Assessing the growth potential of farmer-led irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa

Lead Research Organisation: University of Manchester
Department Name: Environment, Education and Development

Abstract

This research will contribute to answering the question "what institutions and policies lead to investment in irrigation by individual farmers, groups of farmers and large-scale enterprises?" under the first DEGRP theme "Agriculture and Growth". The project will assess whether current investment by farmers in small-scale irrigation might offer a model for broad-based economic growth in rural areas of Africa.

The research is timely because, after nearly two decades of stalled irrigation investment due to poor performance of irrigation projects in Africa in the 1970s, international commitment to funding African irrigation is growing rapidly as a response to rising food prices and the continuing stagnation of African agricultural productivity. However, funding commitments are yet to be informed by systematic analysis of how irrigation actually works in today's farming contexts in Africa, leading to uncertainty about choices of technology and forms of social organisation needed, and concerns that implementation of large-scale irrigation will repeat past problems and not achieve broad-based economic growth.

This study will respond to this gap by bringing together social science researchers from the UK and irrigation scientists from the Netherlands to work with African researchers in Mozambique and Tanzania on case studies of contemporary irrigation in Africa. The studies will focus on cases where there is evidence that small-scale farmers are investing in irrigation, including the construction of furrows to divert streams, the management of wetter lowlands to grow rice, and the adoption of new low-cost pump technologies and drip irrigation.

Each study will develop an analysis of these irrigation developments from a local and a national perspective. At a local level, a combination of interviews and questionnaire surveys will be used to identify why farmers do, or do not, invest in irrigation, the kinds of technical and financial support they can obtain, the changes in agricultural productivity they achieve, and the wider social and economic consequences, particularly for people (e.g. women, younger men, and those recently-settled in the area) whose rights to use land and water are typically subordinate to others in hierarchical systems of local governance.

Case study findings will be presented for discussion by communities participating in the study. At a national level, interviews and workshops with policy-makers in both international development agencies and government, and with non-government organisations and commercial suppliers of irrigation equipment, will be used to provide an analysis of these agencies' perceptions of 'farmer-led' irrigation development and the extent to which such development is supported by policy. The countries selected provide strongly contrasting policy environments, Tanzania having recognised and supported farmer-initiated irrigation in the past whereas Mozambique has not.

Project findings will be disseminated internationally through open access publication in peer-reviewed academic journals, and through engagement with an international advisory group including academic and 'end user' representatives. At a national level, the project will undertake workshops with officials and policy-makers on irrigation in both Tanzania and Mozambique both during inception and after completion of the local-level fieldwork on irrigation case studies. Research findings will also contribute to curriculum development by the African research partners.

Planned Impact

We will engage key stakeholders at four levels: national policy-makers, local users, African academics, and international academic/users.

National policy-makers. In each of the countries in which the research is to be undertaken we will convene a series of "strategic workshops" at inception, mid-term and 6 months before the end of the project. At each workshop the research team (Manchester/WUR and African research partners) as well as key policy makers and technical advisors on irrigation will be able to assess and discuss the project activities and findings. Workshop outcomes will inform research design and data collection activities (at inception, and mid-term) and data interpretation and research findings (in the final workshop).

Local users: At a local level, we will seek opportunities to engage with farmers' organisations in discussing the research findings, particularly in terms of comparing different irrigation approaches and their relevance for different groups (e.g. women and youth). These meetings will also involve staff from the local irrigation and agricultural administration so that to raise their awareness -and readiness to engage with- farmer-led irrigation innovation and development.

African academics. In each of the case study countries, the research will involve the Manchester and Wageningen researchers working with African co-investigators from higher education and research institutions: - ISPM in Mozambique, NM-AIST in Tanzania
This will offer opportunities for capacity building: through collaborative research design and data collection, and the possible use of data collected by junior researchers for a PhD in a local university (the PhD will be co-supervised by staff from Manchester/WUR). The research will also provide the basis for seminars and curriculum development in ISPM (Mozambique) and NM-AIST (Tanzania), particularly in reframing how irrigation is perceived by students (notably, in their awareness of local 'artisanal' adaptations of more formal irrigation technology) and in interdisciplinary methodologies for irrigation appraisal, particularly with respect to understanding broader social and economic effects.

International academics/users. early publication of research results in high quality journal papers will challenge current thinking by re-framing debates about the potential options of investment in irrigation (the last 6 months of the project are specifically devoted to this activity). These papers will emphasise cross-disciplinary analysis and accessibility to non-specialist readers by targeting Open Access publication in key high-impact journals (World Development, Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Agrarian Change, Water Alternatives). Findings will be disseminated also by conference presentations and via shorter briefing notes to mailing lists and via web pages. The project will also use a high-level "advisory group" to guide the implementation of the project and offer opportunities for the project to inform international policy agendas.
 
