BACKGROUND

Sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa can be achieved by enhancing the productivity and profitability of agriculture, both irrigated and rainfed, and by encouraging more investment in the sector. This is the underlying premise of the Collaborative Program on Agricultural Water Investment Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Trends and Opportunities.
This program has been jointly undertaken by the:

• Secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
• African Development Bank (ADB)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
• International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
• International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
• World Bank (WB)

NEW!
Trends and Opportunities for Investment in Agricultural Water Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Collaborative Program.
A 4 page brochure that outlines the program. [pdf]

The idea of launching this program emerged from the deliberations of an international workshop on Agricultural Water Use that was held in June 2001 in Harare, Zimbabwe to discuss and draft a strategy paper on Agricultural Water Use in sub-Saharan Africa. Subsequent consultations and interactions among the partner organizations helped identify the following inter-related components:

• Irrigation project planning and implementation process [Terms of Reference / annexes]
• Constraints and opportunities for private sector participation in agricultural water development and management. [Terms of Reference / annexes]
• Health, environment and livestock - with the growing importance of the latter, this component has been broken down into two
  • Health and environment aspects [Terms of Reference / annexes]
  • Agricultural water and livestock production. [Terms of Reference / annexes]
• Agricultural water development for poverty reduction
  • Sub-Saharan Africa [Terms of Reference / annexes]
  • Eastern and South Africa [Terms of Reference / annexes]
• Regional demand for products of irrigated agriculture [Terms of Reference / annexes]
• Assessment of potential for improving agricultural water management [Terms of Reference / annexes] 
• Irrigation cost study [Terms of Reference / annexes] 
• Agricultural water use from a river basin perspective [Terms of Reference]

Individual studies will be carried out on each of the above components broadly though a combination of critical review and analysis of the literature, case studies and scientific scrutiny of real-life experiences, and field work to bridge gaps in knowledge. The findings of these studies will enhance the knowledge base and improve the understanding of experiences and lessons learned from past agricultural water investments, elucidate past trends and future development strategies, analyze constraints, and identify opportunities for overcoming them. They will also provide valuable inputs to NEPAD's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), which calls for US$38 billion of new investment in the sector by 2015, to rapidly expand the area under sustainable agricultural water management.

The collaborative program will be implemented over a period of 12 months beginning in January 2004, although preliminary work on some components began in late 2003. The first five components listed above are supported by ADB with IWMI as executing agency. This Inception Report has been prepared in fulfillment of the requirements of the agreement between the ADB and IWMI. The remaining four study components, although not directly supported by ADB but by the other partner organizations, are also covered in this report.