Diana Suhardiman

Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies | KITLV

Regional economic integration has become the dominant development pathway promoted, endorsed, and followed by many developing country governments in South East Asia and globally. Focusing on hydropower development, this article shows how forces of globalization manifested in the Myanmar government’s strategies to promote economic growth are shaping...

Following the National League for Democracy’s landslide victory in the 2015 national election, Myanmar embarked on a series of legal and political transitions. This paper highlights parallel processes alongside such transitions. Linking land governance with the ongoing peace processes, and taking Karen state as a case study, it brings to light how...

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for...

This paper examines the governance and implementation of land compensation for the Laos-China Railway (LCR). It brings to light the central government’s strategy to use compensation rules and procedures as its means to extend its spatial power across the provinces, districts, and villages that are affected by the railway construction. We examine bo...

This article examines the factors shaping communal land tenure and livelihood practices in two villages in Houaphan province, Northeastern Laos. It employs the concept of institutional bricolage to show how local actors combine communal tenure, state intervention, donor programs and local power relations to (re)shape formal rules and day-to-day lan...

ABSTRACT This paper develops the methodological concept of river co-learning arenas (RCAs) and explores their potential to strengthen innovative grassroots river initiatives, enliven river commons, regenerate river ecologies, and foster greater socio-ecological justice. The integrity of river systems has been threatened in profound ways over the la...

A new food system indicator framework and monitoring architecture is presented to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) r...

Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering ‘unruly waters and humans’ have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water ju...

Grassroots initiatives that aim to defend, protect, or restore rivers and riverine environments have proliferated around the world in the last three decades. Some of the most emblematic initiatives are anti-dam and anti-mining movements that have been framed, by and large, as civil society versus the state movements. In this article, we aim to brin...

Transforming food systems is essential to bring about a healthier, equitable, sustainable, and resilient future, including achieving global development and sustainability goals. To date, no comprehensive framework exists to track food systems transformation and their contributions to global goals. In 2021, the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiat...

Large-scale male outmigration has placed new pressures on both men and women, especially regarding labour division in farm households and involvement in Water Users Associations (WUAs). This paper illustrates how the interplay between existing gender norms, male migration, remittances, and alternative sources of male labour influence women’s agency...

COVID-19 has changed the permeability of borders in transboundary environmental governance regimes. While borders have always been selectively permeable, the pandemic has reconfigured the nature of cross-border flows of people, natural resources, finances and technologies. This has altered the availability of spaces for enacting sustainability init...

This paper proposes a reformulation of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) fit for the 21st century. The article explores the rise and usage of the original SLF, highlighting how its popularity among development practitioners emerged both from its practical focus, and its depoliticization of wider shifts in the development landscape at the...

Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around t...

Land policy reform has dominated the development agenda across the Global South over the past two decades. In contrast with earlier distributive land reforms, contemporary policies reflect an amalgamation of neoliberal, state territorial, and social justice agendas. This paper demonstrates how land policy changes reflect the spatially extensive and...

Multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) are the subject of increasing attention and investment in the domain of collaborative natural resource governance, yet evidence-based guidance is slim on policy and investment priorities to leverage the MSP approach. We provide a comparative analysis of eight landscape-level MSPs spanning seven countries (Peru, Bra...

Hydropower development in the lower Mekong Basin is being rapidly developed. Taking the Pak Beng hydropower project in Laos as a case study, this paper looks at participation and politics in transboundary hydropower development, how the latter is revealed by multiple, parallel institutional architectures in hydropower decision-making across scales,...

This paper looks at scalar politics, power struggles, and institutional emergence in Daw Lar Lake in Karen state, Myanmar. It brings to light tensions between centralized and decentralized approaches in the country's natural resource governance, and how these are manifested in the current legal stalemate with regard to the formal management status...

This paper looks at how local livelihoods and to a certain extent their transitions are embedded in, and in thrall to, power relations at higher levels. Placing the (re)shaping of livelihood pathways within the context of top-down hydropower planning, it shows how the latter predetermines farm households’ current farming strategies and future livel...

This paper looks at the (re)shaping of local institutional arrangements within the context of land use planning processes in Laos, bringing to light their dynamic and co-constitutive relationship. Taking Pa Khom village in Houaphan province as a case study, it examines how local tenure institutions are (re)produced, (re)assembled and adapted to mir...

Positioning migrants as quintessential globalisation subjects, this paper reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ambivalent positioning of migration as a pathway for human development. Drawing on interviews with international and domestic labour migrants from Bangladesh, India, Laos and Myanmar working in Laos, Myanmar, China, Singapore...

Viewing the Salween River as a transboundary commons, this paper illustrates how diverse state and non‐state actors and institutions in hybrid and multi‐scaled networks have influenced water governance in general, and large dam decision‐making processes in particular. Putting power relations at the centre of this analysis and drawing on the concept...

https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/2020/04/pim-game-of-unknowns-beyond-the-win-win-toward-inclusive-development/

Motivation Power relations, and the politics shaping and reshaping them, are key to determining influence and outcomes in water governance. But current discourse on water governance tends to present decision‐making as neutral and technical unaffected by political influences. Purpose Taking Nepal as a case, this article examines the close interlink...

