Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation

Sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs to accelerate the pace of agricultural growth to improve livelihoods, ensure food security, and keep droughts from turning into famines. However, this requires the region to increase smallholder irrigation faster t...

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Main Authors:	Shah, Tushaar, Namara, Regassa, Rajan, Abhishek
Format:	Report
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:	IRRIGATION SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE GREEN REVOLUTION DRY-SEASON CROPS GROUNDWATER DEPLETION SOLAR PUMP
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/479941624264066924/Accelerating-Irrigation-Expansion-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-Policy-Lessons-from-the-Global-Revolution-in-Farmer-Led-Smallholder-Irrigation http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35804

id	okr-10986-35804
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-358042021-06-23T05:11:04Z Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation Shah, Tushaar Namara, Regassa Rajan, Abhishek IRRIGATION SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE GREEN REVOLUTION DRY-SEASON CROPS GROUNDWATER DEPLETION SOLAR PUMP Sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs to accelerate the pace of agricultural growth to improve livelihoods, ensure food security, and keep droughts from turning into famines. However, this requires the region to increase smallholder irrigation faster than its current sluggish pace. In this respect, explosive growth since the 1970s in distributed farmer-led smallholder irrigation (FLSI) in China, South Asia, and elsewhere may offer Sub-Saharan Africa better guidance than state-led centralized large irrigation projects. Proactive policy support, prominence of market players, economies of scale and scope, village-level irrigation service markets, government incentives, and subsidies on motor pumps and boreholes have all triggered and fueled rapid expansion of motor pump–driven FLSI that made famines history and countries food-secure in Asia in a short span of a decade or two. With its ample shallow groundwater resources and sparse farming areas, Sub-Saharan Africa has immense potential to grow pump-driven FLSI quickly, cost-effectively, and without risking the environmental ill effects observed in Asia and elsewhere. A “big push” to FLSI will work better than an incremental trickle because high-volume-low-margin FLSI growth generates economies of scale and scope, which are essential. Interventions by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are useful for demonstration and piloting innovations, but market players are best placed to achieve scale. Finally, Sub-Saharan Africa can and needs to leapfrog and build its FLSI economy around solar irrigation pumps, which are destined to disrupt FLSI globally in the years to come. 2021-06-22T17:24:46Z 2021-06-22T17:24:46Z 2020 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/479941624264066924/Accelerating-Irrigation-Expansion-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-Policy-Lessons-from-the-Global-Revolution-in-Farmer-Led-Smallholder-Irrigation http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35804 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Other Infrastructure Study Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Africa Western and Central (AFW) Sub-Saharan Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	IRRIGATION SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE GREEN REVOLUTION DRY-SEASON CROPS GROUNDWATER DEPLETION SOLAR PUMP
spellingShingle	IRRIGATION SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE GREEN REVOLUTION DRY-SEASON CROPS GROUNDWATER DEPLETION SOLAR PUMP Shah, Tushaar Namara, Regassa Rajan, Abhishek Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
geographic_facet	Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Africa Western and Central (AFW) Sub-Saharan Africa
description	Sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs to accelerate the pace of agricultural growth to improve livelihoods, ensure food security, and keep droughts from turning into famines. However, this requires the region to increase smallholder irrigation faster than its current sluggish pace. In this respect, explosive growth since the 1970s in distributed farmer-led smallholder irrigation (FLSI) in China, South Asia, and elsewhere may offer Sub-Saharan Africa better guidance than state-led centralized large irrigation projects. Proactive policy support, prominence of market players, economies of scale and scope, village-level irrigation service markets, government incentives, and subsidies on motor pumps and boreholes have all triggered and fueled rapid expansion of motor pump–driven FLSI that made famines history and countries food-secure in Asia in a short span of a decade or two. With its ample shallow groundwater resources and sparse farming areas, Sub-Saharan Africa has immense potential to grow pump-driven FLSI quickly, cost-effectively, and without risking the environmental ill effects observed in Asia and elsewhere. A “big push” to FLSI will work better than an incremental trickle because high-volume-low-margin FLSI growth generates economies of scale and scope, which are essential. Interventions by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are useful for demonstration and piloting innovations, but market players are best placed to achieve scale. Finally, Sub-Saharan Africa can and needs to leapfrog and build its FLSI economy around solar irrigation pumps, which are destined to disrupt FLSI globally in the years to come.
format	Report
author	Shah, Tushaar Namara, Regassa Rajan, Abhishek
author_facet	Shah, Tushaar Namara, Regassa Rajan, Abhishek
author_sort	Shah, Tushaar
title	Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
title_short	Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
title_full	Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
title_fullStr	Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
title_full_unstemmed	Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation
title_sort	accelerating irrigation expansion in sub-saharan africa : policy lessons from the global revolution in farmer-led smallholder irrigation
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2021
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/479941624264066924/Accelerating-Irrigation-Expansion-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-Policy-Lessons-from-the-Global-Revolution-in-Farmer-Led-Smallholder-Irrigation http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35804
_version_	1764483811075162112

Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policy Lessons from the Global Revolution in Farmer-Led Smallholder Irrigation

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