Private Irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa

Foreword The context for irrigation development in Africa has been changing rapidly and drastically over the past decade. On the one hand, there is increasing scepticism about the returns to public investment in irrigation development, and a resulting decline in such investment. On the other hand, there are continued serious concerns about food insecurity and economic under-development in Africa. The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) adopted the ambitious goal of achieving and sustaining a 6 percent annual growth rate, a goal that has since been endorsed by Africa’s Heads of State under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). How is Africa to achieve such a growth rate in agriculture and attain the World Food Summit goal of halving the number of undernourished people by 2015 without substantial irrigation investments? The good news is that while public investment has declined in the past, there is increasing evidence of positive experiences with small-scale private sector supported irrigation development. Some 70 million ha are currently under private irrigation in developing countries but are not well accounted for in official government statistics. It is estimated that nearly three-quarters of the future investment needed in the developing countries would consist of private commitments. We now realise that in the past the potential role of the private sector has been under-estimated. It is this realisation which gave impetus to this workshop. In 2000, the Africa Regional Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) approached the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and proposed to co-organise the workshop. IWMI and CTA accepted the idea at a time when the former was establishing a new Africa Regional Office in Pretoria, South Africa and because it was in line with the latter’s policy and programme. While FAO led the organisation of the workshop, IWMI prepared these Proceedings for copublication by the three co-sponsors. As evidenced in these Proceedings, we believe the expectations we had for the Workshop were more than fulfilled. There are a number of interesting and promising projects in Africa that demonstrate the potential of the private sector in promoting irrigation. These projects are promoted by NGOs, local private firms and individuals. They include interesting cases of the public sector encouraging and enabling private sector participation and development. Some of these cases are presented in this volume. FAO, IWMI and CTA continue to work together on a range of programmes globally and in Africa. We perceive that together we can accomplish a lot in terms of supporting an African agricultural renaissance by mutual co-operation and partnerships with a range of African institutions. We are confident that these Proceedings will be useful for many researchers, policy makers and practitioners in agricultural development in Africa. Douglas J. Merrey Director for Africa IWMI M. J. Omar Officer-in-Charge FAO Regional Office for Africa Carl B. Greenidge Director CTARegional Seminar on Private Sector Participation and Irrigation Expansion in sub-Saharan Afric