EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF COMMUNITY MOBALIZATION INTERVENTIONS: EVIDENCE FROM BALOCHISTAN COMMUNITY IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE PROJECT (BCIAP)

Jahangir Achakzai*

Abstract

The Impact Assessment Study was mainly aimed at assessing the BCIAP Projects community mobilization interventions contributing to the project’s overall objective of sustainable growth in farm income. The task of impact assessment was to be based on indicators intended to be developed in helping to assess the organize participation impact of the project interventions on communities to be interpreted in the light of the information collected from the field and where necessary to be supported with information available within the project reports/documents. The methodology used to achieve the study objectives leading to determine the extent of impact of the project activities was confined to six schemes selected from amongst the 34 Scheme as sample. These schemes were selected on the basis of a criteria taking into consideration, the degree of drought in schemes, the upland and lowland status, the north & south situation accommodating cultural difference etc. The respondents to be interviewed were confined to 140 including male, female, owner cultivators and tenants.
The impact assessment related to the project objective was about knowing the extent of sustainability of the Farmer Organizations (FOs) established on 34 irrigation schemes to own and continue the task of O&M of the schemes. The study of the six sampled schemes revealed, as a major conclusion derived that none of the FOs on the six schemes were found sustainable to carry on activities related to schemes O&M on their own as well as other activities related to farmers’ interests expected from them, despite their social capital development in the result of their organization into groups. It was assessed that though some of the FOs have completed major part of the community organizational process yet they are not capable enough to take over the responsibilities expected from them, in other words, the destination mark of sustainability is still at some distance, while, the others were found to be still at the initial stage of that route leading to sustainability. The conduction of meetings regularly, the participation of members in their respective FO meetings, the decision making process within the meetings, the proper maintenance of record related to meetings and accounts, the issues discussion process, the dispute resolution ability, fund raising ability, adoption of participatory process while discussing the problems, planning for aftercare etc, were taken into consideration while arriving at such conclusion. The organization of the communities around the irrigation schemes has developed a sense of receival mentality proving to be a constraint for achieving the status of sustainable FO.

Key Words: Community Mobilization, Sustainability, Farmer Organization, Farm Income

Introduction

Background

The Balochistan Community Irrigation and Agricultural Project (BCIAP) completed 34 perennial minor irrigation schemes (PIS) since its inception. In addition, the project also completed 4 flood irrigation schemes (FIS) and 6 mini- PIS. The project started with the overall objective of achieving sustainable growth in per capita income from irrigated agriculture, improved rural standard of living and poverty alleviation.
The development process envisaged by the project was to involve communities (beneficiaries of the schemes) in all stages of development so that sustainable growth is ensured. Considering it an essential prerequisite for development, the empowerment, strengthening and self reliance of the community was considered to be central to the process. For that purpose the project components were the vehicles deployed to bring about this change.
This study has been conducted to assess; the performance of the Farmer Organizations (FOs) formed on the schemes in terms of owning, operating and maintaining the schemes, raising and utilizing the community funds, record keeping and ability to implement the CAD works, the ability of farmers in terms of land and water management practices, and to assess whether the institutional arrangements in place are sufficient to enable the communities to maintain the scheme and ensure the continuity of activities.
The study was completed keeping in view the objectives outlined below.

Objectives of the Study

• To develop indicators to assess effectiveness of community development activities of BCIAP.
• Analyse data available with project, including screening reports, baseline data, progress reports, impact evaluation reports, staff appraisal report, PC1 etc.
• Conduct field work for additional data collection on the indicators developed.
• Analyse data and determine the extent to which the project’s community development activities have contributed to the projects overall objective to sustainable growth in farm incomes from irrigated agriculture.

