Irrigation Development Project

closed

The development objective of the Irrigation Development Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to improve the performance of the irrigation systems and the irrigation institutions to support agricultural producers in the project areas. There are three components to the project. The first component is infrastructure investment. This component will finance the implementation of irrigation and drainage infrastructure rehabilitation of about 12 Subprojects (SPs), of which 6 each located in Republika Srpska (RS) and Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH). The SPs are selected from the long-lists of potential sub-projects that were prepared by the two ministries. In FBiH this was based notably on proposals submitted by the cantons. The SPs are all located in existing agricultural land that in the past has been supplied with irrigation. In some of the SPs, the first priority will be on restoring or improving drainage. The main activities include rehabilitation with some construction, reconstruction, upgrading and modernization (only for the public/main and semi-public/secondary parts of the irrigation system, hence not on-farm), and also the introduction of new technologies that promote water use efficiency such as drip irrigation and low-pressure sprinklers. The second component is irrigation modernization. This component will support the capacity strengthening of the Ministries and Water Agencies in RS and FBiH, and participating municipalities and cantons in addressing: the new sector policies, and establishing and strengthening Water User Associations (WUAs). It will assist in developing Operations and Maintenance (O and M) arrangements for the introduced infrastructure/facilities, the fee determination, fee collection and management, and related water resources and irrigation management. The third component is project implementation support. This will cover costs of project management including Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E), safeguards, audits, Management Information System (MIS), the baseline and (final) impact assessment surveys, procurement and Financial Management (FM) training, and office and mobile equipment.