FARMER-LED IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT, ETHIOPIA
Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) enables small-scale farmers to become more productive and profitable while improving their resilience to climate change. In Ethiopia, 2030 WRG, working with the International Water Management Institute, has supported dialogue for an Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture program—the Food Systems Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa, which is moving into the implementation phase. The program aligns with World Bank operations on food security and climate resilience and has the World Bank as the main financier.
Overall, the Ethiopian program plans to develop 35,000 hectares of small-scale irrigated farmland, of which 12,000 hectares will be rehabilitated, 7,000 hectares will be new and, 16,000 hectares will involve FLID. The FLID portion is expected to benefit over 60,000 households, including women farmers.
The government is enabling the program by implementing agricultural and rural development policy reforms, while 2030 WRG’s role will be to help operationalize farmer-led small and micro-scale irrigation development, and to leverage private sector linkages for technology, farmers’ access to finance, and access to markets. 2030 WRG in Ethiopia has demonstrable depth of experience in leveraging private sector financing and service delivery both in this work on FLID and in previous work to implement decentralized sanitation in Ethiopia.
A concept note was prepared in FY23, and the next step is to discuss institutional arrangements, 2030 WRG’s role, and the future direction the project may take. In parallel, 2030 WRG has contributed to the first implementation support mission for this project, and participated in meetings with federal-level project implementation bodies from the Ministry of Agriculture and local implementors from regional states.