Title:
Democratization of Irrigation Systems Management

Authors:
M. Vartanov, E. Kechkhoshvili, G. Natroshvili and M. Shavlakadze

ABSTRACT:
The democratization of the country is impossible without existence of active civil society, and therefore the first step of democratic transformations should be the formation of such a society among the population. In the countries where a significant part of the population lives in villages the issue has certain peculiarities. In such cases, it is possible to form an active public position around the issues related to labor activities that cause a significant interest among the population. In case of Georgia, one of these fields is irrigation. The paper considers one of the forms of civil society - the issue of organizing and managing associations of a temporary irrigation system network. It should be noted that after private property was established on the land, the works for arranging as well as maintaining the temporary irrigation network became the responsibility of the land owners, which in its turn is practically impossible to perform individually. The necessity of such unions is substantiated in the paper, also, there is also an explanation of the reasons for the failure of the first attempt to form such associations (irrigation and drainage user associations) in Georgia and there are given some of the principles of their successful functioning as well. At the same time, the necessity of keeping the principle of voluntary creation of the union should be noted as well as the question of the authority and professionalism of its leadership. and on the turn of the local leadership considering the decisions about the issues in the jurisdiction made by the union, which is the basis of the successful functioning of the union.