In the 1980’s, the Indian government shifted its approach to watershed management in drought-afflicted rural areas. Traditional bureaucratic, top-down projects had often failed due to lack of consultation with or buy-in from local people. In an effort to increase success rates, the government began to encourage programs based on smaller, people-led projects. Among these was the Indo-German Watershed Development Program, launched in 1992.

Co-founded by Father Hermann Bacher, a Jesuit priest, the IGWDP is funded by the German government through the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and the German Bank for Reconstruction. It is implemented by an independent, state-wide NGO, the Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR), in partnership with the Indian government’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

The program funds village-based, participatory watershed development projects, with communities chosen for their low rainfall, geographical position—generally within primary water catchment areas—and social composition. Villages where a few families dominate land ownership are disqualified on the grounds that such power imbalances would deter consensus on developing local land to the benefit of all. To qualify, villages must agree to temporary bans on tree-cutting and grazing on land designated for regeneration. They must also contribute free labor—a common rural practice known as shramdan—to cover at least 15-20 percent of project costs (D’Souza and Lobo 2004:4; Lobo and D’Souza 2003:9).

Capacity-building is the program’s first priority. In each community, a Village Watershed Committee of local residents is nominated, usually by the village assembly, to make and implement decisions. Villagers also work on a pilot project, learning water and soil conservation techniques, with WOTR or another local NGO providing training, technical organizational, and financial support. After 12 to 18 months, NABARD assumes project oversight, funding scaled-up watershed activities designed by and delivered through the village committee, again with local NGO support (Lobo and D’Souza 2003:6, 15).

By late 2004, the Indo-German Watershed Development Program had spent US$21.9 million funding projects on 165,439 hectares of land, occupied by some 190,000 people (D’Souza and Lobo 2004:3). After 12 years of first-hand experience across Maharashtra, WOTR’s co-founder and executive director, Crispino Lobo, summarizes village-based watershed development as “a proven strategy for poverty reduction, augmentation of water resources, livelihood diversification, enhancing well-being, building social capital, and widening the decision-making and opportunity space for women” (D’Souza and Lobo 2004:2).