Description Background
This research is a response to the insight that 'formal' irrigation investments in Africa are widely perceived to have performed poorly, with little public funding of irrigation from 1985 to 2005 (AfDB, 2008), but that there has been widespread investment by African farmers themselves in diverse unofficial irrigation initiatives. These include diversion of streams into canals and furrows to water crops, small-scale pumping, construction of bunds to control water in wetlands and other methods of improved water control and productivity (Lankford, 2009, Bolding et al, 2010, Veldwisch et al, 2013, De Fraiture and Giordano, 2013; Woodhouse et al., 2017).
The project was begun at a moment when a 20-year hiatus in public investment in irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Faurès et al. 2007) was ending, with a number of studies focusing on the scope and constraints for irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa (Inocencio et al. 2007; You et al. 2011; Fujie et al. 2011; Xie et al. 2014). Continuing low agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa and sharp increases in food prices in 2008, have prompted renewed interest in irrigation. Water resources are perceived to be under-used, and, under conditions of rainfall uncertainty, irrigation reduces the risk associated with other investments, like fertiliser application, needed to raise productivity (Svendsen et al, 2009). This latter constraint is predicted to intensify, as climate change will make the timing of rainfall more irregular.
Various pan-African studies and policy processes running parallel to each other (Lankford 2005; Innocencio et al. 2007; AfDB et al. 2008; AgWa 2010) have contributed momentum to irrigation development, exemplified by the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), a continent-wide program developed under the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The first of four pillars of CAADP is "extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems" (NEPAD 2003). Bilateral and other international funders also turned their attention to irrigation, and agricultural water management more broadly (Giordano et al. 2012; World Bank 2006). An alliance of five influential international organizations , the Agricultural Water for Africa (AgWA) partnership, called for new large-scale investments into irrigation (AfDB et al. 2008) with the objective of promoting: "Increased investment in agricultural water management that is socially equitable, profitable at the farm level, economically viable, environmentally sound and sustainable" (AgWA, 2010). More recently, the World Bank (2010) has argued for large-scale investment leading to an "aggressive expansion of Africa's irrigated agricultural area".Simultaneously, ambitious new national policies for irrigation investment were developed in sub-Saharan Africa (see, for example: Kenya, GoK 2015; Tanzania, URT 2013; Mozambique, Républica de Moçambique 2015).
However, despite this growing potential for investment, it remains unclear what type of irrigation is appropriate for different African contexts (Lankford, 2009). A World Bank (2007) typology widely used by potential funders identifies five different 'business lines' or 'building blocks' for irrigation development practiced at different scales and with different modes of private sector involvement:
1. Individual smallholder irrigation for high value markets
2. Small-scale community-managed irrigation for local markets
3. Improved water control and watershed management in a rain-fed environment
4. Market-oriented irrigation on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) basis
5. Reform and modernization of existing large scale irrigation schemes
The latter two forms of irrigation development imply large-scale irrigation driven by state and/or private sector (mostly foreign) investment in agricultural land in Africa (World Bank, 2010). However, here are grounds to question whether an emphasis on large-scale irrigation will be the most cost-effective pattern of investment (Fujie et al., 2011), and recent estimates of irrigation potential suggest that the scope for financially viable (IRR>12%) small-scale irrigation is more than double (3.75 million ha) that of large-scale irrigation (1.35 million ha) in sub-Saharan Africa (You et al, 2010:22-23). While this aligns with evidence of proliferating irrigation initiatives by African farmers, there is a lack of systematic studies of this phenomenon or its contribution to growth in agricultural production or the wider economy. This research set out to understand the factors influencing farmers' decisions to invest, or not, in irrigation and the consequences for economic growth and income distribution. It addresses the DEGRP call 2 theme "Agriculture and Growth" through the sub-theme "why so little irrigation in Africa", with particular relevance to the question "What institutions and policies lead to investment in irrigation by individual farmers, groups of farmers and large-scale enterprises?"
A better understanding of farmers' irrigation initiatives contributes to critical assessment of current dominant narratives that emphasize large-scale public and private investment programs and the ways that benefits are generated and distributed among the rural population over the short, medium to long term. The broader significance of farmers' irrigation initiatives is that they not only challenge stereotypes of small-scale agriculture as 'stagnant' and destined to decline (Collier and Dercon, 2014), but they also pose questions about the political and economic dynamics of agrarian change driven 'from below', and how these may be interpreted in relation to classical concerns of political economy with accumulation and class formation.

Objectives and research questions
In this research we asked:
1. What characterises small-scale farmers' own initiatives in developing improvements in water management for agriculture, and what social and economic changes are associated with them? And how are these socially differentiated (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.)?
a. What are the drivers of irrigation development (e.g. new economic opportunities, or perceptions of changing climatic conditions, technology, demographic changes)?
b. How has irrigation changed local agriculture (e.g. crops grown, productivity rates, in-migration, land tenure, gendered access to land and water)?
c. Where and, in what form, have farmers obtained advice and support for irrigation development (e.g. investment, technical support, equipment supply, input-output linkages), and how effective has that been?
d. How does small-scale farmers' irrigation development affect trends in the creation and distribution of local prosperity?
2. What views do agricultural development agencies (government, donors, NGOs, commercial investors) have about irrigation developed by small-scale farmers?
a. What models of irrigation do national policies promote and what socioeconomic groups and goals are targeted. For instance, how is the priority to raise national agricultural output (with a presumption in favour of large-scale schemes) balanced by an objective of improving rural livelihoods through small-scale agriculture?
b. What public and private programmes are being implemented to support different types of irrigation (investment, technical support, equipment supply)?
c. What information do public agencies hold in relation to farmer-led irrigation and how is that used in planning decisions (including regulation of small scale use, water rights and authorisation of large-scale private investments)?
The research focused primarily on primary data collection in two countries, Tanzania and Mozambique. Farmers' irrigation initiatives were known to be important in both countries. Tanzania has a record of actively supporting traditional furrow irrigation such as in Kilimanjaro region, although often with a strong focus on modernisation and formalisation of these schemes. It is one of the few African countries that includes such forms of irrigation in its inventories and policies on irrigation (MoWI, 2009). In Mozambique, by contrast, irrigation has historically been considered almost exclusively in terms of large-scale production and infrastructure. Small-scale agriculture has recently become more central to national development plans, but it is yet unclear how irrigation policy will address rapidly proliferating farmer initiatives in irrigation development (Veldwisch et al, 2013).
In each country two principle sources of information were pursued: discussions with policy makers and irrigation advisors at national level; and case studies of farmer-led irrigation developments at nine sites in each of the two countries. Each case study involved both qualitative data collection, through a series of preliminary meetings and field visits followed by interviews with key informants, and quantitative analysis using a household questionnaire survey (summarised in Table 1).


