WATER CONTROL AND FOOD PRODUCTION
3.1 As noted earlier, between 30 and 40 percent of food production comes from a 250-million-hectare irrigated area worldwide. There are wide regional variations in the proportion of agricultural land that receives irrigation: 35 percent in Asia, 11 percent in Latin America, and 6 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. In the developing world about 18 percent of total arable land is irrigated, but irrigation intensity varies widely by individual food crop. Average yield increases in irrigated vis-à-vis rain-fed land in the developing countries are significant, generally ranging from 50 to 200 percent for most crops.
3.2 Vast differences exist in the regional patterns of irrigation intensity by main food crops. Adverse conditions for rain-fed agriculture explain the high dependence of the Near East and North African food systems on irrigated agriculture. Irrigated land accounts for one-quarter of the region’s wheat production, all the food grown in Egypt and more than half of that grown in Iraq and Iran. Only about 10 percent of the agricultural production in both Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa comes from irrigated land, but a number of countries in these two regions, including Chile, Peru and Madagascar, do depend on irrigated land for a sizeable proportion of their agricultural output. It is in Asia, however, that irrigation makes the greatest contribution to global food security: the irrigated sector contributes about 80 percent of food production in Pakistan, 70 percent in China and over 50 percent of the total in India and Indonesia.
3.3 The irrigation potential of a given country or region is difficult to assess, given the conceptual and technical complexities involved. Available estimates often produce widely different results, but they all suggest that the potential for irrigation expansion is considerable. A World Bank/UNDP study (1990) indicates that there is scope for an increase of over 110 million hectares (59 percent) in the irrigated area in developing countries. According to this study, the largest potential for increase is in Asia (69 million hectares).
3.4 Exploiting the developing countries’ 110-million-hectare total irrigation potential could theoretically produce an additional 300 to 400 million tonnes of grain, enough to provide the basic diet of 1.5 to 2 billion people. However, this would require investments estimated at US$500 to $1 000 billion. Furthermore, if irrigation were to expand at the rates of the past 30 years, the potential would be realized by 2015; at the much lower rate of the 1980s, the potential would be exploited by 2025.
3.5 Rainfall variability over time is as much a characteristic of climate as the mean annual total. Values below the mean do not necessarily correspond to drought. Climatological drought occurs when rainfall is below normally expected amounts. In areas that usually receive high amounts, even 50 percent of normal levels will have little negative impact on agricultural production, though river flow (blue water) may be significantly affected. Climatological drought follows intricate geographic and statistical patterns. Agricultural drought occurs when water supply is insufficient to cover crop or livestock water requirements. However, while water scarcity is a permanent feature, drought is a temporary condition.
3.6 Agricultural drought is a complex issue: impact assessments and agricultural planning must take into consideration detailed information on farming systems, soils and the general economy in addition to weather factors. This often results in invisible drought brought about by environmental degradation as much as by climate. Droughts are frequent and severe in most African countries and mitigation of their pervasive effects will be a crucial element in food security, sustainable economic recovery and future development.
3.7 The macroeconomic effects of weather risk have been generally neglected. The negative impact on the whole economy goes far beyond the agricultural sector, as it affects industrial output, power generation, government revenues, export earnings and gross domestic product (GDP). For example, it is estimated that the 1991/92 drought in Zimbabwe resulted in economic damage that doubled the direct loss of agricultural production.
3.8 Vulnerability to drought varies from country to country, depending on the stage of development and many other factors. Those which are particularly vulnerable to droughts include economies that are in the early stages of transition from subsistence farming to a more modern and productive farm economy with a strong urban consumer base. As population increases, more people are at risk and the natural-resource base may be endangered by progressive exploitation and degradation. The mechanisms of the impact of drought on human societies and agriculture are fairly well known and early warning systems as well as the level of preparedness have generally improved in the past two decades.
