A better way forward for irrigation in Africa

Researchers from the University of Manchester in the UK evaluated the performance of 79 irrigation schemes constructed across sub-Saharan Africa between the 1940s and 2010 to find out why many of these irrigation projects have failed to deliver.

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In 1938, French colonial authorities in what is today Mali started on an ambitious infrastructure plan to transform the desert into an area of agricultural production. Water was diverted from the Niger River through a canal system to enable irrigation on over one million hectares of fertile land. Eventually covering over 100 000ha, this project is still one of the largest irrigation schemes in Africa.

The Malian project, known as Office du Niger, has had a profound influence on agricultural water management and planning across Africa since the mid-20th century. By the 1960s, African governments saw it as a model for rural development.

With World Bank funding, hundreds of dams and large irrigation schemes were set up across Africa. The intended goals were increasing food security, reducing poverty, and stimulating economic growth. Unfortunately, the reality of many of these irrigation projects has been quite different.

Since 2008, in response to rising food prices, governments across Africa have announced plans for a new era of irrigation scheme development. Yet it remains unclear why earlier schemes fell so short of expectations. To answer this question, [researchers from the University of Manchester] in the UK evaluated the performance of 79 schemes constructed across sub-Saharan Africa between the 1940s and 2010. [The] research reviewed original targets for agricultural production areas, as reported in project planning documents, and these were compared with estimates of how much-irrigated land projects currently support. The estimates were derived from high-resolution satellite imagery.