Response to Doug’s Comments:

(Like me, Doug started off by writing a new post [new ideas] as a comment [a response to someone else’s ides]. The Blog buried it beneath my earlier post ‘Welcome’ so to see originals, please click on ‘3 comments’ next to 15:24.

Here you will see that Doug raises three points:

1 Re-orientating the book around the analyses of opportunities and constraints for change: This would be difficult, but not entirely out of the question, or even unwelcome from my part. Having said that, the obvious questions that comes up is ‘from what, to what?’ Many of the earlier chapters are intended to provide quantitative pictures of conditions under themes in basins. The basin chapters should include at least SOME institutional analysis, explaining what guides, controls or impedes specific changes. All basins vary in their emphases, and some won’t have done such a bad job as Doug fears [or at least I hope not].

I do like the idea of thinking about change from the beginning. A solution would be to ensure that the conceptual model of change that this chapter develops is present from the outset. That is, that all descriptions are read in the context of status and change. Let’s keep talking.

2 Will the book reveal intervention strategies? Poverty analysis reveals multiple causes for loss of livelihood, simplified into 5 broad classes, each of which with their own type of intervention. Institutional analysis will be key to understand (specifically) what constrains or mobilizes those interventions in the 10 basins [hence other basins, I hope]. This point relates to (1): I think we need to start by describing ‘what is’? Then ‘what happens next?’

3 Impact pathways: I like Impact pathways, and think they have helped projects enormously to identify the realities of change. But have also been observing when these seem to work and when they do not. In some cases, they are project focused, not programmatic. Also they assume a level of prior knowledge about ‘what is’ [there it is again!] that is not always justified. The BFPs have thrown out some surprises that caution against the presumption that we DO know where the water is going, who actually uses, how much gain they derive from it, etc., etc. This emphasizes why this chapter, on institutions and change processes is needed.

Doug’s closing statement that the most productive use of water may be the poor woman growing tomatoes/veggies using tiny amounts of grey water, rain etc.. may be true in the Limpopo. How likely is this to be true in other basins (e.g. the Mekong, Sao Francisco, Nile...etc) . Just how many people, how much gain, through what system, using how much water and directed by what institutions are you thinking of?