3.9 The extent to which water control is capable of functioning as a drought-proofing investment depends on the local context. An irrigation system backed by a large, multi-annual storage capacity, can provide an effective shield against drought. This has been the case with the High Aswan Dam in Egypt during the 1980s. A relatively small storage capacity intended for seasonal regulation cannot be expected to ensure water supply over an extended, multi-annual drought. Groundwater-based irrigation, where available, has generally proved resilient in the face of drought. Unfortunately, more often than not, poor water management has resulted in permanently depleted groundwater, both in advanced and developing countries, and the underground storage capacity of the aquifer is largely wasted.
3.10 In water development projects that are intended to have a drought-proofing effect by ensuring water supply over spells of dry years, economic analysis should include often neglected aspects such as the social cost of drought, including the costs of food insecurity, and the irreversible damage to the natural-resource base stemming from overuse of resources during dry spells.
3.11 Total irrigated land on the African continent is estimated to be about 12.2 million hectares (FAO, 1995b). This figure includes all land where water is supplied for the purpose of crop production (with the exception of water harvesting and spate irrigation). It represents on average 7.5 percent of arable land, but large differences can be observed. As an extreme case, Egypt has 99 percent of its arable land under irrigation, while the corresponding figure in Zaire is only 0.2 percent. Six countries (Egypt, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and the Sudan) account for nearly 75 percent of the total irrigated land in Africa, while 24 of 53 countries have only 1 percent of the irrigated land. In sub-Saharan Africa, water control has in the past played a relatively minor part in agricultural development. This has been limited historically to traditional small-scale irrigation in drought-prone areas, and the reclamation of small swamplands.
3.12 These global figures cover a wide range of water management situations, from the very productive wetlands cultivated for centuries by local farmers (as in the Gulf of Guinea or in the highlands of Central Africa), to modern full-control irrigation schemes (as in Zimbabwe or Morocco). Although, by its very nature, informal irrigation is never well documented and is thus hard to assess, it is estimated that it covers between 35 and 50 percent of total irrigated land in Africa. It varies from more than 70 percent in Burkina Faso and Nigeria to less than 10 percent in Zimbabwe and the Sudan, where government policy has vigorously promoted large-scale irrigation schemes.
3.13 Broad differences can also be observed when analysing techniques used in controlled water application. The most common method is surface irrigation (basin, furrow and border irrigation). Existing schemes obtain water from rivers or reservoirs and use gravity-fed canal systems. Where gravity flow is not possible, water is lifted by pumps. Overhead irrigation (sprinkler and drip irrigation) is used for large-scale sugar-cane production and to a limited extent for orchards and vegetables. Flood recession and spate irrigation have been known for a long time in various parts of Africa. An important distinction between zones is that of cropping intensity. While the average for North and Northeast Africa is presently about 130 percent, it is only about 110 percent in the other areas.
3.14 The role played by water control also varies greatly from one region to another. In arid areas, irrigation is virtually the only possibility for crop production (as in Egypt) while in semi-arid and subhumid areas, irrigation is used as a supplementary source of water to secure production. In Namibia, for example, it is estimated that irrigated maize yields three times more than rain-fed. Improved agricultural practices associated with irrigation are major contributors to this yield increase. FAO has estimated that, on average over the continent, 1 ha of irrigated land produces about 2.2 times more yield than rain-fed land. More important in this context is that irrigation in the tropics makes it possible for farmers to adapt crop timing to market demand, which results in higher economic benefits.
3.15 Trends in irrigated land expansion over the last 30 years show that, on average, irrigation in Africa increased at a rate of 1.2 percent per year. However, this rate began to fall in the mid-1980s and is now below 1 percent per year. The rate of expansion varies widely from country to country. Future developments will be dictated by a whole set of factors, including political choices, investment capacity, technological improvements, as well as social and environmental requirements.
