IWMI Africa shares the vision of the African Union for "an Africa free from hunger and poverty” and supports its NEPAD program. With offices in Pretoria, Addis Ababa and Ghana, IWMI is represented in all the sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). 

IWMI West Africa has its main office in Accra, Ghana, and activities throughout the sub-region. We work in collaboration with national, sub-regional, regional and international partners, other Future Harvest (CGIAR) centers and a large number of advanced research institutions, mainly in Europe and USA. 

Our sub-regional research portfolio has its focus on efforts to reduce poverty and provide improved food security through sustainable and efficient agricultural water use. Related projects range from the analysis of adoption factors for treadle pumps to basin scale modeling, irrigation policy development, the relationship between malaria and irrigation, and health risk reduction despite wastewater use. Project are currently distributed over six major research areas:

IWMI regularly organizes workshops and conferences. These range in size from village meetings to national stakeholder consultations or international symposia, such as the Accra Water Conference in April 2002 attended by his Excellency the President of Ghana and his Excellency, the Dutch Crown Prince.