Pro-poor Intervention Strategies in Irrigated Agriculture in Asia

Author: Intizar Hussain

Key Messages

It is generally perceived that there is a trade-off between equity/poverty and productivity. This study suggests that this is not necessarily so. High level of inequities in land and water are bad for both productivity and poverty. Irrigation has larger poverty reducing impacts where land and water are more equitably distributed.

• Irrigation benefits are often seen mainly in terms of crop productivity improvements. However, the study suggests that crop productivity is only one of many direct and indirect benefits of irrigation (such as benefits related to employment, wages, prices, consumption, food security, incomes, benefits from multiple uses of water, irrigation induced investments in agricultural and nonagriucltural sectors, benefits from canal-water-induced groundwater development and recharge) classified as type 1-5 in this study. Indirect benefits of irrigation can be larger than direct benefits when these other benefits are also accounted for.
• It is often assumed that targeting of poverty and support to the poor in canal systems is difficult. The study findings suggest that poverty varies significantly across systems and locations within systems, particularly in South Asian systems, and geographical targeting of poverty across and within systems can be done.
• Low irrigation service charge policy is often justified on account of poverty and is assumed to benefit the poor. The study suggests that in settings with greater inequities in land and water distribution, as in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, low level of irrigation charge does not necessarily benefit the poor, and it could be disadvantageous to the poor where low charges lead to under-spending on O&M works and the system performance suffers. Further, application of a single level of irrigation service charge across areas and systems could lead to situations where the poor end up subsidizing the non-poor.

The study suggests that:

• Irrigation interventions can be designed to redistribute benefits in favor of the poor.
• For irrigation investments to be pro-poor, the criteria should be not only hectares developed/ rehabilitated, but also the number of households/farms/persons benefited; and not only the aggregate productivity benefits but also the various types of benefits and the share of the poor in total benefits.
• In making new investments (either in new development or improvements of existing systems) and in designing irrigation interventions and irrigation impact assessments/evaluations, it is important to incorporate a) poverty alleviation criteria as defined in this study (i.e., strongly pro-poor, pro-poor, neutral or anti-poor), b) generic typology of direct and indirect benefits and dis-benefits (type 1 to 5), c) typology of beneficiaries/affectees, and d) a tri-level framework (micro, meso and macro levels) for identifying constraints and opportunities for enhancing benefits of investments/interventions to the poor.

In addition to offering a comprehensive framework for identifying and designing pro-poor interventions, the study provides a menu of pro-poor intervention options and a detailed set of specific actions and guidelines.

Link: Download the document