IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2014) 5-2

Research article
erd

Public Participation on Water Resources Management in
Lao PDR: Case Study Banhome Village, Hadsayfong
District
KHAMBAI PHUNTHAVONGSA
Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand

CHULEEMAS BOONTHAI IWAI
Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand

NARUEMOL KAEWJAMPA*
Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand
Email: narue77@gmail.com
Received 30 January 2014

Accepted 11 August 2014(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract The public participation on resources management in Lao PDR: case study
Banhome village, Hadsayfong district, Vientiane. This area is very important for
promoting sustainable agricultural production, and tends to accelerate human health suchas the activation of financial securities, water supplies and how to avoid flood anddroughts in the future by introducing environment friendly policies close to theconservation area. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of public
participation and factors affecting participation of farmers in water resource managementin Vientiane, Lao PDR. The participation of villagers was very useful. This survey
research was carried out by using randomized model practices in relation to voluntary
participation and the Government to the water resource management and cooperative inrural development. Data were collected by questionnaires and descriptive statistics wereused to analyze the data. The results found that the level of public participation involved inwater resource management was low. Recommendations from this research are that theGovernment and community should cooperate together to manage water resources andallow farmers to join all processes of water management and solving problems.
Information and activities were promoted directly to people via well-selected media inorder to create a positive point of view in water resource management participations.
Moreover, in this area, the point of view for water resource management should be
improved starting with changing the ways that farmers make decisions.
Keywords public participation, water resources management, Lao PDR

INTRODUCTION
The water resources are an important sector in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Lao
PDR government planned to develop, modernize and industrialize in order to achieve a high qualityof life. The water resource management, one of which policy issue at the society-natural interface,pose governance challenge of Lao PDR and throughout the world. The estimated inland water
resources area totals approximately 723,500 ha, which 200,000 ha are from Mekong River region;
54,000 ha from other main rivers; 57,000 ha from reservoirs, 1,500 ha from swamps; 406,000 hafrom rice fields; and 5,000 ha from fish ponds. The rivers outside the Mekong River basin; theNam Ma, Nam Sam and Nam Neune flow through Vietnam into the South China Sea.
Public participation in integrated water resource management (IWRM) is needed to reachdecisions involving socio-economic and ecological groups, IWRM users, stakeholders and thegeneral public. The public participation is necessary because it decreases political tensions,Ⓒ ISERD105

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2014) 5-2

promotes decision making by consensus and assists in finding reasonable and acceptable solutions.
The comprehensive management of the river basin is a new concept of WRM.
This study was designed to examine the public participation in the rural water resource
management project and to determine the problems and obstacles including flood, droughts, water
quality and other emergencies. But the biggest water management trend observed is thedevelopment of all Lao PDR’s rivers for social-economic development and a reduction in poverty.
The Country’s status should rise to developed country status by 2020. However, the lack of timeand knowledges of community is a big problem which related to low goverment supporting
towards public participation for WRM in this focus area. Therefore, this study was to determine thelevel of public participation and factor affecting participation of farmers on WRM in Lao PDR.
METHODOLOGY
Study area: The study was conducted case study Banhome villages, Hadsysong district, Vientiane
city, Lao PDR. (Fig.1). It is a plain region area of Vientiane capital. The total area of Hadsayfong
district is 25.8 ha, of which approximately 17.2% is covered by forest, 57.61% is covered by semi
natural and agricultural ecosystems (arable land, orchards, rice production, cassava, organic
agriculture and another land) and 24% is covered by settlements and surface-covering
infrastructures. As for the location of surveys to determine the zoning of agricultural and forestry“SDZAF and NAFRI” reference points, 31% is found in cultivated lands, 14.56% is water resource,
while 31% in other agricultural areas by annual cropping. Whereas water resource management hashistorically used the river or lake basin as its unit of management, the growth in population andurbanization has placed increasing pressure on water resources across multiple basins a 495 ha andtotal 2,752 ha of the areas (Lao government, 2012).
Sample determinations and research methods: Local residents in the study (2,531 households)
and local water resources 495 ha in areas are regarded as the core interest groups. Banhome village
was the focus area used to conduct the survey. Data was collected during August and September
2013 using a structured questionnaire and interview process. SPSS software was used to analyze
the results of the personal factors including gender, age, educational background, income and main
occupation. Membership of government organization is related directly with people participating inwater resource management in this questionnaire.

