Release number IFAD/08/08

Rome, 30 January 2008 – A new project in Burkina Faso will help people from about 20,000 poor rural households intensify and diversify crop production through new and newly refurbished and innovative small-scale irrigation schemes.

The US$19 million Small-scale Irrigation and Water Management Project will be partly financed by a US$11 million loan and a US$400,000 grant from IFAD. The loan agreement was signed today by Léné Sebgo, Burkina Faso’s Director-General for Cooperation, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD’s Vice-President.

The OPEC Fund for International Development will provide
US$5 million in cofinancing. The Government of Burkina Faso will contribute US$2.6 million, and project participants a further US$50,000.

The project will be carried out in six provinces in the southwestern part of the country: Bougouriba, Ioba, Noumbiel and Poni in the South West region, Sissili in the Centre West region, and Nahouri in the Centre South region. As these provinces border Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana – two of West Africa’s most vibrant economies – the project is expected to enhance national and cross-border trade.

“There is a new political will to boost small-scale irrigated agriculture in the country,” said Norman Messer, IFAD country programme manager for Burkina Faso. “New, affordable micro-irrigation technologies and improved roads to get products to markets will encourage farmers to take advantage of the emerging opportunities for increasing incomes in the region.”

The project will begin with an in-depth information, education and communication campaign delivered through a variety of formal and informal channels. This will strengthen the capacity of participants to take part in project activities that help them instensify and diversify crops under irrigation and in inland valley bottoms. The project will support marketing activities to increase incomes and food security.

It will also work in communities affected by conflict. The six provinces have received an influx of migrants. As a result, there is now less and less land for more and more people. Irrigation is one way of producing higher-value crops on smaller plots of land, thereby descreasing population pressure and potential conflict.

“By supporting negotiations for access to land and water before undertaking physical investments, the project will give precedence to ‘software’ over ‘hardware,’” Messer said. “This will promote local empowerment, ownership and sustainability. At the same time, activities will be geared to increasing the productivity of people who have had limited access to land, and will focus particularly on women and young people.”

Following negotiations over land and water access, the project will build 250 hectares of vegetable gardens equipped with low-pressure micro-irrigation technology. It will also refurbish 200 hectares of gravity-based, small-scale irrigation sites downstream from dams and construct small community-based irrigation sites and dams for agricultural and pastoral use. Estimates show that by the fifth year of the project, yearly agricultural production could increase by 4,700 tonnes of rice, 1,800 tonnes of vegetables, 314 tonnes of maize, and 1,700 tonnes of bananas.

With this project, IFAD has financed 11 programmes and projects in Burkina Faso, investing a total of more than US$140 million.

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IFAD was created 30 years ago to tackle rural poverty, a key consequence of the droughts and famines of the early 1970s. Since 1978, IFAD has invested almost US$10 billion in low-interest loans and grants that have helped more than 300 million very poor rural women and men increase their incomes and provide for their families.

IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is a global partnership of OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. Today, IFAD supports more than 200 programmes and projects in 84 developing countries.