The Importance Of Failure Of Irrigation Development In Africa

The feasibility studies conducted by the World Bank of a proposed irrigation project often gives much emphasis to physical engineering and technical aspects of the local areas, since irrigation projects are superficially considered to be a technical development. As a result, most of the important decisions and project planning are solely made by the technical experts, neglecting the socio-cultural context of the locale (Cernea 1991, p. 43). To illustrate, in the sub-Saharan Africa the rate of failure of irrigation development projects have been significantly high for three decades, from 1970-1990 (Djagba et al. 2013, p. 334). The factors identified as the causes of the failure of these irrigation developments are: i) insufficient participation …show more content…
Therefore, post construction assistance and provision to supporting services such as credit, savings and agricultural extension, for example training, education and technical support, is a significant factor for the success of irrigation projects in most of Africa (Webb 1991; Ngigi 2000 and Groenfeldt 2005). Several case studies have shown irrigation project failures are related to lack of post construction assistance to the local people. For example, Webb (1991, p. 346) points out that the project in the Gambia was unsuccessful due to the fact that there was no training or extension programme set up to educate the farmers about the maintenance of the irrigation pump when it frequently broke-down in the early years of the project despite its guaranteed working