Water Use Rights and Processes of Negotiations among Irrigators

The growing associations between the development as well as proper management of irrigation water and livelihood improvement have continued to be among the crucial domains of interventions in most developing nations. The concern was even high among stakeholders like policy makers, International cooperation agencies and development partners. Regardless of such concerted and concrete efforts, the encroaching dimensions of poverty, the recurrent problems of chronic food insecurity and other natural calamities including rainfall variability and inconsistencies became the factors that principally lead to inevitably embark on the development of irrigation as among possible alternatives. In Ethiopia, a country usually identified as the water tower of the African continent, all the problems aforementioned had been prevailing for a number of decade exposing significant number of population to risks of death, transmittable diseases as well as incurred medication costs. On top of all other intricate problems, the lack of proper management of the various components and structural linkages within irrigation projects and programs of the country had exacerbated the existing situations.