PAST AND FUTURE TREND OF IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN THREE CATCHMENTS OF THE WHITE VOLTA SUB-BASIN - Sustainable Irrigation Development in the White Volta Sub-Basin - page 157

Chapter 7
P AST AND F UTURE T REND OF I RRIGATION
D EVELOPMENT IN THREE CATCHMENTS OF THE
W HITE V OLTA SUB - BASIN
7.1 I NTRODUCTION
In sub-Saharan Africa there is great potential for expansion of irrigated
agriculture. The average rate of expansion of the irrigated area over the past
30 years was 2.3 percent per year. Expansion slowed to 1.1% per year during
2000-2003 but has since picked up as a result of renewed investments by
multilateral and bilateral donors and foundations (You et al., 2010). For the
NEPAD and Commission for Africa to achieve the MDG target, irrigated
agriculture will need to grow at an annual rate of about 5% which is
unprecedented.
The achievement of this target requires an assessment of the factors that
have influenced past trends of irrigation development. It also requires
identification of additional interventions needed to accelerate the future
expansion and the potential influence of such interventions. There are
triggers that can influence the upscaling of irrigation development which
need to be harnessed to help achieve irrigation targets. For example, the
rural economy in Sub-Saharan Africa is boosted as smallholders benefit from
the opportunity to produce irrigated vegetables for the growing domestic
market (de Fraiture et al., 2007). Estimates show that by 2030 60% of the
world's people will live in cities (Molden et al., 2007). As a result Sub-
Saharan Africa can take advantage of this trend to trigger the upscaling of
irrigated vegetable production by using rural economies.
A typical example of the upscaling of vegetable irrigation is observed in the
Upper East Region of Ghana and southern parts of Burkina Faso; all in the
White Volta sub-basin. Here, the demand for vegetables in the urban centres
of southern Ghana has triggered the upscaling of irrigation development
during the past two decades (Namara et al., 2010; Namara et al., 2011). It is
interesting to use this positive development to help bring out some of the
strategies that are needed in boosting irrigation development across sub-
Saharan Africa.
Previous chapters have described the various irrigation technologies that
have emerged out of this development and also identified why newly