 

Research Methodology

Keeping in view the scope of the study and to give a proper coverage to the indicators highlighting realistic impact assessment of the interventions by the project regarding its components, the methodology followed is as under:
The time constraint compelled the team to limit itself to six schemes, all perennial type, excluding the flood irrigation four in numbers compared to 30 perennial. A Stratified Sampling technique has been used for the selection of schemes. In all 180 respondents on six schemes, 20-30 on each scheme out of the average of 105 water share holders on each scheme needed to be covered, besides considering the FO as a group there of. But actually 140 could be interviewed due to harsh climatic condition in hot areas resulting in slight migration. The respondents have been divided into male, female, owner cultivator and tenants preferably of equal weight.
The indicators for all five components have been devised as per requirement of the impact assessment. The data collection was through; (a) A Questionnaire module designed for individual shareholders in all the six schemes, being 140 in number. (b) A second set of Questionnaire module designed for FO as a group. (c) A pro-forma designed for recording observations not covered by the above mentioned questionnaires has been used as an instrument for verification of some information reported by the respondents.
The information/data both quantitative and qualitative collected from the field has been supplemented by the data available in the Project office.
The analysis of the data collected from the field and available in the project reports has been done under a manual tabulation plan and by feeding figures in tables in a computer using the Word Perfect software. The data collected from the field through the three instruments mentioned above, has been presented in a tabular form to better express the indicators set for the various components of the project.
Community Organization and Development

The project intervened as per its broader objective to empower and strengthen the communities in the project command area. To achieve this objective, the project aimed at establishing and developing sustainable FOs capable of undertaking the complete responsibility of operation and maintenance (O&M) of the irrigation schemes. For that purpose the farmers’ community has been organized on all schemes to manage their own problems, mainly pertaining to the O&M of the schemes, around which the whole idea of community mobilization emerged. The farmers have been organized in shape of FOs which are expected to perform effectively and efficiently, and are to be judged from their ability in terms of: (a) convening meetings about the confronted issues; (b) identification and prioritization of their problem; (c) decision making, free of any individual influence related to these problems; (d) cash raising and its utilization; (e) accounts maintenance; and (f) conflict management within their organizations. The communities have been trained in all the schemes about collective management from engineering point of view (repair & maintenance of schemes, in creating self reliance enabling them to manage and operate activities and in promoting the spirit for self help. In this part of the report, assessing the performance and functionality of the FOs will reflect on the degree of discipline created within the body of farmers which can fulfil the expected requirement of tackling and resolving the issues mentioned above on their own, or otherwise.

Results & Discussion

Conducting FO Committee and General Body Meetings

The conducting of meetings on specific date and time with fixed intervals (on calendar dates) is itself an indicator of the farmers’ seriousness to discuss and resolve the confronted issues. It also indicates the seriousness of the FO members regarding record keeping which generally is difficult and usually not done for informal meetings.
In all the six FOs, there was no clue of holding regular general body meetings on some specific dates with weekly, monthly or quarterly intervals. In 100 % cases, FOs meetings are being held as and when required which indicates non regularity of holding the meetings. The meeting places usually change, mostly taking place in mosques and on occasions of marriages, rites and ceremonies. This can be interpreted either due to poor understanding of the discipline required to successfully run a new organization for a longer period of time, or due to poor resource base of a given community and spatial constraints of the scattered households. The evidences from the field suggest that in 100 % cases there is no proper meeting place in any village.
A further evidence of the poor understanding of discipline, interestingly, is that an FO committee (meaning FO management committee) is understood to be the FO in all the six schemes surveyed and the FO committee meeting is called the FO meeting (meaning general body meeting) although an FO, as per by-laws, is referred to as general body of all shareholder farmers which must hold its meeting once a year, the venue to be announced at the occasion of Eid-Ul-Azha as per the By-laws of the FO. (Annex-1)

Level of Participation

The attendance of the FO meetings by its members is an indicator of the unity, discipline, responsiveness to responsibility shouldering and sense of readiness to address the issues faced. Low participation must be considered a red signal of the organizational effectiveness, functionality and even continuity in future. On the six schemes visited, the participation in the meetings has been satisfactory. The FO members of Wala Viala, Wahar and Wandri indicate the participation of 100% (taking it in the narrow definition of FO committee as the FO ), while in Sazoo attendance being more than 50 % and in the rest less than 50 % generally. There are instances where attendance has been more than 100 % (where the meetings are being attended by farmers other than FO committee). The overall position reflects that in half of FOs, members participation is usually 100 % members participation in the meetings while, in 50 % FOs members attendance has been from 25 to 75 percent.  Projecting this trend to the entire domain of 30 project schemes, one can say that farmers’ level of participation in their respective FO meetings has generally been good.

Table 1: Level of Farmers Participation in FO Meetings.

