Project Baseline Survey: Field Survey on Farmers in Twenty-Seven Integrated Water Management Districts
Description
The USAID-funded LIFE-IWRM Project (phase 1: 2004-2008) has, over four years, provided technical assistance to the MWRI [Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation ] to implement decentralized and participatory IWRM over an area of 485,000 ha (15% of Egypt’s irrigated area) (El Atfy et al., 2007; IRG, 2008). […] This work has been furthered by the second phase of the LIFE-IWRM Project (Phase II: 2009-2012), which has been instrumental in mainstreaming and expanding IWMDs [Integrated Water Management District] […]
The two parallel initiatives (LIFE II and Water Boards) consisting in establishing IWMD districts on new district boundaries designed to better integrate the irrigation, drainage and mechanical departments, and Water Boards at the (administrative) district level (markaz), need – at some point – to be harmonized. The IWMDs are predominantly state units although participation of BCWUAs [Branch Canal Water User Associations] is intended to be substantial, while Water Boards are meant to directly represent users and stakeholders interests and collaborate with officials. Although IWMDs and marakiz1 boundaries do not correspond, efforts have been made to make use of the district Water Boards to jointly manage the water resources with district staff by getting “involved in setting priorities, undertaking operational and maintenance works, in addition to water quality improvement activities” (APP, 2007).
The objective of the project was to monitor the impact of the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Component of the Livelihood and Income from the Environment Project, which has been carried out by International Resource Group to support the decentralization of water management decision-making and through this process increase the participation of rural inhabitants.
As for NSCE contribution, the survey was carried out in two geographical areas and five irrigation directorates: Zefta (Gharbia), and West Sharkiya in the middle Delta and East and West Qena and Aswan in Upper Egypt. With increased decentralization and participation, it is expected that the quality of the irrigated services provided to farmers should improve.
The Monitoring and Evaluation components of the IWRM have asked NSCE to carry out this survey for the evaluation of the impact of the overall project. Carrying out this survey has also entailed the training of data-collectors and supervisors from the Integrated Water Management Districts (IWMD). The farmers surveyed amounted to 4980, and the data was collected by 135 enumerators, who were trained on the specific task and supervised by 7 Field Coordinators. The project also included the processing and analysis of the collected data, and the preparation of a report, in both Arabic and English.
Services
LIFE I (March to August 2005): To carry out a survey in all the country on the effectiveness of the water users associations and the users:
- Initial Training Program for data collectors in order to guarantee high quality. NSCE held 4 training sessions. The training introduced the objectives of the survey, the survey design, methodology, data collection and analysis in addition to report writing and questioning techniques.
- Supervision and quality control on data collection process in the 4 survey areas.
- Design of database for the data entry, processing and analysis using SPSS.
- Submitting the final report compiling and analyzing the process starting from the training until the data analysis. The report presented major recommendations based upon the survey findings.
- Survey Size: 5000 structured interviews, 25 focus group discussion
LIFE II (March to August 2006):
- Same objective as LIFE I with output of comparing the two years of survey.
- Survey Size: 5000 structured interviews, 25 focus group discussion