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153 Watershed management is a landscape-based strategy that aims to implement improved natural resource management systems for improving livelihoods and promoting beneficial conservation, sustainable use, and management of natural resources. Integrated watershed management (IWM) has been promoted in many countries as a suitable strategy for improving productivity and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. The Government of India, in particular, accords high priority to watershed programs as a strategy for the integrated development of rural communities, especially in rainfed and drought-prone areas. It goes beyond conservation technologies and emphasizes the importance of the human dimension and the need to integrate technological tools with broad-ranging social, political, and economic changes. Instead of focusing exclusivelyonbiophysicalprocessesthatimproveresourceconditions ,IWMincludes multiple crop- and livestock-based income strategies that support and diversify livelihood opportunities for the poor and creates synergies among targeted technologies , policies, and institutions to improve productivity, resource use sustainability , and market access (Kerr 2001; Reddy et al. 2004a; Shiferaw and Rao 2006). Investment in IWM requires active cooperation among stakeholders at different levels. Much as in Chapter 2 of this volume, we define collective action broadly as action taken by a group (either directly or on its behalf through an organization) in pursuit of members’ perceived shared interests (Marshall 1998). Effective collective action often requires formulating and enforcing rules that govern and condition the members’ expectations to achieve their common goal. This indicates that several resource management and livelihood activities in rural areas manifest attributes of nonexclusion and require the coordination of resource users’ efforts through collective action. The need for collective action depends on the resource type, the degree of spatial integration, and the time required to attain the desired outcomes. Collective action tends to be more important in the context of many developing countries where formal institutions are missing or not functioning properly for the management of natural resources on which the livelihoods of many 6 Community Watershed Management in Semiarid India: The State of Collective Action and Its Effects on Natural Resources and Rural Livelihoods BEKELE SHIFERAW, TEWODROS A. KEBEDE, AND V. RATNA REDDY 154 Bekele Shiferaw, Tewodros A. Kebede, and V. Ratna Reddy poor depend. Successful communities in terms of the sustainable management of common pool resources are usually characterized by exhibiting well-defined rules, the ability to monitor behavior and punish violators, and the existence of mechanisms for conflict resolution and a forum for negotiating future courses of action (Wade 1988; Ostrom 1990; Tang 1994; Baland and Platteau 1996; Lam 1998). As indicated by the conceptual framework presented in Chapter 2, the ability of communities to initiate, develop, and sustain collective action often depends on the internal socioeconomic characteristics of the communities and the biophysical and socioeconomic setting. There is evidence based on comparison of communities for collective action in natural resource management that the demographic characteristics and institutional and organizational structures of the community are related to cooperative and implementation capacity (McCarthy, Dutilly-Diané, and Drabo 2004). Heterogeneity along the lines of ethnicity, religion, and social class is found to have a negative effect on cooperation. The effect of inequality on wealth and community size is less clear-cut, although greater community size and inequality seem to reduce cooperation . Despite the increasing information on factors that deter or facilitate management of common property resources, there is a lack of knowledge and information on factors that influence the level and effectiveness of collective action in the context of community watershed programs. This is despite the increased policy support for decentralized management of natural resources and the significant amount of investment that both governments and communities undertake to enhance the poverty and environmental impacts of watershed programs. In order to address some of these policy-relevant issues, the study reported in this chapter used socioeconomic data from 87 watershed villages in six districts of Andhra Pradesh, India; developed indicators of the degree of collective action; and examined its potential determinants. This was followed by analyses of key indicators of the effectiveness of collective action in attaining desired economic and environmental outcomes of watershed management. The study has provided useful insights on how community institutions determine the level of collective action in watershed management and how such collective action is related to the overall performance and effectiveness of watershed interventions . In terms of the conceptual framework presented in Chapter 2, the study focused on how assets and legal or political structures (especially watershed program bylaws and regulations) interact to affect collective action for watershed management. The key action arena...

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