Revisiting Dominant Notions: A Review of Costs, Performance and Institutions of Small Reservoirs in Sub-Saharan Africa
Updated - Tuesday 21 August 2012
Year of publication: 2012
Thousands of small reservoirs dot the rural landscape of sub-Saharan Africa. They have long attracted development and academic interest on the grounds that they make vulnerable and generally little-developed regions ‘drought-proof’ and allow for smallscale community-based irrigation. On the other hand, concerns have long been raised over the high construction costs, poor irrigation performance, low managerial capacity on the part of communities and little sustainability of investments that seem to be locked in a build-neglect-rebuild syndrome. A common response to these shortcomings has been to improve project designs and organize farmers in Water User Associations (WUAs) to better manage their common resources.
This report, however, calls for a different approach based on a renewed understanding of small reservoirs. Drawing information from a crosscountry comparative analysis conducted in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia and Zambia, this report argues that high costs are not inherent to the technology but are caused by major shortcomings in the planning and implementation processes. Non-standard and corrupt practices throughout the project cycle add to the costs and affect the quality of construction and hence the performance, and the farmers’ ability to maintain the reservoir in a workable state.
The performance of small reservoirs needs to be assessed against this backdrop of multiple uses/users. An integrative approach, both in spatial (the watershed) and temporal (the project cycle) terms, holds the promise of sustainable management of small reservoirs.
Par : Jean-Philippe Venot, Charlotte de Fraiture and Ernest NtiAcheampong
Contact :publications@cgiar.org
Link: A free copy of this publication can be downloaded at:
