Sand in the Engine: The Travails of an Irrigated Rice Scheme in Bwanje Valley, Malawi
分析马拉维布万杰河谷灌溉计划失败的原因，指出外部干预者采用封闭技术而非参与式方法，导致项目难以持续，强调灌溉系统应融入当地景观和生计策略。
The establishment of the Bwanje Valley Irrigation Scheme (BVIS) in Malawi is a striking example of informed amnesia in development assistance. Despite the lessons learned earlier concerning a process approach to participatory irrigation development in Africa, in the case of BVIS outside interveners designed an irrigation system and parachuted it into Bwanje Valley as a black-boxed technology. Using a sociotechnical approach, this article analyses the travails of this irrigation scheme, showing that the conventional irrigation factory mindset is ill-suited for creating durable water networks. Achieving tangible improvements in rural livelihoods is better served by the interactive prototyping of water networks in situ, ensuring that new irrigation schemes are embedded in existing landscapes and complementary to existing livelihood strategies rather than supplanting them.