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Armenia - Irrigation Infrastructure

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Reference ID DDI-MCC-ARM-MPR-IRR-2014-v1
Year 2013 - 2014
Country Armenia
Producer(s) Mathematica Policy Research
Sponsor(s) Millennium Challenge Corporation - MCC -
Metadata PDF Documentation in PDF
Created on Oct 14, 2014
Last modified Sep 14, 2016
Page views 46637
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Overview
Identification
Country
Armenia
Evaluation Title
Irrigation Infrastructure

Evaluation Type
Independent Impact Evaluation
ID Number
DDI-MCC-ARM-MPR-IRR-2014-v1
Version
Version Description
Anonymized dataset for public distribution

Overview
Abstract
This study evaluates irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation in Armenia. The study separately examines the impacts of tertiary canals and other large infrastructure such as main canals and pumping stations. The study also explores complementarities these types of infrastructure have with each other as well as with other activities included in the Armenia compact.

Although a random assignment design is considered the most rigorous evaluation approach and may have been feasible in this context, randomly selecting which tertiary canals would be rehabilitated was not done. Communities had to first apply to be considered for inclusion, and then canals were selected based on other factors, particularly engineering considerations and projected economic rates of return. Instead, the study uses a comparison group design. Under this approach, tertiary canals for which rehabilitation is planned will be matched to other canals sharing similar geography, pre-rehabilitation conditions, and where similar crops are grown. Examining how outcomes change for farmers in the comparison group, whose canals were not rehabilitated, will inform us about how those outcomes would have changed in the absence of the rehabilitation efforts.

Random assignment was also not possible for evaluating the large infrastructure projects. Moreover, there are too few pumping stations, gravity schemes, main canals, and drainage systems to evaluate any of those types of infrastructure separately. Thus, the evaluation uses a matched comparison group design to see whether there are impacts on communities in which any of these types of infrastructure were rehabilitated compared to those in which none was.

Evaluation Methodology
Propensity Score Matching
Units of Analysis
Households, individuals

Kind of Data
Sample survey data [ssd]

Questionnaires
The primary data source will be a household survey tailored to this impact evaluation, the Tertiary Canal Survey. The TCS is modeled closely after the survey used for the Water-to-Market impact evaluation, the Farming Practices Survey (FPS), and was fielded by the same survey team led by AREG. As with the FPS, the key outcomes of interest from the TCS include crops cultivated, crop production, agricultural profit, household income, and poverty. The TCS also features questions about reliability and quality of irrigation water. We conducted two rounds of the TCS.

Geographic Coverage
Infrastructure was rehabilitated throughout rural Armenia.

Topics
TopicVocabularyURI
Agriculture
Infrastructure
Irrigation
Keywords
Irrigation, Canal, WASH
Producers and Sponsors
Primary Investigator(s)
NameAffiliation
Mathematica Policy Research
Funding
NameAbbreviationRole
Millennium Challenge Corporation MCC
Metadata Production
Metadata Produced By
NameAbbreviationRole
Millennium Challenge CorporationMCCMetadata Production
Date Produced
2014-10-07
Metadata Version
Version 1.0 (October 2014)

Metadata ID Number
DDI-MCC-ARM-MPR-IRR-2014-v1
MCC Compact and Program
Compact or Threshold
Armenia
Program
The aim of the Millennium Challenge Corporation's Compact with Armenia ("the Compact"), a five-year agreement signed in March 2006, was to increase household income and reduce poverty in rural Armenia through improved performance of the country's agricultural sector. The Compact, managed by the Millennium Challenge Account with Armenia (MCA-Armenia), was originally designed to include two projects: (1) the Rehabilitation of Rural Roads Project and (2) the Irrigated Agriculture Project. The Irrigated Agriculture Project comprised two complementary activities, the rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure ("the Irrigation Infrastructure Activity", hereafter Infrastructure Activity) and the provision of training, technical assistance, and access to credit for farms and agribusiness ("the Water-to-Market Activity," hereafter WtM Activity). The Infrastructure Activity was intended to provide adequate and timely delivery of water to crop fields, and the WtM Activity was intended to help farmers harness these improvements to introduce new technologies and foster a shift to HVA crop production, both of which would improve household income. The WtM Activity also included technical support to regional water management organizations through the Institutional Strengthening Subactivity (ISSA), with the aim of creating more efficient and consistent irrigation supply and sustaining the investments in irrigation infrastructure. ISSA also included an irrigation policy reform component whereby a reform strategy was developed through a participatory process with stakeholders. By improving living standards among rural residents, these investments were designed to lead to future economic growth in rural areas and throughout the country.
MCC Sector
Agriculture and Irrigation (Ag & Irr)
Program Logic
The Infrastructure Activity was implemented by the Irrigation Project Implementation Unit of the World Bank and rehabilitated several different types of irrigation infrastructure, including main canals, the Ararat Valley drainage system, pumping stations, gravity schemes, and tertiary canals. Prior to rehabilitation, water user associations (WUAs), the regional organizations that manage the distribution of and payment for irrigation water in Armenia, estimated that only 25-40 percent of irrigation water actually reached the fields in most of the affected villages. The Compact provided funding of $121 million to rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure schemes across Armenia. The short-term goals of the Infrastructure Activity were to improve the efficiency of irrigation and to increase the area of irrigated land by more than 40 percent. With access to a more consistent supply of irrigation water, farmers could increase their agricultural production.
Program Participants
Over 100 communities selected for rehabilitation