The CAADP Pillar I Framework

2005). Likewise, at the large-scale Muda Irrigation Project in Malaysia, for every dollar of incomegenerated directly by the project, another 83 cents was generated in the form of indirect ordownstream income benefits (Bell et al., 1982, cited in Rosegrant et al., 2005). To sum up, evenmoderately successful investment in agricultural water development can treble per capita farmincomes and provide additional wage employment of approximately 45 labour-days/ha, which in itselfhas a significant impact on income poverty reduction. Every dollar of income so generated likelygenerates at least US$ 0.40-0.50 in the form of indirect income benefits. This is so even forinvestment projects that perform only modestly.Agricultural water development could also be one of the better alternatives for poverty reduction.Clearly, investment in agricultural water development can have substantial impacts on incomepoverty reduction. But is it the best of the available alternatives? As discussed, when up to 90percent of rural people are poor and rely on agriculture for their primary livelihoods, significant growthin agriculture is a necessary step toward poverty reduction. Although improved primary education,better health services, clean water and better roads are all important and appropriate investments,they are not sufficient by themselves to generate increased rural incomes (Brooks, 2005). Sinceagricultural growth is so important for poverty reduction, agricultural water development could beeven more so, since the potential income growth per hectare from successful investment inagricultural water is greater than that from dry-land agriculture. Although data is not available toprove the validity of this assumption for Sub-Saharan Africa, differences in the rate of growth ofaverage agricultural output per unit of crop area were important in explaining cross-state differencesin rural poverty reduction in India, for example, where the impact of irrigation in reducing poverty wasfound to be even higher than that of rural literacy and significantly higher than roads, fertilizers andmodern varieties (Datt et al., 1997, cited in Rosegrant et al., 2005). If this is the case elsewhere,there would appear to be no reason why the same should not apply in Sub-Saharan Africa.Furthermore, the income poverty reduction impacts of agricultural water investment can inducepositive impacts on other MDGs. The income poverty reduction impacts of agricultural waterinvestment induce important positive impacts on other MDGs, including reduced hunger, improvedaccess to primary education, safe drinking water and basic sanitation, as well as a contribution toimproved maternal health, reduced child mortality and generally better nutrition and health (IFAD,2007).Targeting the poor and womenSome irrigation project designs of the past two decades have attempted —usually unsuccessfully —to target the poorest. Defining extreme poverty in terms of the MDG income poverty level has nowsimplified targeting. Where targeting the poorest socio-economic stratum has been specified in thepast, it has rarely been implemented as planned (IFAD, 2007). Either the technology wasinappropriate for the poorest and the targeting methodology was weak or implementation staff hadnot fully understood the intentions, or found it socially infeasible to carry out because of the sociogeographicaland political implications of excluding the less poor. Defining extreme poverty in termsof per capita income of less than $1/day has simplified targeting, as most rural people in the regionhave to subsist on less than this amount. For example, in the Madagascar, Tanzania and Zimbabwecases cited above, no attempt was made at targeting, yet it is clear that it was mainly the extremepoor who benefited because average without-project farm incomes ranged from only $0.03 to$0.13/day.Agricultural water investments, even without targeting, will therefore mainly benefit the extreme poor,although in a range of different ways. It is likely that the vast majority of the rural populations of Sub-Saharan Africa fall into the category of ‗extreme poor‘ and almost any agricultural water developmentbased on principles of profitability and equity will benefit a majority of poor people. However, differentpoor people may benefit in different ways: (i) from direct participation as producers; (ii) directly fromagricultural wage employment; (iii) from access to crop by products for livestock; and (iv) fromemployment in upstream and downstream economic activities generated by the investment.Moreover, it is usually the poorest stratum that benefits most from the additional wage employmentopportunities generated by investment in agricultural water (IFAD, 2007).There are numerous ways in which the poverty reduction impacts of investments can be enhanced.The first step is to understand the socio-economic profile of the communities, how they derive their62