3.16 Assessing the potential for the extension of irrigation in Africa is not an easy task. However, the primary determinants in estimating the potential for irrigation remain the natural resources of land and water. Several studies have been conducted to assess the technical potential for irrigation in Africa. The results vary widely between 30 and 150 million hectares, depending on the underlying assumptions. A recently completed study (FAO, 1996c) on irrigation potential in Africa, matches information available at country level with estimates of water resources by river basin. The results of this study are summarized in Table 4. These figures are based on local physical potential and do not include large-scale investments such as interbasin transfers. Yet in countries like Morocco, Tunisia and South Africa, where pressure on water resources is high, transfer schemes from one river basin to another are already a reality.
3.17 Table 4 indicates, for the regions of the African continent, the actual extent of irrigation as a percentage of estimated total potential. On average, 29 percent of the physical potential has been realized, but large disparities can be observed between regions. North Africa has already reached 83 percent of its potential. On the other hand, large potential remains untapped in Central African countries, where water resources are relatively abundant. While these figures must be interpreted with caution, they suggest that substantial expansion is still possible. Sub-Saharan Africa, having only 4 percent of its arable land under irrigation, is far from reaching the world average of 18.5 percent; it is the region where irrigation is least developed with regard to the available potential.
3.18 Water development has made progress in Africa since the beginning of the 1980s. Much of that progress is attributable to private-sector investment as well as to the development of communal irrigation at the village level. There has been a general move to give more responsibilities to farmers in managing large- and medium-scale irrigation schemes. In the past ten years at village and at individual levels, the arrival of small pumps has revolutionized irrigation in some countries more than any other technological or managerial advancement. Initially these pumps were used for vegetable production around urban centres, now they are also used for rice cultivation along the rivers or around surface water sources, even in remote areas. In Nigeria, for example, irrigated fadama (valley floodlands) expanded from 120 000 to 800 000 ha between 1960 and 1985 (Harrison, 1987). However, this rapid expansion has led to many problems, including the saturation of local markets, high pumping costs, difficulties for poor farmers in financing the initial investment, and depletion of groundwater in some regions.
3.19 Investment in irrigation, particularly in Africa, is widely perceived to be a poor investment, and there are innumerable alternatives, notably urban investments, competing for the limited amount of financing. Investment in medium- and small-scale irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa is believed to be relatively more attractive than investment in large-scale irrigation for the following reasons:
Table 4: ACTUAL AND POTENTIAL IRRIGATION IN AFRICA BY REGION.
3.20 The evidence from government-controlled small-scale irrigation, however, suggests that these potential advantages are often not realized. The mode of implementation eliminates the potential advantages, so that, in many cases, small-scale irrigation is just a miniature version of traditional large-scale schemes. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that farmer-controlled small-scale irrigation has a better record of performance than government-controlled systems (Rosegrant and Perez, 1995).
3.21 Two-thirds of all irrigated land is in Asia, where about 35 percent of the arable land is irrigated and contributes more than 50 percent to total agricultural production. This percentage is expected to increase. Total irrigated area in Asia nearly doubled between 1960 and 1990, accompanied by a spectacular growth in agricultural production. Over the past ten years average agricultural production of Asian countries has increased by 50 percent, while the population increased by 20 percent; thus the agricultural sector has contributed in a substantial way to development and welfare in the region. Besides soil-moisture management through irrigation, high-yielding varieties and the widespread use of fertilizers also contributed to the production increase.
3.22 As food security, and in some cases food self-sufficiency, is reached in several countries, a number of important changes are taking place in agriculture in Asia. The traditional agricultural system based on cultivation of rice is being transformed into a more diversified system with higher inputs oriented towards markets. As agriculture intensifies and other economic sectors expand, the population employed in agriculture, currently less than 60 percent, is decreasing by 0.7 percent annually.
3.23 The present rate of expansion of irrigation is 1.4 percent per year and is expected to drop to 1 percent in the year 2010 as the number of large-scale irrigation projects financed from public funds is decreasing. Water development costs have increased substantially in recent years partly because of development in increasingly difficult areas, and partly because of a more comprehensive approach aiming at more rapid valorization of infrastructure.
