Independent Development Evaluation at the African Development Bank (the Bank) has conducted a cluster evaluation of nine agricultural water management projects that were approved and implemented by the Bank in seven African countries from 2005 to 2016. With a total net approval amount of UA 150 million, the projects sought to improve irrigation, drainage and flood control, water conservation and storage, and on-farm water management. The agriculture and rural development sector has been a priority for the Bank in supporting livelihoods. As stipulated in the Bank’s 2016-2025 Feed Africa Strategy, the Bank’s interventions in agricultural water management aim to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, increase rural revenues, and enhance food security.
This evaluation aims to inform the design and implementation of the Bank’s future agricultural water management interventions in the context of the Feed Africa Strategy. Its main objectives were to assess the Bank-financed agricultural water management results from 2005 to 2016 (examining relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability); to analyze performance in the management of those interventions; and to draw lessons to improve future interventions.
The theory of change of the agricultural water management project cluster was reconstructed to provide the basis for assessing the results for both individual projects and the cluster as a whole. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from multiple sources including desk review, project site visits, and interviews with key stakeholders. Each category of data was analyzed using mainly descriptive statistics and a stakeholder feedback workshop was held in each of the seven countries to validate the collected data.
The evaluation found that the Bank’s interventions were relevant and achieved positive results, but had design weaknesses which led to outputs and outcomes being lower than expected. The projects were efficient economically, but suffered from implementation delays. Their benefits are somewhat likely to be sustained. The evaluation distilled five key lessons:
- Agricultural water management intervention design, based on an integrated framework that considers trade and market development changes and contexts, matters for the achievement of desired development results;
- Technical solutions and incentives that encourage participation and partnership are essential for improvement of project quality, profitability, ownership and sustainability of development results;
- Agricultural water management projects require careful and realistic planning, design, and implementation that include adequacy of the scope in terms of time required, the skills needed for support, and the scale of activities to achieve the project objectives;
- A credible cost-recovery strategy and sound governance improvements are key for ensuring accountability for efficient service delivery by the service provider;
- To support project development effectiveness and capture lessons to inform the replication and scaling-up of innovative solutions, it is important to have quality and functional monitoring and evaluation systems.
Evaluation task manager: Ms. Mabarakissa Diomande
