Module 9 - Niger: Tailoring Irrigation Technology to Users’ Needs

Three-quarters of Niger’s 1.3 million square kilometers is desert, leaving 3.8 million hectares cultivable, most of which is in the south. Even in cultivable areas, variable and declining rainfall and frequent drought cycles make rainfed agriculture a risky enterprise. Niger has the potential to irrigate 270,000 hectares, using ground and seasonal surface water sources, but only 22 percent of this potential area is actually irrigated.

Large-scale, publicly funded irrigation schemes have the potential for positive returns based on existing technical capacity. Such schemes, supported in the past, were extremely costly, plagued by weak institutional support, and lacked cost-recovery measures to finance operations and maintenance. The government also supported small- to medium-scale irrigation cooperatives on the perimeter of these large-scale projects. The National Office of Hydro-Agricultural Perimeters was to provide technical extension support to these schemes, but with no budget or incentives for efficient service provision, its technical support has been quite weak. State-controlled cooperatives have neither been able to fully control nor to profit from their enterprises in a sustainable manner, owing to state intervention and political interference in cooperative affairs.

Project Objectives and Description

The factors limiting farmers’ use of irrigation technologies included lack of knowledge of technologies, lack of availability of tested technologies and maintenance services, and lack of finance. The Pilot Private Irrigation Project aimed to address these issues through assisting Niger in testing and evaluating the following: capacity building of the private sector, improved low-cost technologies for small-scale irrigation, improved grassroots saving, erosion control works, and monitoring of replenishable shallow aquifers. The project focused primarily on the poorest farmers and on selected private commercial irrigators. Farmers interested in adopting technologies were asked to form economic interest groups.

The private irrigation association, Nigerien Association for Promotion of Private Irrigation (Association Nigérienne de Promotion de l'Irrigation Privée, ANPIP), was the implementing agency for the project. One distinguishing features of the project is the private legal status of ANPIP, free from political and bureaucratic interference, with adequate legal and administrative flexibility. Promotion of small-scale irrigation technologies was undertaken through information and assistance to farmers to access the technical and financial resources required to adopt the technologies.

ANPIP (1) carried out promotional campaigns in support of the government's private irrigation development strategy; (2) facilitated small farmers' access to legal and administrative assistance for obtaining tenurial security; and (3) provided assistance, upon demand, in preparation of irrigation projects and in establishing economic interest groups. Tasks contracted out to consulting firms included testing and evaluating technologies, promoting grassroots savings and credit schemes (by an NGO), and project related evaluation studies and periodic audits.