3.24 In a number of irrigated areas, productivity has been less than originally planned owing to inefficient water use, low cropping intensities, failing maintenance and problems of waterlogging and salinity. Cropping intensity under irrigation in Asia is currently estimated at 120 percent, whereas in irrigation feasibility studies often assumptions of 180 to 200 percent are made. There is thus potential for further intensification. It is estimated that 10 to 15 percent of the irrigated area is degraded to some extent because of waterlogging or salinization, mostly in arid regions. The negative impact of irrigation on soil and water resources has become a reason for considerable concern.
3.25 Crop diversification from irrigated rice production to crops with higher market value is needed. However, the change from wetland to upland crops requires adequate field drainage, land preparation and the introduction of adequate irrigation practices. Farmers unfamiliar with the best-adapted varieties and cultural practices as well as with price fluctuations and access to markets will need much better access to relevant information. Effective support must be provided to farmers in increasing the productivity of the irrigated farming system.
3.26 The problems and costs of irrigation development have led to growing concern among governments and financial institutions regarding the feasibility of irrigation. Productivity in many irrigation areas has been disappointing and the sustainability of many schemes is threatened because of financial viability. Revenues from water distribution have proved to be difficult to collect, and public funding for operation and maintenance goes against current policies. As a consequence, investment in irrigation projects is under close scrutiny.
3.27 It is clear that in view of decreased availability of water and suitable land, irrigation in Asia must achieve better performance and productivity in a financially viable way in order to be able to meet increasing food requirements. The pace of construction of new schemes will be reduced while an approach jointly addressing technical, institutional, socio-economic, agricultural and environmental aspects of irrigation will be adopted. The main issues in Asian irrigation are financial viability, system performance and agricultural productivity.
3.28 The financial viability of new developments is questioned because of the increasing cost involved. At the same time, the increasing burden of maintaining and operating irrigation systems using public funds is proving unsustainable. The current trend is towards privatization of water-control facilities, both for new developments and existing schemes. The transfer of management of at least part of the irrigation system is an active policy in many countries. Private investment in irrigation has been shown to be attractive. For example, in Bangladesh an estimated 40 percent increase in the irrigated area in five years is attributed to the liberalization, in 1988, of the import and sale of small pumps. Sustained support to farmers’ associations and strong legislation and regulation and consequent national policy are required to bring about successful privatization of the agricultural water sector.
3.29 Shortcomings in the performance of many irrigation systems have been recognized and can be attributed partly to failings in planning and design and partly to management. The negative impact of irrigation on water and soil resources has become a matter of concern. Degradation resulting from waterlogging and salinity is estimated to affect 10 to 15 percent of irrigated land to some degree. Similarly, the use of agrochemicals and the spread of water-borne diseases require appropriate solutions in irrigation management. Important performance improvements can be achieved with the introduction of computerized water-delivery and management-information systems. This technology promises to improve water-use efficiency and to support the collection of water fees.
3.30 In order to attain financial viability, the productivity of irrigated crops needs to be increased. An essential condition is the introduction of appropriate cultural practices and water management techniques for crops other than rice. There is a general need to provide effective support to farmers in increasing the productivity of the irrigated farming system. The activity is twofold: it involves the introduction of more intensive and diversified cropping systems with appropriate cultural and water management practices, and the introduction of a self-reliant farming community that assumes responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the irrigation system.
THE SITUATION IN LATIN AMERICA
3.31 Currently there are some 13 million hectares of irrigated land in Latin America. Fifty percent of this area is in Mexico, with most of the remainder in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. The irrigated area represents some 11 percent of agricultural land but a much higher percentage of the value of agricultural production – up to 50 percent in the case of Mexico. Irrigated agricultural production satisfies internal demand for food and fibre, but in some countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay) it is a significant component of exports. A large part of irrigated land, roughly 40 percent, is owned by the private sector. In some countries (Brazil and Chile), the irrigated area developed through private investments has grown much faster than public-sector irrigation.
3.32 Public-sector irrigation in the region has a chequered history. In many cases, the time required to develop irrigation was greatly underestimated and emphasis was more on system construction than on operation, while users were ignored in the decision-making process. This background, added to social and technical problems, has resulted in low efficiency of systems and the actual irrigating of only a small percentage of land under irrigation. However, while these public systems are far from reaching their economic potential, it is also true that they have contributed to social stability and to socio-economic development in their region of influence.
3.33 Poor performance of public irrigation systems allied with financial difficulties of many governments has led to a reduction of public intervention in the field of irrigation. Since the 1990s, there has been a strong tendency to transfer public irrigation systems to the users, for example in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Peru. Mexico in particular has already transferred two-thirds of the 3 million hectares of publicly owned irrigated land. A preliminary evaluation of the impact of transfer from the public to the private sector is encouraging. In most cases, water distribution after transfer has been more efficient, maintenance has been better and a higher rate of collection of water users’ fees has been achieved.
3.34 The region has considerable water resources and a large irrigation potential (20 million hectares), mostly located in Brazil. Future water development is likely to be driven by financial considerations and funded largely by the private sector.
4.1 The case for the potential of controlled water to improve food security has been made. This is certainly a necessary but perhaps not a sufficient reason for initiating a new bout of irrigation development, or even for rehabilitation of older projects. The following factors also contribute to the defence of irrigation and may lead to a new generation of successful water projects:
4.2 Agricultural strategy concepts over the last 25 years, particularly in Africa, have been to a large extent polarized between the alternatives of transformation to a new system or improvement of the existing system. The Nobel laureate Theodore Schultz demonstrated the limitation of the improvement approach to development unless there is an injection of new inputs which generally includes water investment. A second polarization has been between strategies to promote building on successful development initiatives in the locations that have a high potential, or spreading the benefits to less well-endowed, marginal areas.
4.3 Transformation has been achieved in part by such means as crash projects, mechanization schemes and new large-scale irrigation settlement schemes. Improvement can be achieved in the research or extension services or in single input promotion such as a “Use more fertilizer” campaign. Backing success through a focus on high-potential areas, as in much of Asia, would lead to investment in densely settled, high-rainfall, good soil areas, usually close to markets. Spreading benefits in order to compensate marginal areas for their lack of resources would be made by taking infrastructural investments, including roads, to remote low-rainfall areas that had been neglected and where poverty is an evident problem. It is possible to find examples of all these categories of policy. However, while emphasis in the 1960s and early 1970s concentrated on the most productive projects, in the late 1970s and 1980s, under the influence of equity concerns, emphasis shifted to favouring poorer areas.
4.4 It appears that action can now be taken once more to transform the situation with a range of interventions, including large-scale schemes for water control, providing that the lessons of the original projects that had a mixed record have indeed been learned and are properly applied. The strategy of spreading resources needs reassessment in the light of the complexity of constraints and the high costs of development in poorer areas, migration of people from these areas to towns and cities, and environmental deterioration caused by the pressure of people and animals on fragile ecosystems. Today a more varied, flexible and pragmatic policy is required, with local circumstances and local people’s perceptions of their needs being much more carefully considered. However, as resources are scarce and the food gap must be closed, the most productive options have to be given priority.
WATER POLICY AND LEGAL PREREQUISITES
4.5 As pressures on water resources and public finances increase, legal and administrative systems need to respond to the new requirements. This process includes a number of legal and institutional issues that most countries reviewing their national water sectors are likely to confront.
4.6 Water-rights security for quantity and dependable flow of water of suitable quality, and therefore for protection from pollution, is a basic requirement for water development. The issue of legal security has been evolving from existing or potential water conflicts and is addressed through legal mechanisms for conflict resolution. Security of water rights is also required for non-conflicting situations related to market transactions such as the commercial transfer of water rights between users and private investors. Water-rights titles, through certain and clear legal instruments, are critical to prevent conflict and to stimulate market mechanisms for enhanced efficiency in water management.
