Project Duration: 

2001 - 2006

Geographical Focus: 

Asia and Africa

Project Description / Background

Under the framework of The Netherlands Trust Fund for IPTRID-IWMI Collaborative Research in Irrigation and Drainage, research and technology transfer activities under the following themes are addressed:  

Program Development. IWMI contributes to joint research in developing strategies and options for smallholder water management systems in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The work includes providing strategic input to national programs on investment, performance evaluation and capacity and institution building in the area of smallholder water management.  This includes work in water harvesting, low-cost drip irrigation, treadle pumps, and other innovative approaches that show promise for alleviating poverty among smallholder farmers. 

Provision of Content. IWMI contributes substantially to the IPTRID program on benchmarking irrigation performance.  IWMI assists in program design, helping national partners with the benchmarking program, and maintains an electronic database on performance of irrigation systems.  IWMI also provides content in the area of "Institutional Aspects" with special reference to Water User Associations, Turnover and Participatory Irrigation Management to the IPTRID operated WCA-InfoNet. 

Research and Analytical tools. IWMI provides support to IPTRID to promote the use of PODIUM and other models in at least 6 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; the latter include Ethiopia, South Africa and Tanzania. Specifically, IWMI assists host countries in selecting and integrating data sets needed to undertake useful and meaningful projections, simulations and scenario development for policy formulation, and trains developing country scientists to adapt and use PODIUM.  

Networking. IWMI facilitates IPTRID missions in some countries, as appropriate, including participation in meetings and seminars, between IWMI and IPTRID Secretariat, between IWMI and other partner institutions of IPTRID, between IWMI and IPTRID Country/Regional networks. This component will support participation by IWMI in IPTRID network activities and those of its partner institutions.

Goal 

Specific Objectives

The main development objectives are to fill gaps in knowledge related to irrigation and drainage related to the programs of both IWMI and IPTRID, increase national and regional capacity to improve management of water for food and livelihoods, and promote the sharing of knowledge.

Outputs:

• Research-based publications, reports, guidelines and training materials related to small holder irrigation in Africa and Asia, especially with regard to micro-agricultural water management technologies such as treadle pumps, drip irrigation kits, rainwater harvesting, etc.
  
  
• On-line irrigation performance benchmarking service as well as reports on irrigation performance (www.lk.iwmi.org:82/oibs/main.htm).
  
  
  
• Improved PODIUM model for conduction water and agricultural scenario analyses national and sub-national levels, its application in selected Asian and Africa countries, training in the use of PODIUM, and publications on results (www.iwmi.cgiar.org/tools/podium_sim.htm).
  
  
• Provision of content on institutions to the WCA-infoNET of IPTRID. (www.wca-infonet.org/iptrid/infonet/index.jsp).
  
  
  
• Contributions to IPTRID missions, workshops, newsletters, etc.

Partners 

International Programme for Technology and Development in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) is the major partner.

Other implementation partners include:

• Sokoine Agriculture University, Tanzania
• Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
• Department of Irrigation; International Development Enterprises, Nepal
• Winrock International, Nepal

Donors

Government of the Netherlands through ITPRID