REVIEW OF IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - Sustainable Irrigation Development in the White Volta Sub-Basin - page 44

Eventually, the advent of affordable drilling and pumping technologies in
India and Pakistan in the mid-1980s, which led to rapid development of
shallow tubewells and conjunctive use of surface and groundwater (Shah,
1993; Palmer and Mandal, 1987), also impacted on irrigation development in
sub-Saharan Africa. Simultaneous with the decline in public and
international donor funding for large-scale irrigation, the 1990s saw a
substantial rise in private development of groundwater irrigation based on
the availability of cheap drilling and pumping technologies in sub-Saharan
Africa. This irrigation development has spread in rural, urban and peri-
urban areas in response to higher demand from growing cities for fresh fruits
and vegetables (FAO, 2005).
Various studies conducted on the scale of development of irrigation in Sub-
Saharan Africa give different figures of irrigated areas. According to the FAO
(1995a) the sub-region of sub-Saharan Africa has an irrigation potential of
about 42Mha with only about 5.6Mha actually irrigated in 1995. More recent
data from FAO shows that in 2003 the actual irrigated area in sub-Saharan
Africa had increased to 6.6Mha, an increase of 1Mha in 8 years (FAO, 2005).
3.3 T YPES OF I RRIGATION D EVELOPMENT IN SUB -
S AHARAN A FRICA
The dynamic nature of global and government development policies, the
variety in irrigation project designs and implementation as well as the wide
range of investors in irrigation development all over the world have resulted
in two main driving forces behind irrigation developmen, namely
government-led and non-government-led (Jones, 1995; Abenerthy et al., 2000;
Shah, 1993). The sources of investment also result in two additional
categories of irrigation being the scale of the irrigation and the management
system employed. The scale of irrigation development could be large,
medium, small or micro. A lot of literature have described irrigation
development along such scales (Faurès et al., 2007; Albinson and Perry, 2002;
Awulachew et al., 2005). In terms of management the literature distinguishes
collective management, company (public/private) management, intermediate
arrangement (eg. outgrower schemes for plantations) and individual
management (Aw and Diemer, 2005; Meinzen-Dick, 1996 and Penning de
Vries et al., 2005). It is important to note that usually the specific
management arrangements are determined by those who make the
investments.
Based on the objectives of achieving long-term success of irrigation
development the types of irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa will