Sustainable O&M and water provision are crucial. Sustainable O&M that guarantees water provision is an incentive for farmers to remain members of WUAs. Farmers tend to withdraw from WUAs if their fields do not receive adequate water flows. Without water delivery to their fields, there was no incentive for farmers to work on land conversion and therefore some refused to invest their resources in converting undeveloped land to paddy fields, which would have increased the irrigated area under the project. Farmers’ willingness to pay for irrigation services is affected if they cannot get adequate water flows to their fields, and if irrigation facilities damaged by extreme weather events are not expeditiously repaired by the government. The government’s response capacity for post-completion maintenance needs to improve by allocating adequate funds systematically.
Northern Community-Managed Irrigation Sector Project