This chapter outlines legal, institutional and political means to support climate change adaptation and mitigation, to enhance resilience, and to reduce vulnerability through more inclusive water management, especially at the country level.

Increasing demands for energy to boost the Mekong economies have attracted the keen interest of riparian countries for hydropower development. This is evidenced by extensive investment in hydropower projects across the region over the last few decades. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders, including officials from Ministry of Energy and Mine...

Land tenure, or access and rights to land, is essential to sustain people’s livelihoods. This paper looks at how farm households perceive land tenure (in)security in relation to food (in)security, and how these perceptions evolve throughout different policy periods in Laos. The paper highlights the centrality of farmers’ strategies in configuring t...

State control of land plays a critical role in producing land dispossession throughout the Global South. In Myanmar, the state’s approach towards territorial expansion has driven the country’s system of land governance, resulting in widespread and systemic land grabbing. This article investigates ongoing land governance reforms as key terrains for...

This paper investigates the spatial dimension of power relations and the shaping of local alliances through a hydropower development project in Nepal. It provides a grass-roots illustration on the role of space in shaping and reshaping power relations, and how it manifests in the formation of local strategic alliances. Taking the Upper Karnali hydr...

Hydropower development in the Mekong River Basin is occurring at a rapid, though controversial pace, pitting a variety of stakeholder groups against each other at both intranational scale and international scale, and affecting state relations across scales. In this paper, we explore the narratives surrounding hydropower development in this basin, w...

Unpacks the use of power analysis to shape the structure of a Water User Association in Myanmar

This paper examines land use planning processes in Laos, particularly how they are shaped and reshaped by key actors’ interests and strategies across scales and how they are closely interlinked with state logics of territorialization. It critiques dominant perspectives that view land use planning as a tool for bridging policy and institutional divi...

Groundwater use for agriculture has the potential to improve rural households’ income and reduce poverty, but the linkages are not always straightforward. Taking Laos as a case study, this article illustrates how differential access to water, land, and capital shape farmers’ livelihood strategies in two nearby, yet contrasting villages on the Vient...

A multidisciplinary examination of alternative framings of environmental problems, with using examples from forest, water, energy, and urban sectors. Does being an environmentalist mean caring about wild nature? Or is environmentalism synonymous with concern for future human well-being, or about a fair apportionment of access to the earth's resourc...

Since the late 1990s, river basin planning has become a central idea in water resources management and a mainstream approach supported by international donors through their water programs globally. This article presents river basin planning as a function of power and contested arena of power struggles, where state actors create, sustain, and reprod...

Rulal is a land use planning board game designed to highlight the politics of land use planning processes across scales. The rules of the game are developed based on key stakeholders interviews at national level (e.g. including government agencies, members of the National Assembly, international organizations, and civil society groups) and focus gr...

Land grabbing has transformed rural environments across the global South, generating resistance or political reactions “from below”. In authoritarian countries like Laos, where resource investments are coercively developed and insulated from political dissent, resistance appears absent at first glance. Yet, it is occurring under the radar, largely...

We examine the patterns and characteristics of private investment in Laos, and how these evolve in relation to the Lao government's investment incentive policies in particular, and the wider State policies in general. Our goals are to: 1) systematically describe and analyse the patterns and characteristics of private investment in the country; and...

To promote pro-poor payments for environmental services, it is necessary to identify institutional options that reduce transaction costs and organisational problems associated with establishing and maintaining contracts with small-scale environmental service providers. This study examined the dual functionality of state forest enterprises (SFEs) in...

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) still stands today as one of the most influential governance models in the water sector. Whereas previous analyses of IWRM have focused on the effectiveness of the institutional models it embodies and on policy implementation gaps, we examine the meanings that IWRM discourses have given to water manageme...

This article analyses the internal logic of the upeti system in Indonesian irrigation and brings to light how corruption rules are shaped through complex socio political relationships reflected in the organisational culture of the irrigation agency. Based on hundred interviews with water sector professionals the article highlights: 1) the importanc...

Poor performance of government managed irrigation systems persists globally despite numerous policies over the last four decades to address the problem. I argue that policy efforts to improve irrigation performance in developing countries fail in part because they are often formulated in isolation from the existing agrarian reality. This article us...

Canal irrigation and the way it has been managed continue to be at the central stage of irrigation development debates. This article looks at Irrigation Management Transfer policy processes in the seven interconnected irrigation systems in Kulon Progo district, Yogyakarta province, Indonesia. It focuses on the government's attempt to transfer funds...

Current discourse on climate change highlights the issue of uncertainty, risks and the importance of systems' resilience as a means to cope with impacts of climate change and climate variability. Th is chapter links the dominant approach of uncertainty as presented in the climate change discourse with policy discussions on climate adaptation strate...

