An IDRC-funded shared learning effort helps farmers deliver fresh water —and the prospect of a brighter future — to impoverished villages in China’s Guizhou province. In the early 1990s, Guizhou — one of China’s poorest provinces — implemented a government-run water management project, with many facilities being rebuilt or maintained by the state. There was little accountability, however, and no proper management or local control. Throughout the province, the project’s effectiveness was limited, and the impoverished villages of Changshun saw few benefits. Researchers at the Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GAAS), funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), decided to try a different approach — community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), involving participatory decision-making. CBNRM is based on the notion of shared learning. It assumes that local people who use the natural resources will have a strong vested interest in protecting them. Scientists work directly with these people to try to understand their problems and to help them find the best solutions.
