Comparing the Politics of Water Institutional Reform - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 192

those in Pakistan: there, out of 17,000 WUAs registered, only a few continued to exist after
water course lining, the initial incentive to create a WUA, was completed (Meinzen Dick et al.
1997: 44). There are some projects that successfully tried to integrate local knowledge and not
only allow participation with the outcome already defined, e.g. the projects of dom vody in Taji
kistan. Due to these circumstances, raising awareness turns out to be crucial, because only then
water user will be informed about and can appreciate the long term, intangible positive effects
of WIRs.
This study highlighted among others the role informal institutions play in water gover
nance. This became not only evident at the local level, but also within the water administration,
where informal rules and patterns of behavior proved to be strong in their persistence. Re
forms to change governance modes have to change informal institutions. A reform focus on
formal institutional change alone is therefore doomed to fail from the beginning. Water gover
nance is nested into certain cultural norms of behavior, which limit the compliance to rules if
they are not perceived as legitimate. When an institutional reform of water governance ac
knowledges the fact that informal institutions play a role, it must develop adequate strategies to
change them. However, informal institutions cannot be changed by authoritative decision, but
rather only by social dynamics themselves. Therefore, again change can not be induced by
short term incentives alone, but only by long term efforts to change perception patterns and
normative attitudes.
Though many donors acknowledge the importance of raising awareness and a change of
attitude as a basic prerequisite for sustainability, these components in general do not receive
the attention they need. The aforementioned donor demand for some kind of community
contribution in WUA rehabilitation projects is the typical means to ensure identification of the
local population with the project and in this way to ensure its sustainability. This approach
reflects a learning process after the general failing of donors' 'gifts' to communities that do not
achieve ownership and therefore deteriorate quickly due to a lacking sense of responsibility.
But one has to ask whether voluntary work can ensure this. A community contribution does
not necessarily reflect the commitment of the community to the project and can be considered
insufficient to ensure ownership and sustainability. 303 To achieve real participation, organizing
some (or only one) village meetings is not sufficient. Rahter, activities to enable people to
participate are necessary, for example when a considerable part of the population cannot read
and understand the materials and documents provided. It is striking that the time required to
raise public awareness is not considered in most projects, although there seems to be a consen
sus that a change of attitudes concerning water use is crucial.
As stated, a problem is a social construct, it is a reality perceived to be deviant from the
ideal. The problem perception forms the starting point of a political process. If there is no
problem perceived, there is no political action to be taken. As we have seen, at the local level,
elite capture of institutions, lacking participation in decision making, and unequal water distri
bution are often not perceived as a problem. This, however, forms the basis for change to be
fostered by the people themselves and not from the outside. Therefore, a long term perspec
tive including awareness raising activities and not only short term incentives is necessary. Only
when water users perceive water problems not merely as a result of technical deficiencies but
of governance modes that they are able to change, water institutional reform can become ef
fective.
303 For a critical discussion of this approach in general see Bliss 2005.