Strict hydrologic definitions of basins coupled with technological advances including the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems have given us more accurate and detailed knowledge than ever before about the scale and extent of transboundary waters. This information has had both research and policy impact. The knowledge of the vast...

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been prescribed in the global water policy literature for decades. This article looks at how the concept has been applied in Nepal. It highlights the normative approach in IWRM policy formulation, the existing institutional barriers to apply it and how these resulted in the framing of IWRM ‘implement...

This report summarizes scientific knowledge generated by the Management of Soil Erosion Consortium (MSEC) over the past 10 years, focusing on biophysical aspects of soil erosion and the influence of related land-use policies.

Hydropower development is occurring at a rapid, though controversial, pace in the Mekong. We highlight the role of scientific assessment in shaping the Mekong hydropower debate, taking the Strategic Environmental Assessment of the 12 planned mainstream dams as a case study. While Environmental Impact Assessments are designed as science-based decisi...

Mekong hydropower is developing rapidly. Laos is at the forefront of this development. While hydropower development supports the country's economic growth, many observers have highlighted the potential negative impacts for people's livelihoods. Taking the Nam Mang 3 hydropower project as a case study, we examine the impacts of hydropower developmen...

The fall of the New Order government in 1998 and the political reform that followed posed substantial challenges for Indonesia’s bureaucracy to continue fulfilling its mandate. This book analyses the process of bureaucratic reform in the irrigation sector. Using Irrigation Management Transfer policy as the entry point for analysis, it documents and...

In the Dry Zone of Myanmar, improved access to water is widely acknowledged as being vital for livelihood enhancement and the general well-being of around 10 million people, most of whom depend on agriculture. Thus, expanding the sustainable use of groundwater is of great importance for socioeconomic development. According to this study, opportunit...

Notions of benefit sharing play an increasingly important role in shaping the debate around the merits of existing and future hydropower development in the Mekong region. In this paper we assess how the concept of benefit sharing is articulated and applied in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. We discuss the conceptual strengths and weaknesses...

Poor performance of government-managed irrigation systems persists globally. This paper argues that addressing performance requires not simply more investment or different policy approaches, but reform of the bureaucracies responsible for irrigation management. Based on reform experiences in The Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan, we ar...

Since the early 2000s, governance has been at the core of the international water agenda. This has elicited calls for reforms in the irrigation sector, including efforts to address the problem of corruption. Nevertheless, the history of policy reform in the irrigation sector is one of repeated institutional refinements, which have hardly materializ...

Vietnam's irrigation development policy directions are divided between the objective to continue increasing rice production through agricultural intensification and to improve farmer's livelihoods through crop diversification and integrated farming. While the first objective requires the construction of new large-scale irrigation system in deeply f...

The changing notion of state territoriality highlights overlapping power structures at international, national, and local scales and reveals how states can be “differently” powerful. This article analyzes how the interplay of these power structures shapes the dynamics of natural resource management in one of the world's fastest changing transbounda...

The changing role of the state and the increased participation of non-state actors has blurred the meaning of international affairs and highlighted overlapping power structures at international, national, and local levels. This paper illustrates how these power structures shape the hydropower decision making landscape in one of the world’s most dyn...

The Vietnamese Mekong River Delta (MRD) has a total area of 4 million hectares, occupied by more than 18 million inhabitants in 2009, and with abundant water resources (Can 2000). Because of high seasonal variation in rainfall (more than 90%) and the accumulation of surface water during the flood season from May to November, the great potential for...

Payments for ecosystem services often are viewed as an innovative approach toward improving natural resource management, while also providing opportunities for enhancing incomes and livelihoods. Yet not all PES programs are designed and implemented in ways that reflect voluntary transactions between buyers and providers of well-defined, measurable...

ABSTRACT: In the last two decades, international donors have promoted Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) as an international remedy to management problems in government irrigation systems in many developing countries. This article analyses the political processes that shape IMT policy formulation and implementation in Indonesia. It links IMT with...

We report on a discussion among IWMI's Asian researchers on our strategy for policy research on canal irrigation in India. Poor service delivery, persistence of head-tail inequity, growing gap between irrigation potential created and utilized, shrinking of command area despite growing investments in construction and rehabilitation, sustained build...

Previous analysis of transboundary water governance has been focused primarily on state-centred approaches. The articles in this special section move us forward from this focus in three ways. First, they highlight the crucial role played by non-state actors in shaping water governance outcomes. Second, they show us how these actors can increase the...

This article analyses policy trends in Indonesian irrigation, particularly during the last five decades, from the perspective of dominant narratives, as authored, suggested and pushed by international donors. It argues that international donors' adherence to ‘deferred maintenance’ as the core element of irrigation policy problem framing does not ma...

This article provides an institutional analysis of the Mekong River Commission and brings to light the institutional dissonances between regional and national decision-making landscapes in the Lower Mekong Basin. The current scalar disconnect between regional and national decision-making processes reflects how international donors and member countr...