Irrigation management transfer (IMT) means the relocation of responsibility and authority for irrigation management from government agencies to non-governmental organizations, such as water user's associations. It is a widespread process that is taking place in more than 40 countries. These guidelines have been written to assist policy-makers, planners, technical experts, farmers' representatives and others involved in IMT programmes to design and implement an effective comprehensive and sustainable reform.

This report contains a collection of papers from a workshopâ€"Strengthening Science-Based Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Scarce Water Resources for Agricultural Production, held in Tunisia. Participants, including scientists, decision makers, representatives of non-profit organizations, and a farmer, came from the United States and several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The papers examined constraints to agricultural production as it relates to water scarcity; focusing on 1) the state of the science regarding water management for agricultural purposes in the Middle East and North Africa 2) how science can be applied to better manage existing water supplies to optimize the domestic production of food and fiber. The cross-cutting themes of the workshop were the elements or principles of science-based decision making, the role of the scientific community in ensuring that science is an integral part of the decision making process, and ways to improve communications between scientists and decision makers.

Globalization of irrigation management transfer: a summary of ideas and experiences fron the Whuhan conference; Irrigation management transfer: towards an integrated management revolution; Considerations in the transfer of responsibilities for services in the water resources sector; Lessons learned from irrigation management transfer programmes; Irrigation management transfer: problems in implementation; Institutuional context of irrigation management transfer; Gender aspects of irrigation management transfer: rethinking efficiency and equity: Overview of irrigation management transfer in China; Changes in irrigation as a result of policy reform in China leading to irrigation management transfer Chamgming Liu, Haisheng Mou, Quijun Ma, Jiang Kaipeng and Yang Guangxin; A better reform form of management system in irrigation districts: the system of contracted managerial responsibility; Institutionalmanagement and performance changes in two irrigation districts: case study from Hebei Province; Irrigagion management transfer: an Indian perspective; Transfer of management to water users in stages I and II of the Bhairawa-Lumbini Groundwater project; Developing share systems for sustainable water users associations; Financing participatory irrigation management in Sri Lanka; How to turn over irrigation systens to farmers? Questions and decisions in Indonesia; Irrigation service fee in Indonesia: towards irrigation comanagement with water users associations through contributions, voice, accountability, discipline and hard.

Over the past two decades, significant investment has been made into agriculture-related natural resource management research in developing countries. This collection of case studies establishes a methodological foundation for impact assessments of NRMR through a discussion of research conducted by the CGIAR around the world.

This publication describes the MASSCOTE methodology, illustrated by several applications in Asia. MASSCOTE is a comprehensive methodology for analysing the modernization of canal operation. The aim is to enable experts to work together with users in determining improved processes for cost-effective service-oriented management. It is based on previous tools and approaches widely used in Asia by FAO in its modernization training programme (rapid appraisal procedures and benchmarking). From diagnosis through the formulation of operational units and the planning of a service (based on the vision agreed upon with the users), MASSCOTE entails a systematic, ten-step, mapping exercise. The accompanying CD-ROMs contain the full document in English, excerpts in French, a draft version in Arabic and Chinese, training presentations and material, and a number of documents and references on irrigation system operation and management [System requirements: PC with Intel Pentium(r) processor and Microsoft(r)Windows 95/98/200/Me/NT/XP; 256 MB of RAM; 50 MB of available hard-disk space; SuperVGA monitor; 256 colours at 1024x768; Adobe Acrobat(r) Reader (not included on CD-ROM)]