All parties officially approved the project in late February 2009 whereupon the first tranche of funding was made available. Starting after this and working around the Indian General Election, the first inception meeting was held in May 2009, in Hyderabad. The meeting was used to establish a dialogue between the Andhra Pradesh Department of Rural Development (APDRD), NGOs operating in the sphere of Watershed Development (WSD), representatives from the Department of Primary Industry (Victoria) and the research team.
The meetings included the Special Commissioner, Rural Development, Dr. Tirupatiah, Mr Sri S Kishan Das, Joint Commissioner, Department of Rural Development, Ms. D.Kalpana, Asst.Project Coordinator,TSU, Office of the Special Commissioner, Rural Development, Ms. Damayanthi, Collector, Mahaboobnagar District, Mr Samuel, Asst. Project Director, District Water Management Agency (DWMA), Mahaboobnagar. The meeting included a detailed visit to the Jainallipur Watershed and village in Mahboobnagar District and an extended briefing and dialog at the DWMA office, Mahaboobnagar with the District & Mandal officials.
Interaction with APDRD and other state and local government groups provided insights into the most recent reforms to WSD including the extensive association and support to the program from the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme. The officials re-emphasised the urgency for institutional analysis in this field. Representatives from the APDRD expressed the view that the project should help inform the design of institutions required to deliver against the new national WSD framework. In that context the direct impacts of the project and the adoption pathways are likely to be more overt than originally planned.
To date, and with the assistance of APDRD, the research team has established a sampling frame for assembling case data. A range of other tasks have been distributed amongst the research group to progress the higher-order analysis of policy and its interpretation and implementation by state agencies.

The project is broadly on track with the original work plan. Some variation has occurred with more in-depth work on particular tasks. More time and effort was spent undertaking detailed case studies of a diverse sample of watersheds. This is expected to lead to a thorough understanding of the experience and the institutional processes and will thus be highly beneficial to the subsequent parts of the project. . The design of the survey instruments and the survey proper were postponed until the case study work was completed. The initial exploration for the case studies showed considerable diversity in the Watershed Development (WSD) program and its implementation. Accordingly, it was adjudged best not to deploy the wider empirical survey without a more detailed understanding of the nuances of each facet of the WSD program.
The project work started with meetings, presentations and field visits in Andhra Pradesh in May 2009 along with the AP-Department of Rural Development (APDRD) and the Indian and Australian researchers. This resulted in good working contacts and understanding.
A detailed set of case studies was completed in early 2010 and this formed the basis of a series of meetings, workshops and field visits held in Australia to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the institutional issues in watershed development for further study.
The invitees to these activities comprised the following:
Mr. K.Vidyasagar, I.F.S, Special Commissioner - Rural Development, AP
Mr. S.Kishan Das, Joint Commissioner - Rural Development, AP
Ms. M.Janaki, I.A.S - Project Director, DWMA, Chittoor, AP
Mr. M.Surender - Project Director, DWMA, Kurnool, AP
Dr. Alok Sikka, National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA), New Delhi
Prof. Vasant Gandhi, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Mr. Vaibhav Bhamoriya, Doctoral Student, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Dr. Floriane Clement, International Water Management Institute, Hyderabad, AP
The visit and meetings culminated in a symposium that formed part of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics (AARES) conference in Adelaide in February. In addition to providing a vehicle for interaction with Australia agencies and researchers (e.g. Murray-Darling Basin Authority; State water and catchment management agencies), the visit assisted in refining areas of overlap between Indian WSD policy and Australian policies in NRM and water. Representatives of sister ACIAR projects were also involved
Important synergies include the difficulties of enumerating natural resource outcomes against specific activities and gaps in the knowledge about institutional arrangements that deliver the best return for public investment in NRM. In this regard recent developments in the funding of catchment management organisations in Australia and the development of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan around ecological outcomes offered a useful basis for comparing WSD and sharing lessons in institutional design.
In addition to considering the efficacy of lower-order institutions (e.g. catchment and farmer groups in the Australian milieu) the project is also designed to include the impact of higher-order institutions in WSD in India. During the reporting period initial interviews with state and federal WSD offices were undertaken and this is presently being refined into a detailed report that focuses on potential gaps and weaknesses in the institutional hierarchy. This part of the work has been slightly delayed due to the ill-health of a core member of the IWMI research team.
The Andhra Pradesh Department of Rural Development (APDRD) remains intimately involved in the project and committed to the outcomes of the work, especially given the imperative for APDRD to implement WSD under new guidelines in the coming months. At the national level, the National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) was well-represented at the meetings in Australia and continues to strongly support the project.

Most elements of the project are on track although some delays have been experienced with particular components of the work. The collaboration with Indian Government officials and a strong working relationship with representatives of the AP government is a hallmark of this project. Accordingly, there are grounds for being optimistic about the adoption and integration of findings within the broader policy approaches to Watershed Development WSD)
Attempts have been made to synchronise the work with other projects funded by ACIAR in this domain. Coordination across projects remains a challenge, especially in light of the absence of dedicated resources to devote to this task and the differing work schedules.
An extensive data set comprising over 500 beneficiary households has now been assembled. The sample covers 3 districts in AP and 18 villages in total. Purposeful sampling has ensured that the data also cover differing WSD programs. These data capture the on-ground dimensions of different manifestations of WSD. Data input has been completed and preliminary empirical analysis commenced. Analysis of these data is expected to provide valuable insights to inform policy implementation as new guidelines are in the process of being executed.
The higher-level analysis is being managed by IWMI with oversight from the Project Leadership group. The activities assigned to IWMI under the project relate to Objective 2. Progress against this objective was delayed in 2010 in large part as a result of the ill-health of key personnel. Nonetheless a concerted effort has been made since November 2010 to expedite work and bring the work plan back to schedule. The draft of the report on high level institutions based on a comprehensive review of literature and official documentation has been completed and will be finalized by May 2011. A methodology for the analysis of watershed institutions has been developed. This method is based on the framework by Clement (2010). This approach is specifically tailored for analysing the governance of natural resources outlined in an article titled 'Analysing Decentralized Natural Resource Governance: Proposition for a "politicized" IAD framework Clement, F. (2010) 'Analysing Decentralised Natural Resource Governance: Proposition for a "politicised" IAD framework', Policy Sciences, 43, (2), pp. 129-156.
. The methodology will be appropriately modified and documented as an output on research methodology of this project.
Efforts pertaining to the Australian components of the work have been slightly modified, in response to emerging policy challenges. Originally, the project was expected to hone in on the institutional dilemmas attending natural resource management generally and the related federalism issues faced by regional catchment management organisations. While this remains an important focus, the research team has also sort to apply institutional design principles, specifically in the context of environmental water and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This is likely to have strong synergies with the WSD program where the question of nested governance arrangements is still unresolved. In the case of the Murray-Darling Basin the key issue is the extent and manner in which federal, state and local authorities can effectively deliver on-ground improvements to natural assets via environmental watering. In addition to adding to the currency of the project, this approach has also provided a wider audience for the WSD project. More specifically, the interest in the MDB Plan has provided opportunities to bring other researchers into contact with the WSD policy approach in AP.