ZEF Bonn

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ZEF Bonn ● Center for Development Research – Annual Report 2001/2002
GLOWA-Volta project
It has been argued that local
communities are better suited
than national governments to
manage local natural resources.
ZEF has set up a research
group aiming at a better
understanding of the factors
leading to the success or failure
of such approaches.
fallow systems in the Eastern Amazon. The evaluation includes a private and social
cost benefit analysis, a bio-economic modelling approach to quantify land use decisions
under different policy scenarios, an analysis of institutions relevant to technology
diffusion and a comparative analysis to assess the significance of the results for
other areas in the Amazon.
2.3.2 Water safety and security issues
Changes in water supply and demand in the Volta basin as well as the hydrological
and socio-economic trade-offs in water allocation are being examined in the context
of the GLOWA-Volta project. Based on ten-year average data and an institutional
analysis of the water sector, alternative water management
scenarios have been developed and assessed in initial runs
of an integrated economic-hydrologic optimisation model.
Initial results suggest that the effect of increased irrigation
development is small compared to rainfall and runoff variability
in the Volta basin. Secondary data analysis showed that only
around 40 % of rural households and about 50 % of urban
households use improved water sources for their drinking water
needs. A household's choice between improved and traditional
drinking water sources not only depends on the household's
income level and distance to the source but is also determined
by other factors such as education, preferences or taste.
Mapping of water-related diseases, moreover, underlines the
importance of health effects through water use.
A PhD research project was finalised in 2001 looking at the “Economics of
Household Water Security in Jordan". The objective of this research was a better
understanding of household access, demand and usage of water over space and time
and the assessment of effective water prices paid by poor households. This research
forms a pilot study of ZEF research on Water and Poverty, which will be continued
and extended within the GLOWA-Volta framework.
2.3.3 Sustainable land use in Uganda
A ZEF project conducted in co-operation with the International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI) integrates biophysical and socio-economic approaches to
identify suitable incentives for enhancing sustainable land use in Uganda.
Bioeconomic modelling work within a multiple-agent framework is being conducted
at two sites representing different development pathways: one site in the coffeebanana-maize
system of central Uganda, and the other in the maize-dominated
system in the highlands of eastern Uganda.
2.3.4 Institutions and natural resource management
Many developing countries are currently devolving rights and responsibilities over
natural resource management from the state to local communities. It has been
argued that local communities are better suited than national governments to manage
local natural resources because they have better information on local conditions,
the capacity to adapt to changes in these conditions more easily, a higher stake in
successful management, and lower monitoring costs. However, an effective management
of natural resources through local communities also requires the co-operation
of heterogeneous community members or subgroups and can be hampered by local
hierarchies and different ethnicities or simply by differences in interests and negotiating
power between groups of users. Devolution may thus lead to rent-seeking activi-