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Collective action for watershed management: field experiments in Colombia and Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2010

JUAN CAMILO CARDENAS ,
LUZ ANGELA RODRIGUEZ  and
NANCY JOHNSON
JUAN CAMILO CARDENAS
Affiliation:
Universidad de los Andes, Calle 19A No. 1-37 Este, Bloque W (W-803), Bogotá, Colombia. Email: jccarden@uniandes.edu.co
LUZ ANGELA RODRIGUEZ
Affiliation:
Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, Calle 28A No 15-09, Bogotá, Colombia
NANCY JOHNSON
Affiliation:
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Box 30709-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
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Abstract

The collective action problem around water use and management involves solving both the problems of provision and appropriation. Cooperation in the provision can be affected by the rival nature of appropriation and the asymmetries in access. We report the results of two field experiments conducted in Colombia and Kenya. The irrigation game was used to explore the provision and appropriation decisions under asymmetric or sequential appropriation, complemented by a voluntary contribution mechanism experiment which looks at provision decisions under symmetric appropriation. The overall results were consistent with the patterns of previous studies: the zero contribution hypotheses is rejected whereas the most effective institution to increase cooperation was face-to-face communication, although we find that communication works much more effectively in Colombia than in Kenya. We also find that the asymmetric appropriation did reduce cooperation, though the magnitude of the social loss and the effectiveness of alternative institutional options varied across sites.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 16 , Special Issue 3: CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN LATIN AMERICA , June 2011 , pp. 275 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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