Water

This guide is designed to help USAID agriculture officers better incorporate gender issues into solicitations and their technical evaluation. It aims to assist in the application of ADS requirements for gender integration into new and existing agricultural programs. 

Role of River Basin Organizations. River basin organizations are formed based on the understanding that water resources affect everyone, regardless of village, district, or national political boundaries. RBOs may represent diverse institutions, including government, agriculture, industry, and civil society groups, acting for their mutual benefit. This typically includes establishing a framework for water allocation through plans, policies, national legislation, and other enforceable agreements. RBOs also coordinate and communicate with the stakeholders in a given watershed. The RBO may have a distinct goal, such as energy generation or environmental protection, but these competing needs must be balanced to ensure the sustainable and equitable use of water resources. RBOs work towards these outcomes by mediating disputes through a multi-stakeholder process, investing in water storage and data collection infrastructure, and educating stakeholders.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

Different Uses, Different Scales. Africa contains countless basins which together supply water for the domestic, livelihood, and irrigation needs of the continent’s inhabitants. The water resources of these basins are further used to generate much of the continent’s electricity, satisfy environmental water needs, and provide ecosystem services. Issues related to balancing these diverse water uses are a function of scale. On a large scale, balancing multiple water uses often involves enabling agricultural production in different parts of a basin and striking a balance among agriculture, hydropower, and environmental water uses. At a more local level, use of water may need to be balanced between agriculture and domestic water use.

Balancing Multiple Uses and Climate Change. Balancing multiple uses in the face of climate change will require using stakeholder processes to arrive at strategies that cope with variability in water availability. These processes would benefit from clear and accessible information on tradeoffs associated with different allocations of water to different uses. Further, risks and opportunities associated with predicted changes in rainfall amounts and distributions should be evaluated.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

Production of high valued and niche crops for domestic and export markets can be important sources of income for farmers operating as outgrowers, contract farmers, or as individuals. Commercial agriculture, especially as conducted by smallholders, will require access to a predictable water supply to ensure success, particularly as climate change scenarios predict increased variability in rainfall in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Irrigation, either through supplemental or full-scale systems, will be an important component of this success. Smallholders engaged in rainfed agriculture may be able to access irrigation infrastructure through private investment associated with commercial outgrower opportunities. Currently only 6% of cultivated land in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated (Ngigi 2009, 189).

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

Rainfall variability has adverse impacts on agriculture production. Rainfall variability experienced in sub-Saharan Africa already has detrimental impacts on crop production. Indeed, too much or too little water due to erratic rainfall and insufficient storage capacity wields adverse impacts on food security. Climate change is widely predicted to increase rainfall variability in sub-Saharan Africa, with the effect of increasing droughts and floods. For many millions of smallholder farmers, reliable access to water is the difference between plenty and famine. It is therefore essential to find ways to cope with existing and increasing variability in rainfall, as well as other effects of climate change like changes in temperature patterns.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

Achieving water-smart agriculture in the context of climate change requires improved management of water resources from the national level down to the local level. Budget limitations often restrict efforts to strengthen institutions and gather high quality data needed to inform management decisions. Local water users and improved technologies can play greater roles in water management through improvements in data collection, analysis, and forecasting.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

The science of agro-ecology provides a useful framework for understanding the complexity of ecosystems and how they can more efficiently support agriculture. Using agro-ecological principles and processes is a more sustainable approach to improving crop productivity. Agro-ecology uses natural systems such as nutrient cycling and natural predation to support growth and control pests. Agro-ecosystems work with and incorporate the surrounding environment and ecosystems rather than work against them.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

A number of factors threaten agricultural productivity for African farmers. Many of Africa’s soils are highly weathered and low in nutrients and soil carbon. As a result, they have limited capacity to retain the nutrients and soil moisture necessary for high yields. Climate variability and change pose additional challenges for producers. Some farmers are experiencing more frequent and intense storms that cause erosion, rainwater run-off, and crop damage, while others experience more frequent droughts. At the same time rainfall patterns are becoming more variable with delayed onset and length of the rainy season, and in some cases, drought. These unpredictable patterns make it difficult for farmers to plan and manage their crops. Fortunately, there are a range of management practices and technologies that can be applied on-farm to increase agricultural resilience to climate stress.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.

Pastoralism is considered the most economically, culturally, and socially appropriate strategy for maintaining the well-being of communities in dryland landscapes, because it can simultaneously provide secure livelihoods, conserve ecosystem services, promote wildlife conservation and honor cultural values and traditions. At the same time, future agronomic potential and economic viability of these systems will be directly dependent on the sustainable management of the natural resource base that is their foundation. To cope with fluctuating forage and water availability resulting from climatic variability, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists have developed a variety of survival strategies largely based on indigenous social safety nets.

This factsheet was developed as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop. The workshop focused on approaches for effective program design of climate-smart agriculture in support of both country and regional CAADP investment plans. Climate-smart agriculture incorporates practices that increase productivity, efficiency, resilience, adaptive capacity, and mitigation potential of production systems.