Name of Schemes	FO Members Participation in Meetings
	Upto 25%	>25% - 50%	>50% - 75%	100%
Wala Viala	û	û	û	_
Sazoo	û	û	_	û
Pandran	û	_	û	û
Mushkaf	û	_	û	û
Wahar	û	û	û	_
Wandri	û	û	û	_
Total Schemes	6	2	1	3
Percentage	0	33	17	50

 

Ability of Decision Making Independently

The decision making process free from any interference and dominance from vested groups or individuals is generally considered to be a sign of real participation of community members. It also reflects positively on the empowerment of the community members. Sometimes the elders of the village other than the FO members, FO office bearers, tribal chief, influential or activists in the village finalize the decisions without seeking the consent of the FO members which causes frustration among ordinary members as it serves the interest of the decision makers only. The situation coming up through field survey presents the picture that decision making process in most of the cases (64 %) is not influenced at all by anyone in the FO meetings. However, according to some respondents (21%) the FO leaders, one way or the other, influence the process of decision making. Some respondents (14%) thought that activists also influence the decisions of the FO through their smartness. The activists role in few FOs is dominant such as Wala Viala and Mushkaf though it has positive and negative elements reflecting on the future potential of FO.
The decisions made on the basis of equality principal providing opportunity to all members to express themselves freely during a meeting process is also an indicator of empowerment of the FO. The decisions are if, dominated and/or dictated other than the adoption of democratic process, the functionality of the FO can be doubted. This survey revealed that in 89 % cases the decisions in the meetings are made through consensus and in 8 % cases through the dictation of the FO leaders followed by the decisions on majority principal.

Table 2: Decision Making Process in FO Meetings.

Name of Schemes	No. of Respondents	Decision Made Through
		Majority	Consensus	Dictated by FO Leaders
Wala Viala	14	-	14 (100)	-
Sazoo	11	-	9 (82)	2 (18)
Pandran	13	-	13 (100)	-
Mushkaf	11	-	11 (100)	-
Wahar	12	1 (8)	10 (84)	1 (8)
Wandri	13	-	10 (77)	3 (23)
Total	74	1	67	6
%age		2	90	8

(     ): Figures in parentheses are percentages

 

Record Maintenance Ability

To have the record and keep it updated and accessible to all the concerned can help in avoiding permanent confusion and removing mistrust. This dimension of the FOs has been covered in this survey to know about: the existence of the record, how it looks in terms of posting information, completeness, and most importantly, its checking by any authority or functionary as a training step. The working procedures of the project required that records of not only scheme construction accounts but also of minutes of FO meetings and O&M activities should be maintained. The status of six schemes pinpoints that in 100 % cases O&M accounts have been maintained, whereas in cases of minutes the performance of the FOs in general is quite poor indicated by the fact that in only 17% cases minutes of the meetings have been maintained but that also in an incomplete and irregular pattern. It appears that the project has paid focussed attention on the need for FOs to maintain their accounts. It is a healthy sign for establishing viable FOs. However, neglect of writing minutes in most cases indicate that a longer aftercare period is required for social organization process to take firm roots. (Annex-2).

Awareness about the FO Functioning

The FO members should be aware of the matters related to the community in general and farming community in particular. For the viability of an FO, such awareness was considered essential at the first place and was to be used as a planning tool for capacity building of the FO to have more responsibilities. The collective thinking and working spirit is a pre- requisite for functional FO, otherwise, doubts are inevitable to creep up. The matters which can disrupt the unity of the community members have to be in the knowledge of the shareholders regarding accounts, record, by-laws etc. Many FO members although justify their lack of information as their trust and confidence in office bearers of the FO, the ignorance has to be converted into knowledge for better functioning of the FO. This assessment found that 42 % of the farmers had the knowledge of FO by-laws or were aware of the FO by-laws while, the rest 58 % had no idea about the by-laws. However, in most cases where the FO members had no knowledge, the office bearers claimed of having a copy of the bylaws. Therefore, the problems seem to be that of dissemination within the community members. Regarding the knowledge, in general, about accounts and its transparency, minutes of all kinds, agreements, by-laws, and maintenance kits (for physical works), the farmers were less knowledgeable on the average. The respondents tried to cover this deficiency by expressing their trust and confidence in chairpersons. Transparency was viewed to be satisfactory by 46% respondents, while the remaining 54% thought that the accounts were not transparent. Because of time limitations, the assessment did not explore the causes of this negative perception, but more likely it appears to be a dissemination issue since 100% responded had confirmed earlier that FO accounts were regularly maintained and 83% believed that these records are checked by the BCIAP functionaries (Table-5).

