POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: Policies, Institutions, Implementation and Livelihoods

Over the decades watershed development in India has transformed from a purely soil and water conservation technology to a comprehensive rural development programme. Watershed development programme is among the flagship programmes for rural development in India.

The book, in the backdrop of Andhra Pradesh, looks at the watershed development programme in a historical perspective and covers a number of important issues such as policies, implementation, livelihood impacts, sustainability and political economy of the programme. At the policy level, the book identifies some of the lacunae like property rights and the linkages between property rights and collective action. As far as the implementation of the programme is concerned, the book emphasizes that the core philosophy of the policy makers dealing with natural resources has not changed despite numerous changes at the macro level. The livelihoods analysis brings out the fact that watershed management is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to sustain rural livelihoods in a wider context. But, it holds the potential for enhanced livelihood security even in the given geo-climatic conditions where watershed cannot bring direct irrigation benefits on a large scale. The institutional framework stresses the importance of policy and political environments for institutional innovation and sustainability.

The book will be of immense help to scholars, researchers, analysts, commentators, academicians, policy makers and implementors.

An economist specializing in environmental economics and natural resources management, V. Ratna Reddy is Director, Livelihoods and Natural Resource Management Institute, Hyderabad, India. He was a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and also a visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, and at the School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. Besides natural resources management and environmental economics, his current research interests include livelihoods analysis and agricultural policy. In addition to six books, he has more than hundred articles published in international and Indian journals.

A political scientist and public administration specialist, M. Gopinath Reddy is Professor and Head, Research Unit for Livelihoods and Natural Resources at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He specializes in decentralized governance, livelihoods and poverty analysis and institutional approaches to natural resource management. He has to his credit more than 35 publications in national journals and has also edited some books.

A geographer by training, John Soussan is Professor at York University and research leader of the water group in the Stockholm Environment Institute. His main areas of interest are in resource-livelihood relationships, poverty reduction strategies and the links between policy processes and local level development.