Assessing the growth potential of farmer-led irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa

这项研究将有助于回答这样一个问题：什么制度和政策导致了个体农民、农民群体和大型企业对灌溉的投资？在第一个DEGRP主题“农业与增长”下。该项目将评估农民目前对小规模灌溉的投资是否可能为非洲农村地区的广泛经济增长提供一个模式。这项研究是及时的，因为在20世纪70年代由于非洲灌溉项目表现不佳而导致灌溉投资停滞不前近20年后，为非洲灌溉提供资金的国际承诺正在迅速增长，以应对不断上涨的粮食价格和非洲农业生产力的持续停滞。然而，资金承诺尚未从对灌溉在当今非洲农业环境中实际工作方式的系统分析中获得信息，这导致了对所需技术选择和社会组织形式的不确定性，以及对大规模灌溉实施将重复过去的问题而不能实现广泛的经济增长的担忧。这项研究将通过将英国的社会科学研究人员和荷兰的灌溉科学家聚集在一起，与莫桑比克和坦桑尼亚的非洲研究人员合作，对非洲当代灌溉的案例研究来回应这一差距。这些研究将侧重于有证据表明小规模农民正在投资灌溉的案例，包括修建沟渠改道溪流，管理更潮湿的低地种植水稻，以及采用新的低成本水泵技术和滴灌。每项研究都将从地方和国家的角度对这些灌溉发展进行分析。在地方一级，将通过访谈和问卷调查相结合的方式，查明农民投资灌溉的原因、他们可以获得的技术和财政支持的种类、他们实现的农业生产力的变化以及更广泛的社会和经济后果，特别是对那些在地方治理的等级制度中其土地和水资源使用权通常从属于其他人的人(例如妇女、年轻男子和最近在该地区定居的人)。案例研究结果将提交给参与研究的社区进行讨论。在国家一级，将利用与国际发展机构和政府以及非政府组织和灌溉设备商业供应商的政策制定者的访谈和研讨会，分析这些机构对“农民主导”灌溉发展的看法，以及这种发展在多大程度上得到了政策的支持。选定的国家提供了截然不同的政策环境，坦桑尼亚过去承认并支持农民发起的灌溉，而莫桑比克则没有。项目成果将通过在同行评议的学术期刊上发表的开放获取出版物，以及通过与包括学术代表和“最终用户”代表在内的国际咨询小组的参与，在国际上传播。在国家一级，该项目将在坦桑尼亚和莫桑比克与官员和政策制定者一起举办关于灌溉的讲习班，在开始阶段和完成关于灌溉案例研究的地方一级实地工作之后。研究成果还将有助于非洲研究伙伴制定课程。

This research will contribute to answering the question "what institutions and policies lead to investment in irrigation by individual farmers, groups of farmers and large-scale enterprises?" under the first DEGRP theme "Agriculture and Growth". The project will assess whether current investment by farmers in small-scale irrigation might offer a model for broad-based economic growth in rural areas of Africa. The research is timely because, after nearly two decades of stalled irrigation investment due to poor performance of irrigation projects in Africa in the 1970s, international commitment to funding African irrigation is growing rapidly as a response to rising food prices and the continuing stagnation of African agricultural productivity. However, funding commitments are yet to be informed by systematic analysis of how irrigation actually works in today's farming contexts in Africa, leading to uncertainty about choices of technology and forms of social organisation needed, and concerns that implementation of large-scale irrigation will repeat past problems and not achieve broad-based economic growth.This study will respond to this gap by bringing together social science researchers from the UK and irrigation scientists from the Netherlands to work with African researchers in Mozambique and Tanzania on case studies of contemporary irrigation in Africa. The studies will focus on cases where there is evidence that small-scale farmers are investing in irrigation, including the construction of furrows to divert streams, the management of wetter lowlands to grow rice, and the adoption of new low-cost pump technologies and drip irrigation. Each study will develop an analysis of these irrigation developments from a local and a national perspective. At a local level, a combination of interviews and questionnaire surveys will be used to identify why farmers do, or do not, invest in irrigation, the kinds of technical and financial support they can obtain, the changes in agricultural productivity they achieve, and the wider social and economic consequences, particularly for people (e.g. women, younger men, and those recently-settled in the area) whose rights to use land and water are typically subordinate to others in hierarchical systems of local governance. Case study findings will be presented for discussion by communities participating in the study. At a national level, interviews and workshops with policy-makers in both international development agencies and government, and with non-government organisations and commercial suppliers of irrigation equipment, will be used to provide an analysis of these agencies' perceptions of 'farmer-led' irrigation development and the extent to which such development is supported by policy. The countries selected provide strongly contrasting policy environments, Tanzania having recognised and supported farmer-initiated irrigation in the past whereas Mozambique has not. Project findings will be disseminated internationally through open access publication in peer-reviewed academic journals, and through engagement with an international advisory group including academic and 'end user' representatives. At a national level, the project will undertake workshops with officials and policy-makers on irrigation in both Tanzania and Mozambique both during inception and after completion of the local-level fieldwork on irrigation case studies. Research findings will also contribute to curriculum development by the African research partners.