Involvement of the Members in Different Stages of Development Process

To ensure the participation of the communities in any scheme/ project cycle requires involvement of the beneficiary community in the complete development process from the start till the end but not in piece meals, otherwise, the commitment of owning the scheme and its subsequent operation and maintenance by the community will not materialize and doubts will erupt. This kind of situation may have arisen on the few problematic schemes where the beneficiaries are not happy, rather they are in a resentment position because of the unwanted deprivation of the expected benefits.
Generally, this assessment found that 83% FOs felt that they were fully involved in scheme selection and implementation, while 67% thought they were consulted in scheme identification and design features. However, scheme-wise analysis show that 67% schemes had full beneficiary participation in all four phases of development, 16% schemes show beneficiary participation limited to only two phases, while another 16% schemes show no beneficiary participation.
The stages, where farmers have to be a part of, and share their due responsibility presents a different situation. Farmers in these cases were involved in particular stages and agreeing to their furthering the progress, they now are refusing their involvement. In two of the schemes, Wahar and Sazoo for example, the farmers among themselves had a contradictory attitude where some of the respondents confessed their being involved in the whole process of site selection, designing and implementation and others refused to be involved and being a part of designing and implementation particularly. The divergent views were not probed further by the impact assessment team because of inadequate time for collecting, collating and analyzing the background information for these particular cases.

 

Table 3: FOs Involvement in Scheme Development Process

Name of Schemes	Stages of Development Process
	Identification	Scheme Selection	Designing	Implementation
Wala Viala	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sazoo	No	Yes	No	Yes
Pandran	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mushkaf	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wahar	No	No	No	No
Wandri	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Total:      6	4 (Yes)	5 (Yes)	4 (Yes)	5 (Yes)
Percentage	67	83	67	83

Maintenance Ability and Responsibility Acceptance

The concept of O&M only applies to the physical upkeep of the schemes constructed, but also to the long term continuity of scheme operations efficiently and on self help basis. The project reports indicated that the FO members have been trained for the purpose. The test of farmers efficiency for maintenance of the scheme requires the checking of their ability to repair and maintain the channel through the use of tool kit provided by the project. The other way round was to find out whether despite training they received, do they still depend on outside technical support?
The assessment survey indicates that in 100 % cases the FO members have received the technical training and acknowledge the benefits attached to the training. In 50 % of the schemes, the FO members use the kits for repair and maintenance. In some cases though, in villages of Wahar & Wandri for example, some members are even not aware of the kits provided to the FO. It does not mean, however. that kits were not supplied in these schemes, rather it reflects on the extraordinary confidence of members on chairmen of their respective organizations. There are also cases where the use of kits has been postponed for future because the FOs already possessed required tools normally used for repair.
The important consideration here is that in 100 % of the cases, the farmers admit that they have acquired the required ability of repair and maintenance. However, the concept of using this ability for purposes other than main channel (such as command area watercourses and ditches) has not been fully recognized by the FO members. In 67 % cases, the farmers (responding in groups) showed their willingness for a comprehensive repair and maintenance whereas in 33 % cases, they expressed doubts on their readiness for maintenance.
Looking from the aspect of O&M funds, 50 % of the farmers were satisfied with the amount being sufficient for the purpose, while the rest thought that the funds were insufficient although they were ready to raise further funds. In 100 % cases, the FOs are willing and capable of raising extra funds whenever needed (Annex: 3).
Overall this assessment found a high degree of readiness among FOs to carry out the O&M and raise more funds if needed. The provision of tool kits and acknowledging the value of training has also been universal to all FOs.

