spilling Blwd over Water? The Cose of Ethiopia 287some programmes have officially sought to more equitably share the benefits
from irrigation with neighbowing pastoralists by increasing their participation
in some schemes. However, in most cases participation is minimal, and not
what is envisaged by enthusiasts of so called 'participatory' development. In
fact, as it was shown, water dwelopment has often increased the vulnerabili-
ty of pastoralists to the very risks that they were intended to minimise, such as
drought. Furthermore, as Helland contests, "water projects, have, in many
cases, unintentionally rearranged social relationships as well, by disregarding
local views on appropriate distribution of rights and management of resources,
to the extent of threatening mutual assistance networks and other socially con-
structed means of averting risk in this high-risk en~ironment."'~
There are some shifts in donor-funded projects to become more aware of
the possible unwanted impacts of development projects they finance.
However, for many in the Awash Basin, it is too little, too late, as the effects
of past negligence continue to be felt. Nicol et a1 suggest that, "... EU engage-
ment in the Awash Valley has actually exacerbated the risks of violent con-
flict," rather than reduced themlbs. In addition, within some donor agencies,
there remains an emphasis on large-scale infrastmctural projects that have
little benefit for local communities, especially pastoralists who are still
viewed by some donor representatives as reckless and unsustainable in their
ways of managing land and natural resources.'66
Many policy makers still believe that sedenterisation and ranching is the
best way to improve pastoralist livelihoods. Resettlement and the expansion
of private agricultural production on pastoralist rangelands are being encour-
aged. Resettlement and the expansion of agricultural production, however,
will eventually make it impossible for pastoralists to sustain their subsistence
production strategies and customary methods of resource use. For example.
in the Afar region, the development strategy of the regional water bureau
appears to be making the same mistakes that were made under earlier devel-
opment projects. In 1995, a policy statement by the chief of the regional
water bureau, cited in the Ethiopian Herald newspaper, asserted that the
regional water development strategy was aimed at:
"... helping nomadic pastoralists change their mode of life and lead a
sedentary existence. Such thinking would seem to contradict the growing
body of evidence that 'sedenterisation' programmes have been almost
universally unsuccessful and frequently damaging, partly because local
ecosystems cannot tolerate non-pastoral methods of land- and water-use
over the long term and partly because they require a traumatic socio-cul-
turd transformation of the target comm~nities':'~~The emphasis of development in pastoralist areas remains to exploit its
resources for national economic advancement, rather than to meet local needs.
In fact, Ethiopia is currently in the process of surveying some 15 valleys for