4.7 Customary legal rules and practices are significant in many countries especially in the rural context for the settlement of water conflicts. Traditional informal approaches are important, since formal resolution of conflicts through litigation in courts of law is often risky, expensive and inconsistent with local culture.
4.8 Water allocation to different users is normally administered through water licences, which should allow an adequate level of flexibility while preventing or minimizing water conflicts. When previously licensed water is reallocated to higher-valued uses (e.g. shifted from agricultural to industrial water uses), legal mechanisms that regulate reallocation and define the compensation to displaced licence holders are required.
4.9 Transferability of water-use rights is particularly important for water development to encourage investment in water-saving practices and permit alternative higher-value uses of the saved water. However, water reallocation has the potential to cause unintended harm to third parties (for example, when water that was applied in excess to irrigation is diverted instead of returning to groundwater). To curb speculation in water rights, especially when water is scarce, irrigation water is often considered to be appurtenant to the irrigated land. Market-driven transfer systems are rare and actual practices, to be consistent with public-policy objectives and water plans, are commonly limited to transfers under the direct control of government water administrations.
4.10 The establishment of security of land tenure and ownership rights, with land reform and redistribution in response to objectives of social justice, offers opportunities to replace forms of tenure that inhibit investment and hinder the efficient and sustainable use of irrigated land, such as tenancy and sharecropping. To support the transition from traditional to modern agriculture, legal mechanisms are required for transferring customary rights into modern and tradable titles. In time, land-tenure systems based on written titles should be promulgated and adopted.
4.11 Transfer of management responsibility to water users should be promoted. The ownership status of irrigation works, to what extent physical irrigation works should be transferred to the users or retained by the government, and the terms and the conditions of their use, need to be regulated. The status of users’ groups needs to be tailored to the scope and functions of users’ associations and be legally established.
4.12 Improvement in water management performance ultimately depends on good governance. Considerable progress has been made in this area in recent years but further improvements are still required in many countries (FAO, 1993). There are four main elements of governance that can be considered at the national or local level: the legitimacy of government; its accountability; its competence; and its respect for human rights and the rule of law.
4.13 The importance of pricing and other incentives that encourage farmers to adopt efficient water-use practices depends on the relative value of water. When water is plentiful, it does not pay to invest in costly monitoring devices and pricing systems. On the other hand, if water supply is scarce, then it becomes worthwhile to measure, monitor and price water. Today, water is indeed scarce in many parts of the world and underpricing has caused serious misuse of water.
4.14 In practice, market forces rarely establish prices for water. Instead, prices are set by publicly owned supply agencies or regulated private utilities. Water prices (or rates) have an impact on both efficiency and equity, and influence agency revenues. Rate setting can be evaluated within a multiple objective framework in which allocative efficiency, equity of income distribution and fairness in apportioning cost play a role in evaluating pricing policies. The secondary criteria, simplicity, administrative feasibility and stability, are also taken into consideration (FAO, 1993).
4.15 Cost recovery is often restricted by legal and institutional obstacles such as farmers’ exemption from levies, charges and service fees, inadequate authority to collect and enforce the charges, and lack of budgetary and institutional mechanisms to keep collected revenues in the agricultural water management subsector. Within the same objective of retrenchment of governments’ responsibilities, proper legal authority and appropriate institutions should be established to enable the transfer of government responsibility to the users.
4.16 In many irrigation projects, the imposition of water prices reflecting opportunity costs is desirable, but cost-recovery fees that ensure financial viability of water entities are more realistic. Evidence suggests that farmers are willing to pay for a reliable supply of water. However, in practice, the task of collecting water fees is quite complex. One way to circumvent the costs of metering and collecting fees from individual farmers is to measure the flow per tertiary turn-out area supplying water to a farmers’ association, that in turn is responsible for distributing water to individual farmers and collecting fees.