Fig. 1 Study area of Hadsayfong district, Vientiane city, Lao PDRⒸ ISERD

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Descriptive Statistic
The characteristics of the samples showed that the heads of the households were mainly male. The
age of samples ranged from 29 to 69 years with a mean of 44 years and the range of family size
was from 3 to 6 persons with a mean of 4.3 persons. The most education background waselementary school and diploma. 80% of respondents in this study are farmer while, 13.3% and6.7% are government employer and business. The range of income was from lower than 150 tomore than 400 US dollars per month. There were randomized 15 samplings of households, fordetails see Table 1.
Table 1 Basic characteristic of the samples
Gender

Education level

Sampling
numberMaleFemale

Elementary
school15
Percentage (%)

14.0
93.3

1.0
6.7

5.0
33.3

Juniorhighschool
2.0
13.3

Highschool

diplomadegree

2.0
13.3

5.0
33.3

1.0
6.7

IncomeOccupation

Sampling
number<150

151-200

201-300

301-400>400

15Percentage (%)

2.0
13.3

2.0
13.3

6.0
40.0

2.0
13.3

3.0
20.0

Government
employer
2.0
13.3FarmerBusiness

12.0
80.0

1.0
6.7

Public Participation in Water Resource Management
Public participation is known as the most effective way in promoting and achieving sustainabilityof rural development projects, particularly in developing countries (Livingstone and McPherson,1993). In this study area, it has been recognized that the water resource management project users
or beneficiaries do not appreciate the projects since the projects are provided by the government for
free of charge that related to lack of sense of ownership and sharing responsibility to the projects.
Furthermore, the participation rate of water resource management in this area also was low. In all
stage of a project development such as project decision making process, project construction,
operation and maintenance, monitoring and evaluation, the local stakeholder participation was low
which lead to water resource management project failure (Table 2).
Table 2 Stakeholder participation in water resource management
Statement
Stakeholder’s participation in water resource situation, cause
and water demand of village
Stakeholder’s participation share the opinion in decision
making about water problem and resolve water problem
Stakeholder’s participation in water resource management
lead to effective decision plan/project
Stakeholder’s participation in monitoring and evaluation ofwater resource management projectNote: N = 15High (%)

Average (%)

Low (%)

20.0

40.0

40.0

13.3

26.7

60.0

13.3

26.7

60.0

0.0

33.3

66.7

Therefore, for success project, government should be increase the rate of stakeholder
participatory approach have been evidence through a series of consultative and discuss among
project related stakeholders (Uraiwong and Watanabe, 2012). The promoting of water resource
management knowledge and information is also important which the result found that the level ofchannel obtaining water resource management project information was low (Fig.2). All television,
radio and newspaper media, which average’s to higher than 66.7 percent and government work
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reports, were not able to gain more stakeholders understanding and participation. The education
function of the media in rural areas may be the cause for the lack of opportunity to obtain water
resource information (Liu et al., 2010).

Fig. 2 Source of media and level of obtaining the information
on water resource management
Problems and Obstacles in Water Resource Management by Public Participation in Lao
As shown in Table 3, the respondent rated eight items as problems or obstacles of their village. Thestakeholders do not know the goal of participation in water resource management project leads tolack of understanding in the project. Therefore, the water resource management project
development should be considered as demand driven and identified by the local stakeholder who
involved in all stages of a project development (Uraiwong and Watanabe, 2012).
Table 3 Problems and obstacles for publics’ participation in water resource management
Problems and obstacles
Ignorance on the goal of projects
Incompatible with others
Contrary to the community culture and traditional
Afraid of the self-troublesome
Lack of time
Lack of chance to public participation attending
Lack of knowledge
Lack of government support

No (%)
20.0
40.0
100
100
93.7
86.7
73.3
60.0

Yes (%)
80.0
60.0
00
6.3
13.3
26.7
40.0

Note; N=15CONCLUSION
The overall objective of this study was to explore the areas where people’s awareness and generalknowledge on the scheme were low due to lack of ownership and responsibility on the water
resource management program. Also as an income source it is still limited. Thus, lower income
households are unaware of the program. The result from group analysis shows the statement of
stakeholder’s participation in the water resources situation, cause and water demand of the villagers
are low, sharing in the opinion that decision making and water problem issues is low, due to thelow rate of attention, acceptance and feedback of water resource management information.
Therefore, publicity on water management knowledge should be strengthened and the government
activities should be given the chance to expand in rural participation from the start.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank IDRC-SEARCA scholar and the participants of the Hadsayfong district for
their kind collaboration and openness. Special thanks to Integrated Water Resource Management
Research and Development Center in Northeast Thailand, Khon Kaen University and Thailand forsupporting the scholarship in this research.
REFERENCES
Liu, J., Luan, Y., Su, L., Cao, Z., and Zeng, B. 2010. Public participation in water resourcesmanagement of Haihe river basin, China: The analysis and evaluation of status quo. Proc.
Environ. Sci., 2, 1750-1758.
Livingstone, A., and McPherson, H.J. 1993. Community management of rural water supplies:
Lesson for developing countries from a western Canadian experience. Water International, 18,225-232.
Lao Government. 2012. Providing of land resources and local used in Hadsayfong district,
Vientiane capital, Lao PDR.
Uraiwong, P., and Watanabe, T. 2012. Small-scaled water resources project in Thailand: Failure analysis andimprovement of stakeholder involvement. (Available from; http://management.kochitech.ac.jp/ssms_papers/sms12-6080_c59b4be872a44fbf2139d47492a9d037.pdf. Search date: 6 January 2014).

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