| dc.description.abstract | The impact of institutions on economic development has been a subject of
considerable interest in recent years. It is now being widely acknowledged that apart from the
standard factors such as capital, labour and technology, institutions matter substantially in
determining performance and the outcomes of development. The effect of good institutions is
to reduce transaction costs and favour co-operative solution, in which cumulative experiences
and collective learning are best utilised. Natural resource management is complex and good
institutional arrangements are urgently needed in it. Research and experience indicates that
the major difficulty in natural resource management is not physical or technical but one of
poor institutional development and design. This becomes crucial for combining scientific
approaches, with community participation and ownership, which is frequently a must for
effective natural resource management. Literature review has suggested some key features for
effective institutions. Good interaction is one of the key features.
The research examines the extent and nature of the interaction within various
institutional structures created for implementing various watershed development programmes
(a major initiative through which natural resource management is pursued in
India).Interaction brings in various forces together and promotes cooperative solutions which
reduce the transaction cost. The research uses the concepts of new institutional economics and
management theories of governance and organisational design. The literature and preliminary
field observations are used to develop a conceptual framework which can help understand and
explain the need for institutional interaction, its dynamics and its role in achievement of
institutional performance. The research then undertakes an in-depth examination of
interaction across 30 local watershed development institutions under different watershed
programmes in 3 districts of Andhra Pradesh covering 406 households. The data are analysed
to examine the nature of the interaction through institutional structures and processes towards
the achievement of critical rationalities such as technical, environmental, economic, social,
organisational, and financial. The data are used to model and examine the relationship of
these factors to several dimensions of performance.
Quantity and quality of interaction are found to be important and vary across institutions
and watershed development programmes. The results indicate that an active general body has
positive impact on institutional performance. In addition the frequency of user group meetings
and attendance in managing committee meeting bear positive relationship with performance.
Interactions for technical, environmental, social, and organisational rationalities are positively
related to institutional performance. But, interactions for achieving political rationality
showed negative relationship with the performance. Also, open membership in institution, mandatory meetings of institutional constituents, involvement of technical experts, social
mobilisation, involvement of weaker sections, cooperative decision making, good leadership,
and effective coordination bear positive relationship with performance.
The research is expected to inform the better design of institutions in natural resource
management, particularly watershed development. The large numbers of watershed
institutions have poor performance, and many of them become defunct or passive after the
completion of the watershed programme. Our research highlights the importance of
institutional interaction and may help in better framing of guidelines, institutional objectives
and bye laws at national, state and village level. Thus, it may help the government and
development practitioners to improve the design of watershed development institutions for
better impact on production, livelihoods and poverty alleviation. The research is also a
contribution to literature on new institutional economics and ways to better design institutions
for institutional interaction and performance. | en_US |
