The Southwest Area Integrated Water Resources Planning and Management Project in Bangladesh became the first initiative to successfully incorporate beneficiary participation into all aspects of managing large-scale irrigation systems. This booklet describes how applying community-driven development principles to managing the water resource can both expand livelihood opportunities available to beneficiaries at no additional cost to the project, and can bridge what historically has been a gap between project beneficiaries and project implementation agencies. As a result of directly involving project beneficiaries, the project achieved significant gains in the efficiency and sustainability of flood control, drainage, and irrigation infrastructure development initiatives.