ABSTRACT
The most instructive experience in which the Rural Development Committee (RDC) has been involved concerns introducing people's participation in an irrigation water management project in Sri Lanka. This has been undertaken by the Agrarian Research and Training Institute in Colombo with RDC collaboration under the Agency for International Development-financed Gal Oya Water Management Project started in 1979. Sri Lanka has relied on irrigated rice production for at least 2,500 years, having developed sophisticated tank irrigation systems before the Christian era. The Government of Sri Lanka, acting through its Irrigation Department, and US Agency for International Development began to improve water management capacity in Sri Lanka by rehabilitating the Left Bank of Gal Oya and to introduce improved organization and training for water management. It was recognized that improving water management in Sri Lanka would take one or two decades and would not be accomplished through this single project.
