E-WAter Assessment Indicators for Water Users' Associations in Egypt

The sustainability of Water User's Associations (WUAs), as a first form of participatory management approach in irrigation sector, and their success with respect to the adequacy and quality of the service provided and financial control are ultimate goals that should be monitored and evaluated periodically. Monitoring, evaluation, and measuring the effect of WUAs is difficult. Measuring outcomes evolves adequate data before and after establishing associations, or direct observation of processes affected by the new institutional arrangement. The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI) continues with monitoring and the evaluation of the operation and the maintenance performance of the transferred schemes. This effort aims to determine the physical conditions of irrigation schemes and facilities, highlighting problems of each scheme, giving recommendations for better management, and providing associations with technical assistance. Although several studies in the review have been conducted for evaluating and monitoring different aspects of WUAs, and no one of them paid attention to develop indicators for the assessment process of these associations. Through the current study, integrated assessment indicators for evaluating the performance of WUAs, as well as their effects on environmental, socio-economic, managerial, institutional and technical issues were developed. Intended for developing/selecting the assessment indicators, two questionnaires were designed. The objective of the first one was to represent a preliminary set of suggested indicators that were reviewed and discussed among the project work team, an expert from the Irrigation Advisory Service (IAS), and experts from MWRI during a one-day workshop. The objective of the second one was to decide on the final assessment indicators through a PRA survey. Statistical analyses for the collected data and information were performed. Finally, based on the different obtained results from the previous activities, other elaborated discussions among the project workteam have taken place for more refinement to set down the final version of assessment indicators.