Implementation failure is widely acknowledged as a major impediment to the success of water resource plans and policies, yet there are very few proactive approaches available for analysing potential implementation issues during the planning stage. The motivations and abilities (MOTA) framework was established to address this planning stage gap, by offering a multi-stakeholder, multilevel approach to evaluate the implementation feasibility of plans and policies. MOTA is a stepwise process focusing on the relationship between trigger, motivation, and ability.
This project applied MOTA in the context of understanding the motivations and abilities of different stakeholders to implement and institutionalise fish friendly infrastructure (fish passage) in Laos, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Fish passage is a critical consideration across these South East Asian countries as the development of irrigation infrastructure, whilst supporting rice production, can imped fish migration and lead to declines in freshwater fish stocks. This presents a food security risk given the status of freshwater fish as a staple dietary requirement. This nexus of irrigation negatively impacting fisheries provides a risk for countries to meet both their food security and sustainability targets.
In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 key informants have been conducted at the regional Southeast Asian level to better understand different stakeholders such as donors, irrigation managers, fisheries managers, engineers, consulstants and researchers. These results will be presented. The end result of the MOTA analysis will be to provide direction on what is needed to implement and institutionalise fish passage in the three countries.