Table 1 summary of study sites
households Not irrigating irrigating Total crops Irrigation methods Govt intervention
HH head gender female male Total female male Total
Mozambique 130 430 560 115 696 811 1371
Dondo 20 47 67 13 39 52 119 rice/ maize/vegetables Pump/bucket from river or well Some investment
Lamego 8 48 56 26 110 136 192 rice/ maize/vegetables Pump/bucket from river or well Some investment
Macate 26 59 85 15 97 112 197 maize/vegetable/bananas Pump/bucket/ stream diversion none
Messica 17 76 93 11 141 152 245 maize/beans/vegetables Gravity, stream diversion none
Namicopo 6 13 19 3 21 24 43 vegetables Pump/bucket from river none
Parta 5 34 39 12 49 61 100 rice Managed wetland flooding none
Tica 14 59 73 8 55 63 136 rice/maize/vegetables pump/bucket from river or well Some investment
Vanduzi 16 37 53 11 95 106 159 maize, vegetables Gravity/ pumps/stream diversion Some investment
Zembe 18 57 75 16 89 105 180 rice/vegetables/ bananas Pump/bucket/ stream diversion none
Tanzania 123 312 435 158 768 926 1361 Some state improvement
Iringa 17 37 54 20 77 97 151 rice Gravity, stream diversion Some investment
Kahe 10 52 62 11 77 88 150 onions/ tomatoes Motor pump groundwater none
Kilombero 25 49 74 11 67 78 152 rice Gravity, stream diversion Some investment
Makanya 8 16 24 37 88 125 149 maize/ beans Spate irrigation Some investment
Mandaka Mnono 19 22 41 16 95 111 152 rice Gravity, stream diversion Some investment
Mang'ola 5 21 26 15 109 124 150 maize/ onions Gravity, stream diversion
Some motor pumps Some investment
Mapogoro 9 25 34 15 104 119 153 rice Gravity, stream diversion consultation on design
Mijongweni 15 33 48 23 82 105 153 rice/ maize/ beans Gravity, stream diversion Some investment
Rukwa 15 57 72 10 69 79 151 rice Gravity, stream diversion shutdown
Overall Total 253 742 995 273 1464 1737 2732



Findings
1. What characterises small-scale farmers' own initiatives in developing improvements in water management for agriculture, and what social and economic changes are associated with them?
Farmers' irrigation initiatives are strongly driven by commercial considerations.
While some of the irrigated crop may be retained for household consumption (notably in the case of rice productions), the choice of crops grown under irrigation is governed by market conditions. In some areas (notably in Mozambique where land is more available), households continue growing rainfed cereals (maize and sorghum) for household consumption while growing irrigated high-value vegetable crops for sale.
Farmers' irrigation initiatives have a major effect on marketed crop production and on household incomes and food security.
Although varying greatly from one study site to another, crop sales are greater for irrigating households than for those without irrigation, usually by at least a factor of 3 and in some instances by a factor of 100 or more. On average over a 12 month period, crop sales by irrigating households averaged US$750 per household across nine sites in Mozambique, and US$956 across nine sites in Tanzania, compared to US$52 and US$154 respectively for non-irrigating households in the same sites. Income from irrigated crops accounts for half or more than half of total household income for 78 percent and 91 percent of irrigating households in Mozambique and Tanzania respectively.
The data also show that the number of months that households consider themselves to be short of food is reduced among irrigating households who average 2.3 months in Mozambique and just over half a month in Tanzania, compared to 2.8 months and 1.35 months respectively among non-irrigating households.
These effects are strongly modified by the gender of the head of household.
Generally, female headed households are under-represented among irrigating households, compared to non-irrigating households. Whereas female-headed households account for 23 percent and 28 percent of the sample of non-irrigating households in Mozambique and Tanzania respectively, their occurrence drops to 14 percent and 17 percent respectively among irrigating households. This effect is amplified by lower value of crop sales achieved by irrigating female-headed households - typically averaging a quarter to a half of the value achieved by male-headed households in Mozambique and Tanzania respectively, although this effect varies greatly from one site to another. This reflects the smaller average land areas and smaller average household size of female-headed households. These differences are less pronounced in indices of housing quality and asset ownership, which were estimated as proxy measures of household wealth. While irrigating households are generally better off than non-irrigating households, the differences between female-headed and male-headed households who are irrigating appear less pronounced and there is some evidence that female-headed households cultivate their irrigated fields at least as intensively as, and in some cases more intensively than, male-headed households. Food security differences between male- and female-headed households are less easy to generalise, with some sites showing marked disadvantages for female-headed households and others not.
Many of the study sites were characterised by relatively high rates of immigration.
The proportion of household heads and their spouses that had no parents or grandparents from the area was commonly 40 percent or more in the study sites in Mozambique or 25 percent or more in Tanzania. Particularly high percentages (>50%) of recent immigrant households were found in study sites in central Mozambique along the Beira corridor. No clear pattern relates recent immigration to access to irrigation, although in Tanzania, there is generally a higher proportion of irrigating households who have grandparents who lived in the area. The study shows high levels of population movement in areas in which farmers' are developing irrigation.
Farmers' irrigation initiatives are associated with diversification of crop production and intensification of input use.
Crops grown on irrigated plots are more likely to be derived from improved seed, to receive fertilizer and pesticides. Households who irrigate are, on average, twice as likely to hire agricultural labour as households who are not irrigating. Mechanisation appears less associated with adoption of irrigation and overall only one in ten irrigating households said they needed capital to start irrigating. This is quite variable between sites, however, and in some places a quarter of irrigating households said they needed to invest money to start irrigating.

2. What views do agricultural development agencies (government, donors, NGOs, commercial investors) have about irrigation developed by small-scale farmers?
Government policy on irrigation is informed by a vision of modern agriculture that tends to exclude the possibility of farmer-led development of irrigation
Irrigation policy in both Tanzania and Mozambique is strongly informed by a narrative of modernisation that envisages a transformation of existing small-scale agriculture. In this narrative, small-scale agriculture tends to be defined in terms, such as 'traditional' or 'subsistence' farming, that establish a priori a need for its transformation through external intervention. The findings summarised above suggest that 'farmer-led' development of irrigation is commercially oriented and involves investment in a number of inputs conventionally associated with modern agriculture. Our meetings with policy-makers and technical advisors in Tanzania and Mozambique and more broadly (notably through a policy workshop convened by this project and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in February 2018) indicate that some African authorities (e.g. in Ghana) are more pro-active in their recognition of, and support for, farmer-led development of irrigation than those with whom we worked in Tanzania and Mozambique.
We argue there are three principal elements that are important to understand in developing a policy discussion about the current phenomenon of farmer-led development of irrigation. Two of these elements are ideological and the third is practical. First, the modernisation drive underlying agricultural and irrigation policies in both Tanzania and Mozambique leads to a narrow interpretation of 'good irrigation' as that which is designed by formal engineers according to scientific principles and political priorities defined by the government. The impact of this interpretation is two-fold. First, it automatically excludes the possibility of irrigation whose purpose, design and management is driven primarily by farmers. Second, it necessitates strategies of state control, as, by definition, development cannot happen without it. The third, practical, element is the weak technical capacity within government agencies with respect to irrigation planning, which critically reduces potential to respond adaptively and increases dependence on importation of standard technological packages.
With respect to the last of these, the technical capacity for irrigation design is markedly stronger in Tanzania than Mozambique. The policy of constructing small-scale irrigation schemes in the 1950s to the 1970s was accompanied by the deployment of irrigation engineers at local (e.g. district) level, and decentralised centres of expertise in the 6 Zonal Irrigation Units have existed for over thirty years. This means there is a legacy of local irrigation design and a capacity for design of small-scale irrigation work. In contrast, in Mozambique there is no such technical capacity at district level, with possibly only a single trained irrigation technician or engineer at Provincial level (equivalent to regional level in Tanzania). Even at a central level the recently-formed National Irrigation Institute (INIR) has about 25, mostly junior, staff based in Maputo. They rely on Provincial officials for field information and are mainly occupied with creating a database, writing a master plan and attending meetings with development agencies to solicit funding. In interviews INIR staff show an awareness of smallholder irrigation, but they have not really considered how to interact with it or 'respond' to it, and if so, how.
This lack of expertise not only hampers an ability to evaluate existing the hydraulic functioning of unconventional irrigation schemes used by farmers but also limits capacity to identify cost-effective measures to improve them.
In Tanzania technical capacity to design and evaluate irrigation has been longer established and more locally distributed than in Mozambique. Moreover, Tanzania's political culture of decentralised governance of resources such as land and forests by village councils is more firmly established than any equivalent 'participatory' approach to managing natural resources in Mozambique. Nonetheless, both governments display a common priority in responding to smallholder irrigators with strategies of registration, organisation and control, if they recognise them at all. Although an agenda of agricultural improvement is frequently framed in terms of technology and productivity, a priority revealed by the emphasis on registration of irrigation associations is one of control and governance. A good example of this is Mozambique's approach to the constitution of an association of irrigators (associação de regantes). This prescribes control not only of access to water but also irrigable land through a collective DUAT (land title) vested in the association. However, in effect this is a lease of land from the INIR and hence any breakup of the association would imply also loss of land rights for its members. The draft regulation of such associations also makes clear the strong regulatory emphasis in government thinking about such irrigation activities (in contrast to market-oriented logic of the irrigation activity itself). More specifically,the Proposta de regulamento de associações de regantes proposed in 2015 by Mozambique's Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security states that associations are required to follow procedures to deliver regulatory objectives concerning soil and water conservation, rather than to support the increase in the output or productivity of the users of irrigation. Moreover, the regulamento makes explicit its treatment of irrigators as the 'beneficiaries', not agents, of irrigation development.
In Tanzania, the 2013 Irrigation Act obliges each irrigating farmer to join an irrigators' organization, and stipulates that each of these organizations has to register itself with the National Irrigation Commission. Furthermore, each person or company in Tanzania has to apply for a permit before being allowed to construct irrigation infrastructure. In the application, an environmental impact assessment, bill of quantities and design drawings have to be included. This set of requirements is likely to be too costly for most small-scale producers to comply and once again emphasise not only that the realities of farmers' irrigation initiatives do not fit easily with the government's vision, but also that they are likely to be inconsistent with state-controlled development that is central to Tanzanian irrigation planning. It is also important to note however, that the lack of capacity within the government to map and control irrigation activities means that the irrigation act is not often implemented in practice.
In the absence of an engagement with existing small-scale irrigation, policy locates small-scale agricultural producers within 'transformational' large-scale - and externally funded - infrastructure investment for transport, electricity generation and water, as exemplified by Tanzania's Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT). It is also clear from interviews with officials of international development funders that this transformational narrative is linked with an agenda of conservation of water resources which sees farmer-led small-scale irrigation development as a threat: unregistered and therefore illegal and undermining planned and sustainable water resource management. Thus environmental considerations - strengthened by climate change concerns - become a further argument for control and modernisation of irrigation where 'inefficiency of water use' arises from its categorisation as 'traditional', rather than from an assessment of agricultural or hydraulic performance. The point here is not to question whether there is scope to improve efficiency of water use by irrigation whose purpose, design and management is farmer-led, but to argue that this is a blanket assumption within existing policy rather than a question for evaluation in specific contexts.
Irrigation and planning authorities use data that largely underestimates the extent of existing farmer-led development of irrigation

The main source of official irrigation data in African contexts, AQUASTAT, provides data that are now over 10 years old. We have shown in the case of Tanzania that the existing methodology means this data source will struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of change evident in irrigation on the ground. We have argued that this offers opportunities for research to identify methods to generate better data to inform policy and intervention in the irrigation sector. Specifically, analysis of radar remote sensing data suggest areas of irrigated crops, such as paddy rice, at least an order of magnitude greater than indicated by official statistics. This implies that existing levels of agricultural water use by small-scale farmers in Africa may be much higher than conventionally understood in policy circles. At the same time, we identify caveats for new data generation efforts to influence the current irrigation agenda. These relate to: first, the dominant understanding of what practices constitute irrigation and how this shapes what makes valid data; second the very methods used to generate new data and the inconsistencies they reveal with other data sources; and third, the complex interplay between data, knowledge and politics.
First, the data we generated (Bowers et al, forthcoming) are underpinned by a specific conception of irrigation, emerging from field studies that suggest farmers' pursuit of irrigation is based on economic and social drivers rather than planners' criteria of potential land use based on soil quality and rainfall. Moreover, such irrigation is integrated into other, non-irrigated, farming, dispersed on small fields in the landscape and variable from season to season and from year to year. This does not present insuperable obstacles to measurement and analysis but officials and technicians trained to see irrigation only in terms of distinct enclaves of 'modern' cultivation separated from the broader farming landscape might not consider such data valid.
Second, with respect to mapping and documenting irrigation the radar remote-sensing methods we assessed could doubtless be refined to produce indicators to detect highly dynamic irrigation systems. Further assessment is required before these techniques can be confidently extended across large areas. It is important to emphasise our observation in this study that there was no single indicator that reliably distinguished irrigation from other land uses across all three study sites. More specifically, analysis of importance values from the Random Forest classifier shows no single statistical metric or polarisation that is consistently important in all three classifications. Nor is there evidence that methods used successfully in the Mekong Delta (Bouvet and Le Toan, 2011) are applicable to small-scale irrigation in Tanzania. We would therefore not expect the current model of radar analysis to be reliable if applied in another location or for another year. The need for further development of the technique emphasises that, although remote sensing offers the possibility of quick and accurate analysis of specific processes over large areas, place-specific studies are still needed if data that have a global reach (such as remote sensing data) are to be used in a meaningful way.
Nonetheless our findings suggest these methods may provide a consistent and replicable means for identifying at least some types of irrigated area. Moreover, radar remote-sensing estimates come with a quantified uncertainty range, meaning they can be assessed for consistency with other methods of measuring irrigated areas. The method also supports the agronomic observation that large areas of rice cultivation in Tanzania rely on farmers practicing some form of water management that distinguishes it from 'rainfed' conditions.
However, our third point is that if better irrigation data were to become available then we cannot presume how they will inform policy. One the one hand, policy may not be evidence-based, and new data may therefore be ignored, or its validity denied, in favour of established beliefs. On the other hand, if new data are used to inform policy, it may do so only in ways that are compatible with prevailing political narratives. Recognition of farmer-led development of irrigation in Africa, and techniques to measure and document it, are developing. This will potentially move small-scale farming into policy arenas in which it must compete with powerful interests not only for land but also water. There remain many uncertainties about how policy actors will perceive farmers' water use and whether it constitutes, and may be legitimated as, irrigation. This research has found that small-scale farmers are commonly regarded by officials and planners as inefficient and wasteful in their use of land and water. It is thus possible that farmers' irrigation initiatives that have thrived at the margins of state planning may find their enterprise both illuminated by better data but also stifled by new and regressive regulation itself legitimated by particular political interpretations of those data.

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World Bank, 2010. Africa's infrastructure : a time for transformation. Washington: The World Bank.
You, L., Ringler, C., Nelson, G., Wood-Sichra, U., Robertson, R., Wood, S., Guo, Z., Zhu, T. and Sun, Y. 2010 What Is the Irrigation Potential for Africa? A Combined Biophysical and Socioeconomic Approach. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00993 Washington DC: International Food Policy Research Institute
Exploitation Route A key goal of the project is to ensure existing small-scale irrigation initiatives by farmers are recognised by irrigation agencies and that a dialogue about appropriate legislative and regulatory approaches is established among state and non-state agencies in sub-Saharan Africa.

We consider that the existence and rapid increase in farmer-led development of irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa is now widely recognized by international development agencies but that this has yet to be translated into a systematic policy approach. Moreover, there is evidence that this phenomenon is yet to be reconciled with priorities among governments in Africa for transformational infrastructure as a means to raise agricultural productivity.
Key areas for further research include:

1. improving the methodology for gathering data on irrigation activity by small-scale farmers, particularly using high-resolution radar remote sensing, and the use of this data in irrigation and water resource planning.
2. developing further the policy dialogue about the balance needed between support and improvement of existing small-scale irrigation on the one hand, and investment in new large-scale infrastructure on the other.
3. follow-up studies in areas of farmer-led development of irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa in order to trace social and economic impacts over time.
Sectors Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice
URL http://www.safi-research.org/
 
Description International commitment to funding African Irrigation is rising as a response to increased food prices and continuing low productivity of agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa. This research project, funded by ESRC - DFID, brought together a team of social science researchers and irrigation scientists from Europe and Africa. The project, known as SAFI (Studying African Farmer-led Irrigation - www.safi-research.org), sought to understand if current investment by famers in small-scale irrigation can offer a model for broad-based economic growth in rural areas of Africa. It undertook field studies at nine sites in Mozambique and nine sites in Tanzania to assess the differences in socio-economic outcomes for irrigating and non-irrigating households at each site. In addition to these empirical studies, the project sought to engage with policy makers, initially in Tanzania and Mozambique and later in sub-Saharan Africa more generally, in order to: first establish an awareness of the phenomenon of 'farmer-led' development of irrigation; and second to initiate a dialogue about its interpretation and appropriate policy responses. Impacts to date can be summarised under three broad headings: 1. conceptual development at a broad international level 2. policy development at the level of specific government departments 3. capacity-building for research and adaptive practice among researchers and practitioners in sub-Saharan Africa. 1. Conceptual development at a broad international level. The publication by the project researchers of a review paper "African farmer-led irrigation development: re-framing agricultural policy and investment?" (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1219719) in late 2016 drew together evidence from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa that indicated investment by small-scale farmers in irrigation. It set out an agenda and a methodology for research to seek to understand the phenomenon and to identify policy responses. The paper has been viewed more than 7000 times and cited widely (28 citations in scopus) and has an altmetric score of 87. More significantly the paper crystallised a set of policy questions that were readily understood by funding agencies interested in transforming African agriculture. Two, in particular, took up this agenda. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the project to convene a meeting at its Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, to enable policy-makers to debate with researchers about the significance of 'farmer-led irrigation' and responses to it. World Bank staff were invited to this meeting and early exchanges (in 2017) made clear that the review paper had made an impact in consolidating debates already underway within the Bank and its collaborators and had prompted them to adopt the 'farmer-led irrigation' terminology in their own initiatives to support irrigation. The project was invited to (G-J Veldwisch attended) the "Water for Food International Forum: Farmer-led Irrigated Agriculture, Seeds of opportunity" on January 29 and 30, 2018, at the World Bank Conference Center in Washington, D.C. The conference was convened by Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska in collaboration with the World Bank, USDA and USAID. In September 2018, the Bank launched a programme promoting the idea of farmer-led Irrigation: www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2018/09/05/innovation-entrepreneurship-positive-change-join-the-farmer-led-irrigation-revolution This initiative draws in a number of collaborating organisations: Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska; The World Bank Group; Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) ; Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture and Development at Texas A & M University; International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Subsequently, SAFI researchers participated in a 'panel' constituted by these organisations and convened by the ILSSI programme at the SIWI World Water Week in August 2019 (https://www.worldwaterweek.org/event/8435-innovation-entrepreneurship-and-inclusion-africas-farmer-led-irrigation-revolution). The keynote speakers at this event made clear that the concept of supporting farmers' irrigation initiatives is firmly established among funding agencies as an alternative preferable to large-scale irrigation 'schemes' and there is now considerable effort to seek ways of operationalising this idea (e.g. by the World Bank in Uganda, where one of the SAFI researchers, Hans Komakech has been engaged to evaluate progress). 2. policy development at the level of specific government departments From its inception, the SAFI project has sought to engage irrigation policy-makers and technical advisors in Tanzania and Mozambique. A series of national-level workshops were undertaken in both countries in 2015, 2016 and 2018. For the workshops it convened in Tanzania in 2016 and 2018 the project received additional financial support from DEGRP to enable participation of researchers from two other irrigation-focused projects whose work it funded in Tanzania: 'Assessing Models of Public-Private Partnership for Irrigation Development in Africa' and ' Innovations to promote growth among small-scale irrigators'. DEGRP Director Steve Wiggins participated in workshops in both 2016 and 2018 and was responsible for writing a DEGRP synthesis report (with Bruce Lankford) on African irrigation to which SAFI researchers P Woodhouse and G-J Veldwisch contributed in a "Roundtable: developing irrigation's potential in sub-Saharan Africa" in March 2019. P Woodhouse provided further input as a reviewer of the report : https://degrp.odi.org/publication/farmer-led-irrigation-in-sub-saharan-africa-synthesis-of-current-understandings/. It is less clear whether policies to address 'farmer-led' irrigation initiatives have been fully adopted by governments in Tanzania and Mozambique. However, an indicator in Mozambique (where initial workshop contributions suggested some hostility to the idea of farmer-led irrigation development) is the interest in sharing of SAFI data on irrigation productivity shown by Dr Mario Chilundo (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo) who is leading a project called 'User driven approaches to make Government and farmer led smallholder irrigation schemes in Mozambique more productive, self-sustaining and equitable'. The project, funded by IDRC (Canada) started in summer 2019 and will run for 3.5 years. Independently, and in the wake of the Bellagio meeting convened by SAFI, the project was contacted by Mure Agbonlahor , of the African Union's Semi-arid Food Grains Research and Development (AU-SAFGRAD) programme, based in Ouagadougou, in March 2018. Mr Agbonlahor sought project support for: a.)Training and capacity building of mid-career agriculture scientists from National Agricultural Research agencies. b.) Providing expertise to assist in framing the Continental Irrigation Agriculture Development Framework (CIADF) strategy c.) Making a presentation from the experience of SAFI projects in the Continental irrigation Summit. In relation to training and capacity-building he project PI (P Woodhouse)recommended the AU contact the SAFI co-Investigator Hans Komakech, director of the WISEFutures Centre at NM-IAST (see 3, below) With respect to the Irrigation Framework (CIADF) the project endorsed the bids by Anthony Denison and Wouter Beekman, who had participated in the Bellagio conference, to undertake the drafting work. In the event Anthony Denison was contracted by the African Union Commission to prepare the initial draft of the CIADF and P Woodhouse was a participant in the CIADF Experts' Validation Workshop in Addis Ababa in December 2018. A revised draft "Framework for Irrigation Development and Agricultural Water Management in Africa" (IDAWM) was then prepared by Denison with input from Woodhouse in January 2018. This revised document, in which 'farmer-led irrigation development' is one of four 'pathways' to irrigation development was adopted as a Continental reference in agricultural water management by the African Union's meeting of member state ministers of Agriculture, rural development, water & environment that concluded 25 October 2019 at AUC headquarters Addis Ababa. The final document was endorsed by the Heads of States meeting in February 2020 and was published in May 2020: https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/38502-doc-framework_for_irrigation_development_english.pdf. This framework references the published work of the project (Woodhouse et al https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1219719) 3. capacity-building for research and adaptive practice among researchers and practitioners in sub-Saharan Africa. In response to the African Union request for assistance in capacity-building for mid-career professionals (see above) in March 2018, project researchers bid for funding from the Manchester University ESRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) to support a training programme based on the findings of the SAFI project. An IAA grant of £12700 was used to run a ten-day pilot course attended by 15 participants in Arusha, Tanzania, where it was possible to visit the sites of some of the case studies undertaken by the SAFI project. It aimed to raise the awareness of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers about the findings of recent research on small-scale farmers' irrigation initiatives in Africa. In particular, a key finding of the SAFI project is that small-scale farmers are developing productive and profitable irrigation on their own initiative to an extent hitherto unrecognised by government and other irrigation agencies. This places different demands on irrigation professionals, who, rather than focusing on the engineering aspects of new irrigation schemes, must now develop more adaptive approaches to engage and negotiate with existing irrigators in order to design improvements that take account of local priorities. The training course focused on addressing contemporary issues in irrigation, such as climate change, environment, and food security, alongside other knowledge gaps related to water users' associations, participatory planning and monitoring and evaluation, as well as methods to integrate gender and youth into irrigation schemes. The course was led by Hans Komakech, one of the SAFI research partners, who is director of the Water Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy Futures (WISE-Futures) African Center of Excellence hosted by the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, Tanzania. It is one of 24 Higher Education Centers of Excellence supported through the World Bank's ACE II programme in East and Southern Africa. The positive feedback from the course prompted a bid to run the course a second time and a grant of £31500 was awarded from the GCRF Impact Accelerator Account (GIAA). Target participants of the training course were: • Serving professionals in irrigation and agriculture departments in relevant ministries and agencies in African Union member states • Early career and/or female professionals were especially encouraged to apply In the event, 126 applications were received from 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection according to the above criteria enabled participation by 22 mid-career professionals working on irrigation from 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, of whom nine (41%) were women. Feedback from course participants indicated strongly positive reactions to the course and a frequent claim that participants would adopt a new more 'participatory' approach in their approach to irrigation design for small-scale farmers. Running the courses also benefitted WISE-Futures in establishing its profile, not least with the World Bank, as a centre capable of delivering training that is informed by current research but focused on the needs of practitioners in contemporary African contexts. Organisation and execution of the short course contribute to achievements of the Centre as evaluated by the World Bank ACE II programme, resulting in further financial support from the WB to WISE-Futures. It has also facilitated continuing collaborative engagement between WISE-Futures and SAFGRAD. The GIAA grant included provision to generate audio and video recordings of training activities which were subsequently used to create an online introductory course (MOOC) hosted on the SAFI project website. The materials were developed for online use by the tutors of the courses in Arusha, working together with the communications team of the Global Development Institute in Manchester University. The MOOC is due to go online in mid-March 2020. An additional activity made possible by the GIAA funding was the launch of a 'SAFI-network' of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to share research and experience on irrigation development in Africa. The launch took place at the end of the training course in Arusha on 15-16 March. In addition to the 22 participants of the training course, the launch was attended by 20 invited participants from international development agencies (World Bank, African Union Commission) and irrigation authorities based in sub-Saharan Africa. The network (approximately 100 participants in 2019) is initially hosted by NM-AIST at its WISE-Futures Training Center.
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink,Electronics
Impact Types Societal,Policy & public services
 