Cash Mobilization Ability

The cash mobilization situation reflects on the strengths of FOs. It indicates ability of an FO to collect funds not only for creating physical assets, such as civil works, or for maintaining such assets, but also for other broad-base purposes. However, it must fulfil the necessary conditions of maintaining orderly and transparent accounts, presentation of accounts to the general body, and a sound practice of checking and auditing these accounts. In 97 % cases, the respondents were found willing to raise funds for O&M whereas 76% farmers were even ready to raise funds for activities other than O&M. Obviously, if they have substantially contributed to the total construction cost of the schemes, as is the case in this project, their stakes are quite high to forego annual O&M. This is one of the key impact indicators that demonstrate success of the project.
The fund raising sources comprise mainly the individual contributions on water share basis, as reported by almost all respondents. The individual contribution was supplemented by borrowed money in 2 cases, but in one scheme, oddly, a single person contributed to the entire fund. It would have been interesting to probe further on the motivation of such an individual for deviating from the principles of equity, whether it was due to social dominance (feudal) or due to some other latent vested interest. Save for such isolated examples of elite manoeuvring, an overwhelming majority of project beneficiaries rely on their ability to raise money for common good. How long this ability may continue is an open ended question. The group responses suggest that in 90 % cases the farmers were hesitant to disclose in a group meeting their doubts on the transparency of accounts. They all said that the accounts were transparent. However, individual responses present a different picture: 54 % farmers informed have even not seen the accounts themselves and were unaware of the discussion ever held in any meeting. This finding suggests that a little more time and a lot more effort was required in social mobilization during the post-construction period. Unfortunately, for most schemes, the post construction was squeezed to a mere few months. (Annex: 4)

Conflict Management Ability

The disputes in collective work style are inevitable in any society. However, their settlement through a collective spirit and organized body is considered to be a strong positive of that society. On a small scale, it also holds true for an FO which one may treat as a miniature society. The important considerations in this regard include the frequency and the internal arrangement for resolving such disputes. Assessing this trait was difficult. Nonetheless, as a first point, the farmers were put under the query to confess the presence of conflicts. If so, the next challenge was to determine whether these conflicts are managed or resolved by the FO itself, or their resolution depended on external elements such as tribal chief, mullah, government functionaries, and/or project staff.

Fig. 1: Resolution of Conflict By:

Not a single FO admitted that they ever were faced with the situation of frequent disputes major or minor type, however, a significant number of farmers interviewed individually (45%) were of the opinion that they have not come across any type of dispute whether major or minor, however, most of the respondents (55%) agree that they confronted the disputes from time to time but not very often. The major disputes are the ones that adversely affect the smooth working of an organization (FO in our case) and pose a serious threat to its survival.
The major conflicts include; grouping among members due to head and tail issue, water theft or misuse of funds by office bearers or clashes among members creating enmity between clans, refusal to contribute for fund raising, refusal to participate in maintenance etc. On the other hand, minor disputes are the ones which neither impede the working of the community organization nor pose a threat to the unity in general but it affects the motivation of aggrieved members. For example, in case of an FO; disagreement over the meeting date and place by a member, disliking an office bearer by few even if elected by majority, trifles continuing from village ceremonies and events, non accommodating individual views but  decisions on majority principles etc. The respondents also contended that dispute arising is a common phenomenon and the FO strength should only be judged from the ability to resolve these disputes. On this issue, they felt that the dominant conflict resolving body is the FO itself. It resolved 56 % of the conflicts whereas elders of the village are the next bigger source in resolving the disputes in 25 % cases. Most respondents felt that the project staff, the tribal chief, and/or other external influences were only needed by the FOs in dispute resolution (Annex: 5).

Aftercare Measures

The insight of the farmers who got together around the scheme with so much of enthusiasm clearly indicates that they are convinced of schemes economic benefits. What remains to be seen is to find out what plans they have prepared, or have in mind, to operate and maintain their schemes on a sustainable basis, whether they can effectively use the FO forum to practice and perpetuate activities learnt from the project and non-project sources, and whether they are clear about how to further strengthen their FO. This survey found that in 83% schemes, the FO s are conscious about the aftercare requirements of the scheme but have no clear plan what to do and how to do. They rather consider aftercare to be the repair and maintenance only. Moreover, the farmers are unclear how to utilize their FO strength for collective activities other than the scheme matters. Only 16% FOs mentioned that they are thinking to utilize their organizational ability as a collective force to undertake other activities useful to the community (Annex: 6)

Perception about Social Change

The perception of the farmers was sought about the effect of the interventions of the project particularly the community organization such as the formation of FOs to judge their ability of understanding the community mobilization.

