The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank has undertaken impact evaluations of the Bank's support to irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, India (under AP Irrigation II and III), and of the U.K. Department for International Development supported Rural Livelihoods Project (RLP). This is one of a series of IEG impact evaluations (see appendix H). IEG's program of impact evaluation is in part carried out under a Department for International Development-IEG partnership agreement; hence the focus on RLP. However, survey villages are also covered by the Bank supported DPIP project, so that the findings are also relevant to this project.

Traditionally, indigenous irrigation in many countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America has been managed quite well by water users, who design, build, operate, and maintain often sophisticated, but usually small-scale, systems. More recently, in connection with large-scale development programs and government-managed schemes, the planned introduct