Description Expert Validation of the Draft Continental Irrigation Agriculture Development (CIAD) Framework 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A 2-day expert validation workshop convened in the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa by AU-SAFGRAD in collaboration with the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). The workshop considered the draft Continental Irrigation and Agricultural Water Development Framework. This aims to provide at the continental level, "an irrigation development blueprint which will address the broad continental concerns and also, provide a veritable frame to align regional and national irrigation programs". The expert validation workshop was aimed at providing experts' technical and policy/governance related input in a review of the draft document. Further input by project PI (P Woodhouse) was provided to the final document, the "Irrigation Development and Agricultural Water Management (IDAWM)" framework which was approved by a Ministerial (Agric, rural development, water & environment) meeting on 25 October 2019 at the African Union Commission headquarters Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a Continental blueprint for agricultural water management in Africa. The Framework document, referencing work by Woodhouse et al, undertaken as part of this project, was published by the African Union in May 2020 (see URL below)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/38502-doc-framework_for_irrigation_development_english....
 
Description MOOC introduction to farmer-led irrigation development 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact An online open-access introductory course was developed by researchers on the SAFI research project (www.safi-research.org) from the teaching materials used in two short courses delivered at the Water Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy Futures (WISE-Futures) African Center of Excellence hosted by the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, Tanzania. The materials, originally delivered in face-to-face training in December 2018 and March 2019, have been edited and formatted by the communications team at the Global Development Institute of the University of Manchester, UK. The materials are due to go online in mid-March 2020.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL http://www.safi-research.org/course-welcome/?mc_cid=e9838f4fb0&mc_eid=c0b49f7a96
 
Description New Directions for Irrigation Development in Tanzania, Dar-es-Salaam, 2 September 2016. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The workshop "New Directions for Irrigation Development in Tanzania" was proposed by the SAFI (Studying African Farmer-led Irrigation) research project, in partnership with two other projects also funded by the DFID-ESRC Growth Programme: "Assessing Models of Public - Private Partnership for Irrigation Development in Africa" (led by IFPRI, Washington DC) and

Workshop Background
Irrigation is important in Tanzania to deal with the erratic rainfall, especially in the context of climate change. Irrigation can minimize frequent food shortages that are attributable to
dependence on rainfall, and increase yields. However, to do this effectively requires a range of infrastructure that will provide for a wide range of crops and efficient water use.
Recognizing this need, the government of Tanzania has made ambitious commitments to expand the area irrigated, and set up the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) to deliver on this potential. The NIC strategy currently being developed identifies Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as important, but seeks advice on appropriate models of PPP. Research
studies supported by DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme have been examining different modes of irrigation development in Tanzania. This workshop provided an opportunity to bring research and policy together to advance irrigation development in Tanzania.

Workshop objectives:
i. Review recent trends and goals for irrigation development in Tanzania.
ii. Examine alternative paths for irrigation investment by government and private sector, including smallholder producers, and their potential for further development. This was based on a review research findings on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and small-scale irrigation development, and remaining information gaps and data issues.
iii. Identify social and economic impacts of irrigation development in rural communities, focusing on: methodologies to assess how different paths for irrigation development generate opportunities and constraints for rural people to benefit from irrigation, and how these differ for different social groups (men, women, youth).
iv. Explore the role of irrigation policy in fostering PPP, and, in particular, what models do we have for supporting, regulating and investing in irrigation? And what policy alternatives need to be considered to respond to different irrigation scenarios?

The presentations focused primarily on the Tanzanian context but also drew on experience and contemporary developments in other countries.
The workshop was supported by additional funding from DEGRP and generated requests for further information.

