Résumé
Throughout their history, rural societies of the Maghreb were able to put in place a wealth of adaptive strategies to cope with environmental, political and socio-economic changes, as illustrated in the domain of agricultural water management. These societies are now facing new organizational situations as well as participative and regionalized projects. This paper focuses on questions triggered by the contemporary participative management of water resources on the basis of two field study areas: the Jeffara region in the Tunisian southeast and the Aft Bouguemez Valley in the Moroccan High Atlas. The grass-roots observations show that the ongoing institutional dynamics in these two geographical areas lead to conceptual differences between the central government and local populations. The ann is to demonstrate how, in two different contexts, the "not-for-profit associative model" presents water users with difficulties of appropriation, while some local leaders are using it to their advantage.