Niger:Pilot Private Irrigation

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The Pilot Private Irrigation Promotion Project is a pilot operation designed to: test and evaluate local capacity building through private sector development in the irrigation sector; test and disseminate improved low-cost technologies for small-scale private irrigation; and test procedures that will enable the public sector to commission projects through delegated contract management. The project will finance: a) the package of services to be provided directly by the private irrigation association (ANPIP), including: carrying out promotional campaigns in support of the Government's private irrigation development strategy; facilitating small farmers' access to the legal and administrative procedures for obtaining tenurial security; providing assistance, upon demand, in preparation of bankable irrigation projects and in establishing economic interest groups; and overall project implementation; and b) the package of training and technical assistance services which ANPIP will contract out to consulting firms, including: testing and evaluating small-scale mechanized and manual irrigation technologies; promoting grassroots savings and credit schemes; and project-related evaluation studies and the periodic audits. In addition, the project will finance the goods and part of the operating costs for the monitoring of the replenishable shallow aquifers and erosion control works, which will be conducted by the Ministry of Hydraulics and the Environment.