 Fig. 2:            Perception of FO Members Regarding Social change Caused By
            BCIAP Schemes

The responses of the farmers indicated that as first priority 67% respondents are of the opinion that it created unity among farmers while 33% marked it as a source of conflict within the community. As a second round of answers, 50 % mentioned the main outcome to be the creation of tolerance among farmers and 50 % mentioned creating collective working spirit to be an outcome of organization of the communities. Likewise, the social change caused by the intervention in shape of community organization includes positive change in leadership, source of lowering the intensity of conflicts and checking migration. The figure given below shows all the related responses in this regard (Annex: 7).

Findings

• The FOs do not generally conduct meetings on any fixed date or calendar day. The meetings generally are conducted as and when desired and without having any proper meeting place. The meetings are only occasionally attended by the project staff except for during the starting few months of the project.
• The FO committee is regarded and called to be the FO for all practical purposes. The interaction of FO committee with FO members appears to be minimum which raises questions about the functionality of the FO on a long term basis. The FO general body meetings generally have not been called at the end of the year as required under the FO by-laws.
• As the FO Committee is the representative body of FO (general body), its attendance should have been fairly high (80-100%), but the practice regarding attendance is that only about half the FOs reported 100% attendance of its committee members. Attendance levels of the remaining FOs were rather being 25-75%.
• Independent decision making has been happening in 64% FOS. In 21% cases, the FO leader, and in 14% cases, the activists, influence the decision making process in FO meetings.
• Democratic process is the dominant mode employed in decision making. In almost 90% cases, decisions are made with consensus and in rest of the cases, through majority principle or through the dictation of FO leaders.
• The maintenance of FO accounts, particularly the O&M accounts, has been perfect because in 100% cases these accounts have been kept and verified by the concerned authorities. Other record keeping by the FO has been dismal, for example, minutes of the meetings are maintained by a mere 20% FOS and that too improperly.
• Awareness of FO affairs among its members appears to be problem area. For example, only 42% farmers have the knowledge about the existence of FO by-laws. On another parameter in the context of transparency, 46% respondents have never ever seen the FO accounts.
• The participation level of farmers in all stages of scheme development process has been very good. About 67% farmers reported their complete involvement in the development process. In about 30% schemes, a controversy existed among the farmers regarding their partial or little involvement in the design and implementation stages.
• All FOS acknowledged receiving technical training on O&M matters from the project staff. In 100% cases, the farmers see their ability to carry out repair and maintenance of their schemes independently. However, 67% of them expressed their willingness to pay for repair and maintenance while the remaining 33% desired that external/donor assistance should continue for this kind of work.
• Notwithstanding the above finding, as high as in 97% respondents are willing to raise funds for O&M. Of these, 76% agree to use such funds for a variety of activities but, of course, inclusive of O&M as the primary objective.
• There appears to be a good understanding within FOs. It can be judged from the fact that 45% farmers reported no conflicts at all and the rest mentioned about the minor conflicts. These conflicts are mainly resolved by the FO itself, as indicated by 65% of respondents while 35% respondents felt that disputes are resolved by the village elders.
• Over 83% FOs are conscious of the need for post-construction scheme aftercare but are without proper plans for this aftercare. A few FOs appear to be willing to go for aftercare through their funds.

 

