Module 9 - Egypt: Improving Agricultural Production Through Better Drainage

While the immediate need is for drainage system improvement, the projects are also focusing on creating institutional and community mechanisms for the long-term development and maintenance of drainage systems and the systems for cost recovery. Beneficiaries pay for drainage investments over a 20-year period with no interest charged, effectively amounting to about 45 percent of the cost in real terms.

Benefits and Impacts

All major objectives of the first phase of the project have been achieved. Over 248,000 hectares have been provided with new subsurface drainage. Including renewal areas, subsurface drains have been installed on more than 311,000 hectares. On this area, yields of major crops increased by up to 20 percent. Estimates show that improved drainage accounts for 15 to 25 percent of this yield increase. Many farmers switched to higher-value crops as a result of this project, particularly in the Nile Valley and the Delta region. Reuse of drainage water in irrigation, guided by appropriate criteria and guidelines, has resulted in one of the highest water use efficiencies in the world. The second phase will benefit about 400,000 farm households.

Different Egyptian public sector agencies have improved their management capacity, such as EPADP, which monitors and evaluates both the technical aspects of drainage (for example, measurement and analysis of hydraulic conductivity, salinity, and crop yields), and important social and institutional issues. Cost recovery for drainage investments and maintenance has improved, as is reflected in a 25-year time frame for full recovery of capital costs, shared between government (50-55 percent) and beneficiaries (40-45 percent).

Lessons Learned and Issues for Wider Applicability

• Flexibility in implementation is key to guaranteeing success in this type of project.
  
  
• Although EPADP has improved its institutional capacity, further institution building is needed, especially support to computerize various aspects of its daily activities.
  
  
• Compensation for crops damaged during subsurface drainage installation should be incorporated into the drainage installation contract, to be paid directly to farmers by contractors. This will circumvent the delays farmers experience in getting compensation when a government agency manages the compensation.

Drainage has often been a neglected component of irrigation system development, but it can have a substantial effect on crop yields and system sustainability. Institutional innovations, training, and capacity building may be needed to reorient irrigation agencies and farmers from new irrigation investments to equally important drainage issues and investments.