Smallholder Irrigation as a Poverty Alleviation Tool in Sub-Saharan Africa

SummaryPromotion of smallholder irrigation is cited as a strategy for enhancing income generation and food security for sub-Saharan Africa’s poor farmers, but what makes this technology a successful poverty alleviation tool? In the short run, the technology should pave the way for increased consumption, asset accumulation, and reduced persistent poverty among users. Over the longer run, it should lead to institutional feedbacks that support sustained economic development and nutritional improvements. Our conceptual model and review of case studies reveal the importance of three sub-components of irrigation technology—access, distribution, and use—and the ways in which the design of the technology itself can either bridge, or succumb to, institutional gaps. These critical features are illustrated in an experimental evaluation of a solar-powered drip irrigation project in rural northern Benin, which provides a controlled study of technology impacts in the Sudano-Sahel. The combined evidence highlights the technical and institutional requirements for project success and points to two important areas of research in the scale-up of any small-scale irrigation strategy: the risk behavior of water users, and the evolution of institutions that either support or obstruct project replication over space and time.