Concept note for Pakistan’s
Water Sector Strategy
Asjad Imtiaz Ali, Prject Director, Water Sector Capacity Building, Ministry of
Water and Power
Zahoor Ahmad Barlas, Joint Secreatry, Ministry of Water and Power
Arianna Legovini, Head, Development Impact Evaluation Initiative
Project description

Within the Water Sector Capacity Building Project, the
Gov. of Pakistan is designing an improved water resources
management framework to address:
 Inefficient delivery system and use of water
 Low pricing and inadequate collection
 Lack of maintenance of the entire irrigation system
▪ 57,000 km of canals and affiliated structures!
 Projected decline in water availability from existing 1100 to 800
cum/person/year due to population growth,climate change and
reduced storage capacity

To transform this framework, GoP plans to conduct a
series of pilot tests to learn what combination of
Research questions
What is the effect of providing water user
associations (WUAs) with information in the form
of a report card on the WUA performance on
current water management ?
2. What is the effect of facilitating a participatory
process to improve water management
performance at WUA level additional to the
provision of information?
3. What is the effect of rewarding WUAs for
performance improvements?
1.
Indicators

Water-intensity of agriculture
 Agricultural output per unit of water (agricultural productivity)
 WUAs proportion of sprinkler and drip irrigation (technology adoption)

Efficient and equitable water use
 Water use per capita per year
 Water use per acre per year
 Ratio of wateravailability per acre downstream to upstream
 Water price for sustainable water resources
 Disputes and complaints

Financial sustainability measures
 Recover maintenance costs
 Collection rates

Water infrastructures’ efficiency
 Ratio of existing to rated water capacity
Identification strategy

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Pilot in Central Punjab/Sindh
Random assignment of water user associations
(WUAs) to one control and three treatments:
a. Provision of information to WUA on current
performance indicators for the WUA and relative to
average WUA performance (in the rest of the
sample) (information only)
b. (a) plus facilitation of WUA participatory process for
dissemination of information and development &
implementation of a plan for efficient water
management (information plus facilitation)
Cont. Identification strategy
c.
Provision of performance-based public
recognition incentives (Award for Best
Performer)
(c) will be assigned randomly to 50% of the
information only WUAs arm and 50% of the
information plus facilitation WUAs arm of the study
Arms of the study
WUA
Information
assignment (report cards)
(a)
Information + Control
Facilitation (b)
No rewards
20
20
Performance- 20
based
Rewards
20
Total
40
40
40
40
Sample

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The sampling unit is the WUA
Farms in the WUA will be stratified based on
location along the tertiary canal
The exact number of WUAs per arm of the
study will be determined through power
calculations
Two representative areas, one each in Punjab
and Sindh provinces (approx. 2,500 acres each)
will be selected for the study
120 villages (approx. 2,400 households)
Data

MIS Irrigation provincial departments
 Determination of data needs
 Quality/needs assessment of existing administrative
data
 Proposals for MIS improvements

Survey data
 Farm level (household)
 Water subsystem level
Timeline
Follow up meeting/finalize CN with Ousmane Dione (TTL),
Mushfiq Mubarak (Yale), Florence Kondylis (DIME), Asjad Imtiaz
Ali, PD, WCAP, Zahoor Ahmad Barlas, Ministry of Water and
Power, Arianna Legovini (DIME), John Briscoe (Harvard)—mid-July
2010
 Securing of finances July-Sept 2010
 Preparatory activities July-Sept 2010
 Baseline Nov-Dec 2010
 MIS data analysis Feb 2011
 Baseline data analysis + preparation of score cards March 2011
 Intervention roll-out (dissemination and facilitation in 80
treatment WUAs) Apr-Jun 2011
 Follow up Nov-Dec 2011
 IE analysis May-June 2012
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Impact evaluation team
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Project coordinators (WCAP & DIME)
Consultants/ Experts from private sector
Existing WCAP Staff + Required Staff
recruited by the project
DIME Experts/ regular staff(part-time)
Seconded staff of Provincial Irrigation
Departments/ Social Welfare Departments
Estimated budget
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Project coordinators ($40,000)
Consultants (2 Man Months, $25,000)
Baseline Survey ($ 208,000)
Follow up Survey ($ 208,000)
DIME research team ($150,000)
MIS assessment/improvements proposal ($30,000)

Intervention costs in 80 treatment WUA ($80,000)
 Preparation of “score cards”
 dissemination to the WUA,
 facilitation of participatory process