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Internationally there is growing understanding that water rights are important and that a lack of effective water rights systems creates major problems for the management of increasingly scarce water supplies
. However, discussion of water rights has often failed to recognise the range of available institutional options, the rich diversity of lessons from experience and the need for appropriate flexibility in adapting institutional design to dynamic local conditions.
In response to these concerns, the editors and other colleagues organized an international working conference, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2003, which brought together practitioners and researchers working on water rights reform.
To further share ideas on improving water rights reform, this volume presents revised versions of selected papers from the conference. The focus is on experiences with implementing water rights reform. Cases come from countries in six continents and many of the authors draw on additional practical experience and research in multiple countries and regions, contributing empirical and conceptual knowledge to the discussion
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Through collective action, forest users, fishers, irrigators, herders and other rural producers can improve and sustain resources vital for their lives
. Inclusive institutions for collective action empower communities to protect and improve their livelihoods. Many communities of resource users possess longstanding traditions of local cooperation, though these traditions may have been weakened in more recent times. In other cases, collective action seems absent, even when it ought to offer substantial benefits for those involved.
What can be done when people seem unable or unwilling to act together to pursue their interests? Insights on factors crucial to stimulating and sustaining collective action have come from abstract game theory, laboratory experiments, historical research, case studies, and practical experience.
This brief draws on this research to review how citizens, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), government agencies and others can strengthen collective action
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