The water management scheme naturally needs to include all the people in the village because it concerns them all. Different people can contribute with different aspects; while some have knowledge, others can help with implementation. The villagers told us that the new village management had made them come closer as a community and that the decisions taken now, concerning water as well as other issues, have become more collective.

Community management is especially important in developing countries where the state lacks resources and has little interest in rural, resource-scarce areas. The only direct interaction the villagers of Laporia have in relation to the state is when it has provided some form of drought relief.

Taking governance in their own hands, the villagers have created committees that focus on economic and environmental issues. Women self-help groups provide loans for education and health, especially for children. The local community has done something with the problem itself, while the state of India has barely done anything with the symptoms. Due to their own empowerment, migration from the village has decreased, and there have been no reports on critical indebtedness and farmer suicides in the district, despite of Rajasthan being the driest area of India.

There are many villages in Rajasthan that have improved their livelihoods and ensured the sustainability of their environment by implementing locally adjusted water management programmes. While the operation and success of the scheme is totally dependent on the motivation and good governance of the local community, many have been helped by a local non-government organization (NGO), Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS).

Not only has the village community managed to retrieve control over their own lives and welfare on a local scale, but also in relation to an internationally supported organization such as TBS. Instead of being undermined by a NGO development program focused on modernization, the villagers have the key to their own development.

They have chosen an ecological path which not only proves that the poor are not the biggest polluters, but that they have the potential to ‘leapfrog’ over unsustainable roads of development, hence being an example for the rest of the rich polluting world.