Overall Impact of Community Mobilization

The community mobilization efforts of the project have resulted in positives which has given them an edge over the unorganized communities in rural Balochistan. The FOs in project scheme areas have been impacted positively by the emergence of decision making in a democratic way where after discussion, 90% decisions are made through consensus and the rest with majority principle or dictated by leaders of FO. Likewise, in conflict management the scenario has changed drastically where these conflicts are resolved mainly within the organization (80% cases) and the rest through other means which is indicative of the creation of an appropriate forum of conflict resolution and also the stoppage of external interferences in farmers’ problems. There is a significant change in the attitude of the villagers in the tribal set up of Balochistan where conflicts and tribal feuds are too common. Some further empirical research is required to determine that why in presence of such a good forum and a suitable democratic process, conflicts in some FOs have not yet been resolved and these still linger on. There is a possibility that the FOs, replacing the earlier set up where the tribal chiefs and feudal lords were dominant are faced with a situation of conspiracy by those who take it as threat and thus attempting to weaken the new system of organized communities. Moreover, the accounts keeping habit created within the communities, particularly the O&M accounts and its verification maintained in 100% cases, by the project, is an intervention that has resolved numerous disputes before its birth and will also be helpful in future to wash out doubts within the community and the rest of the world in easing the problem of interaction in future regarding financial matters. For keeping the farmers united and FOs intact, account keeping is crucial. The FOs have learnt to operate and maintain accounts and can uphold this skill in future. The community mobilization efforts of the project have a positive impact on the farmers’ communities in terms of their involvement in different stages of development process. As a result of the community mobilization intervention, 67 % of the respondents confessed their involvement in complete cycle of development process and 83 % acknowledged their involvement in at least two important stages of this process; scheme selection and implementation. This indicates the change from top-down to bottom-up approach, in other words, the initiation of participatory development approach. The participatory mode of development has replaced the non participatory mode which has prepared the community to share the cost of the schemes, own the schemes and take responsibility of operation and maintenance thus showing a clear edge over the general rural population of the province of Balochistan. The technical training imparted to the villagers is another area which has differentiated the project trained farmers from the farmers in other parts of rural population in terms of enabling the FOs to be confident enough to repair and maintain the schemes. Some 67 % respondents endorsed the notion of their being able to repair their schemes which for they are well equipped after receiving the required kits after training received by 100% FOs. The readiness and confidence of 2/3 respondents is a big achievement and there is a need to upkeep the determination of the farmers. The impact of this training is quite evident as the farmers have been equipped both through knowledge and tools.
Thus organizational and technical training skills imparted to the local communities, the ability creation within these communities to share the costs in small projects, maintain and manage the O&M accounts, resolve their conflicts through discussions and consensus has contributed in building the social capital. The communities are now expected to upkeep the strength of the social capital built which can be utilized for other collective activities in future provided, the discipline needed for better use of social capital and the learnt lessons are put into practice.
However, due to, perhaps shortage of time, some weaknesses in FOs have slowed down the impact of community mobilization. These weaknesses need to be removed to see a higher impact on communities.

Conclusions and Recommendation

The community mobilization efforts of the project have a positive impact on the farmers’ communities in terms of their involvement in different stages of development process. As a result around 70% respondents confessed their involvement in complete cycle of development process and more than 80 % acknowledged their involvement in at least two important stages of this process; scheme selection and implementation. This indicates the change from top-down to bottom-up approach, in other words, the initiation of participatory development approach. The participatory mode of development has replaced the non-participatory mode which has prepared the community to share the cost of the schemes, own the schemes and take responsibility of operation and maintenance thus showing a clear edge over the general rural population of the province of Balochistan.
It appears that although enough time has been devoted by the project to social mobilization of communities during the scheme construction phase resulting in building an invaluable social capital. However, inadequate time has been spent with these FOs during the post-construction phase. As a result of the project intervention, the democratic process is now the dominant mode employed in decision making where in almost 90% cases, decisions are made with consensus. The participation level of farmers in all stages of scheme development process has been very good and a large number of farmers reported their complete involvement in the development process. Almost all the respondents are willing to raise funds for O&M. The communities have shown their willingness to cooperate, their readiness to learn, and commitment to achieve an objective provided that credible catalyst works through them.
In order to harness this potential to serve the communities for a long time to come, a substitute catalyst, perhaps of less intensity and much less expensive, needs to be around for at least another five years. This could be in the form of a credible NGO or through a purely semi-government sponsored program of community mobilization and consolidation.

Annex-1: Status of Meetings in Six Scheme Villages

                                                                                                                              

Annex-2: The Record Maintenance Ability of the FO in Six Scheme Villages

More than one answer has been shown.

Annex-3:  Maintenance of Scheme Ability of FOs in Six Scheme Villages

                                                                                                                              

Annex- 4: Fund Raising Ability of FOs in Six Scheme Villages

(      ) : Figures in parentheses are percentages
More than one response has been accommodated

Annex-5: Nature and Magnitude of Disputes Within Farmers Organizations in Six Scheme Villages

(      ) : Figures in parentheses are percentages
More than one response has been accommodated

                                                                                                                              
Annex- 6:Aftercare of Scheme and Future Plan of FOs in Six Scheme Villages

                                                                                                                              
Annex-7: Social Change Due to BCIAP Schemes in Six Scheme Villages

References

* Associate, Dean Faculty of Management Sciences & Professor Economics Department University of Balochistan.

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