Implementation period:  2007/2008

Donor:  CGIAR Challenge Programme/ International Water Management Institute

Brief Description of Project Objectives and Achievements

 

The ultimate goal is to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods in the White Volta Basin through sustainable and productive shallow water irrigation. Unreliable water supply to sustain rural livelihoods in predominantly agrarian poor and vulnerable communities of the White Volta Basin called for alternate approaches of water management to sustain agricultural production. Hand-dug swallow wells use by smallholder-farmers for small-scale irrigation has gained in popularity in the region.

The project therefore aims to assess and document the characteristics and current spatial extent of shallow groundwater use, including analysis of the socio-economic drivers as well as bio-physical processes involved in groundwater-irrigated plot farming systems. The project will also examine the socio-economic, institutional and bio-physical constraints, environmental impacts and potential for sustainable expansion