4.17 Intensifying agriculture with water control is a relatively easy proposal when dealing with skilled traditional irrigation farmers. However, when water development reaches out to populations with no tradition in irrigated agriculture and more familiar with rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism, substantial capacity problems arise among farmers, administrators and extension staff. Institutional reform of government advisory services, with new strengths in water technologies and their management, will be needed. Accomplishing this in an era of downsizing government services will be difficult. The mixed record of conventional agricultural departments and the promise of water-related development make the case for institutional reforms. The following are some of the issues to be addressed:
MACROECONOMIC IMBALANCES AND WATER MANAGEMENT
4.18 While it is often difficult to discern how macroeconomic, trade and sectoral policies are linked to water use, economic policy interventions can alter the profitability of irrigation activities vis-à-vis other domestic sectors and their competitiveness relative to foreign producers. Since the early 1980s, considerable policy research has demonstrated how the four major macroprices (interest rates, exchange rates, the general price level and wage rates) can lead to these negative effects.
4.19 For example, an exchange rate devaluation can influence water-resource use in a variety of ways. Most irrigated agricultural commodities are tradable, i.e. exportable or import substitutable, and an overvalued exchange rate lowers the price of tradable goods relative to non-tradables. A real devaluation removes this economic distortion and provides enhanced incentives to domestic production of tradable goods (including production from irrigated agriculture) relative to non-tradables.
4.20 More generally, macroeconomic policies can affect underlying demand and supply conditions for irrigated crops and water use. For example, excessive borrowing and deficit spending by the government can cause the relative prices of agricultural commodities to decrease vis-à-vis those of non-tradable commodities (including prices of services and domestically produced capital). These adverse effects on the agricultural terms of trade are often reinforced by overvalued nominal exchange rates maintained through capital controls and import-licensing procedures. Although this type of macropolicy tends to provide disincentives for all tradables (both agricultural and non-agricultural), policies favouring industrialization protect non-agricultural tradables against foreign competition through tariffs and quantitative restrictions. Thus, macroeconomic and trade policies can have detrimental (indirect) effects on the terms of trade of irrigated agriculture vis-à-vis non-tradables and non-agricultural tradables.
4.21 The negative effects of macroeconomic policies are often compounded by sector-specific pricing policies, such as border taxes on agricultural exports, price controls, and the wedge between border prices and those at the farm level created by the monopolistic behaviour of government parastatals and State marketing boards. Concerns about supplying inexpensive food for urban populations often result in import subsidization schemes that penalize local farmers and are a further disincentive to investment and production.
4.22 Economic policy-makers too often confront policy issues one at a time, stating policy objectives in single dimensional terms. This approach creates difficulties because a policy aimed at achieving a single objective usually has unintended and unrecognized consequences. Water managers and policy-makers need to assess the entire range of government interventions to understand properly the economic, social and environmental impacts on a given sector, region or group of people. Water policies should be integrated into the macroeconomic environment, both in the broader sense (institutions, etc.) and in the more narrow sense (fiscal and monetary policy environment). Past experience shows that irrigated agriculture stands to gain from the reform of macroeconomic, trade and pricing policies.
4.23 Social analysis in the water sector assesses whether the benefits of policies and investments are distributed fairly. It is widely but not yet universally recognized that irrigation development can have different effects upon men, women and children. The introduction of certain forms of irrigation may result in an unequal distribution of the burdens of work and the benefits and income among the members of a household. Thus any assessment of the net development contribution of a social system such as an irrigation scheme, or change to it, will require a desegregated social analysis.
4.24 Gender analysis looks separately at how any proposed intervention might impact on how men and women relate to each other through the various ways in which they make their living, manage the family, and adapt to, resist or initiate economic and social change. This analysis is carried out mainly at the household level, but it is also concerned with how intrahousehold gender relations are connected with the wider socio-economic structures and processes of the community during agrarian change.
4.25 The aim of gender analysis in the irrigation context is to ensure that policy and projects are effective, efficient and equitable and will have a significant developmental impact. This is achieved by eschewing gender-blind policies (assuming that all people are affected equally) and gender-bound policies (assuming that the sexual division of work is immutable) and by promoting gender-awareness policies that address the needs of and benefits to both sexes in development processes (who does what, when and why; who has access to resources and who controls them).
4.26 As water becomes scarcer and more valuable, greater precision is needed in the planning and management of its use. Traditional assumptions, such as regarding men as the sole breadwinner, considering men and women’s access and influence over decisions about land or water to be equal, or regarding the nuclear, harmonious household as the only possibility, all need to be challenged in the interests of achieving greater efficiency and equity. Social analysis must be integrated in the earliest phases of project planning.
4.27 Technology cannot solve all the problems of the sector but is an indispensable tool for increased food production. Many existing irrigation systems were designed 50 to 80 years ago and are still using the same technology. Now that the electronic age has reached the water-management sector, new opportunities emerge. Modern communication and water-control technology support a service-oriented mode of operation as opposed to a supply-oriented mode. These technologies respond to farmers’ demands for more flexible water management services, enabling increased crop diversification and market-oriented production. The distinctive feature of modern systems is the service concept. Water is provided as a service that should be as convenient and flexible as possible to the users, who in turn cover the cost of the service desired (Plusquellec, Burt and Wolter, 1994).
4.28 There are many different ways of modernization. Observation and analysis of recent technological trends suggest that improvements in irrigation systems that reflect the trend from supply- to service-oriented operation have the greatest potential for environmentally and economically sustainable operation. These include:
4.29 The direct transfer of technology is rarely feasible; in most cases some adaptation to local conditions through applied research is required. The development of appropriate diagnostic methods to identify the particular objectives and constraints of modernization is an important research item. There is also an urgent need for reliable information on the performance of modernized irrigation schemes. Research priorities should be determined for the specific needs of each country. Yet more effort is required to analyse specific experience and to draw general conclusions capable of assisting in the transfer of successful approaches and technologies.
PROMOTING PRIVATE-SECTOR INITIATIVES
4.30 There is an increasing number of examples of the positive influence of private-sector involvement on the performance of irrigation, especially in southern Africa. Managing agents, contracted by water users’ associations, have been successful in managing complete schemes or in providing essential services. Divorced from the stranglehold of normal government procedures, managing agents are able to apply private-sector procedures in the provision of efficient, cost-effective and timely services to farmers. Governments, however, must be able to retain the necessary control of policy issues and to monitor the performance of agents in accordance with their contractual obligations.
4.31 Private-sector investment is a most promising source of finance and technical expertise likely to be expanded as the business climate improves in Africa. Capital can be generated from domestic savings or foreign sources. Foreign direct investment, an important source of a package of capital, trade, technology and training, was US$80 billion in developing countries in 1993 and is growing rapidly. The water sector will need to tap this resource increasingly in the future.(4)
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(4)Private-sector endeavours can range from the individual family farm to small NGO projects and through to large-scale corporate investors. Some of the most successful water projects in Africa are the result of private initiatives. With the new, more liberal attitude to the private sector it is possible to devise means to use public-sector finance to promote private-sector initiatives. For example, the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) is a British statutory corporation established in 1948 to help overseas countries develop their economies by investing in new or existing enterprises, concentrating on the private sector. CDC offers long-term loan and risk capital, manages and owns a number of companies and targets the poorest countries. It has more than US$1 billion invested in businesses involving renewable natural resources, and more than one- quarter of its investments are in sub-Saharan Africa. The CDC manages 19 successful businesses in ten African countries that have significant irrigation for crops including sugar, citrus, maize, soybean, macadamia nuts, coffee, tea, dairying, banana, pineapple and groundnuts.
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