In response a short article highlighting the main issues identified in the workshop was published by 'The Conversation':
https://theconversation.com/invisible-irrigators-how-small-scale-tanzanian-farmers-are-making-a-difference-71567

A further blog based on the workshop was published by the Overseas Development Institute, London on SciDev Net: http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/farming/opinion/tanzania-achieve-2020-irrigation-target.html
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.safi-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tanzania_workshop_materials_binder1.pdf
 
Description On-line expert panel discussion on farmer-led irrigation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Phil Woodhouse participated in a webinar on 25 June 2020 organised by the International Water Management Institute to discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with 'farmer-led irrigation'. There were over 1200 registrations prior to the webinar, and 490 participants engaging in the webinar from over 66 countries. This shows not only the interest in the topic but also the relevance of the topic globally.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/2020/06/experts-unite-to-find-the-best-ways-to-scale-up-farmer-led-irriga...
 
Description Panel on farmer-led irrigation at Stockholm World Water Week 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact the Panel titled "Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Inclusion: Africa's Farmer-led Irrigation Revolution" was convened by Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska; The World Bank Group; Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) ; Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture and Development at Texas A & M University; International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
Farmer-led irrigation (FLI) has been transformative for many farmers in Africa's agricultural development. A solid research evidence base contributed to a commitment from the AU, regional and national governments and development partners to invest in FLI. This event addressed the next step in the challenge - how to expand access, opportunity and benefit to more farmers, including those that are the most resource poor. The event provided a platform to enable collective learning about innovative cases, successes and failure in FLI, translating innovative cases and studies into action through projects and activities. It afforded an opportunity to present findings from the SAFI research project (www.safi-research.org) to a broad audience from the 'water sector'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.worldwaterweek.org/event/8435-innovation-entrepreneurship-and-inclusion-africas-farmer-l...
 
Description Policy workshop at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Conference Centre, Italy. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A five-day workshop was convened by the project to promote dialogue about 'farmer-led irrigation' in sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop, titled 'Irrigating Africa - Reframing Agricultural Investment.' was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Its purpose was to bring together key researchers, academics and policy makers to discuss:
- Is farmer-led irrigation a significant development in African Agriculture? Do we think it is important?
- Does its existence demand new policies and approaches to irrigation policy?
- If so, what are the new policy directions and interventions?
Immediate outputs are a policy brief (March 2018) and a special issue of the journal 'Water Alternatives' (February 2019)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://www.safi-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/3335_SAFI_Policy_Brief_April_2018_v6_digital...
 
Description Short Course: African irrigation development: planning for a productive future 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Course run in December 2018 at Wise Futures in the campus of the Nelson Mandela African Institution for Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania. Through linked field visits, lectures and exercises, course participants explored the challenges and possible solutions for different types of irrigation. Seeing irrigation as part of a broader agricultural system, the 11-day course did not exclusively cover irrigation design topics, but also provided the opportunity to discuss issues concerning irrigation mapping, the gendered aspects of irrigation development, value chains in irrigated agriculture, irrigation system management, water governance, and monitoring and evaluation. By applying the general lessons and insights from the lectures directly through in Tanzanian cases of irrigation development during group work, the course strengthened the capacity of participants to integrate contemporary issues into irrigation planning and management.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Short course on African farmer-led irrigation development 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A ten-day training course for African mid-career professionals working on irrigation development. The course drew on the findings of the SAFI project (www.safi-research.org ) led by Manchester University and funded by the DFID-ESRC Growth Research programme under grant ES/L012391/1 "Assessing the Growth Potential of Farmer-led Irrigation Development in sub-Saharan Africa" (Jan 2015 - June 2018). The training course was run between 4 and 15 March in Arusha, Tanzania, in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), which was a partner in the SAFI project.
The course was developed from an earlier pilot course in December 2018. It aimed to raise the awareness of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers about the findings of recent research on small-scale farmers' irrigation initiatives in Africa. In particular, a key finding of the SAFI project is that small-scale farmers are developing productive and profitable irrigation on their own initiative to an extent hitherto unrecognised by government and other irrigation agencies. This places different demands on irrigation professionals, who, rather than focusing on the engineering aspects of new irrigation schemes, must now develop more adaptive approaches to engage and negotiate with existing irrigators in order to design improvements that take account of local priorities. The training course focused on addressing contemporary issues in irrigation, such as climate change, environment, and food security, alongside other knowledge gaps related to water users' associations, participatory planning and monitoring and evaluation, as well as methods to integrate gender and youth into irrigation schemes.
Target participants of the training course were:
• Serving professionals in irrigation and agriculture departments in relevant ministries and agencies in African Union member states
• Early career and/or female professionals were especially encouraged to apply
In the event, 126 applications were received from 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection according to the above criteria enabled participation by 22 mid-career professionals working on irrigation from 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, of whom nine (41%) were women.
The external partner collaborating on the project is the Water Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy Futures (WISE-Futures) African Center of Excellence hosted by the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, Tanzania. It is one of 24 Higher Education Centers of Excellence supported through the World Bank's ACE II programme in East and Southern Africa.
The delivery of the training course through this project has important benefits for WISE-Futures in establishing its profile, not least with the World Bank, as a centre capable of delivering training that is informed by current research but focused on the needs of practitioners in contemporary African contexts. It has also facilitated continuing collaborative engagement between WISE-Futures and SAFGRAD.
In addition, the training activities have strengthened relationships between the WISE-Futures and its existing partners through the involvement of these partners in teaching specific components of the course. The training has also raised WISE-Futures' profile among African irrigation professionals and scholars, with several indicating that they are interested in continuing their education through WISE-Futures MSc and PhD programmes. One participant who is working at the National Irrigation Commission of Tanzania is currently collaborating with WISE-Futures researchers in a study, which will give access to previously inaccessible data, as well as allow this participant to pursue a PhD at WISE-Futures in future.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop on Policy and investment options for irrigation development in Tanzania 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact a policy workshop shared with the DEGRP AMPPIDA project presented results from both projects and then engaged participants (principally from the National irrigation Commission, the ministry of agriculture and a number of non-government agencies supporting agriculture in Tanzania) in a series of group activities to reflect on the implications of the project findings for the development of irrigation in Tanzania.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://www.safi-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/June-26-Tanzania-workshop-proceedings-final....