Institutions Under Construction: Resolving Resource Conflicts in Tanzanian Irrigation Schemes

Abstract

In present-day Tanzania, the increasing market penetration, the declining predictability of water availability and the intensifying institutional pluralism make small-scale irrigation schemes interesting for studying water governance institutions under construction. By documenting how conflicts over water are solved, we focus on how power enters this process. We also show that resource conflicts are not necessarily disruptive and that institutional pluralism can contribute to the development of more sophisticated resource governance institutions. But despite the potential of such processes to improve resource governance institutions, it can also reproduce deeply entrenched gender relations and hinder inclusion of less powerful resource users as they do not always have the capability to engage in conflict resolutions in a creative fashion.

Keywords: irrigation, power, resource governance institutions, Africa

JEL Classification: Q15, P48, O17, O55