title_short Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India
title_sort experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in india
topic watershed management
capacity development
games for sustainability
social learning
facilitation tools
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/107265
work_keys_str_mv AT falkthomas experimentalgamesfordevelopinginstitutionalcapacitytomanagecommonwaterinfrastructureinindia
AT kumars experimentalgamesfordevelopinginstitutionalcapacitytomanagecommonwaterinfrastructureinindia
AT srigiris experimentalgamesfordevelopinginstitutionalcapacitytomanagecommonwaterinfrastructureinindia