Burkina Faso - Diversified Agriculture and Water Management

Burkina Faso Diversified Agriculture and Water Management

Évaluation du Projet de Développement Agricole au Burkina Faso

Independent Performance Evaluation

ID Number DDI-MCC-BFA-MPR-ADP-2019-v1

Topic	Vocabulary	URI
Agriculture and Irrigation	MCC Sector

Burkina Faso, Agriculture Development Project, Agriculture and Irrigation, Di perimeter, Di Lottery Randomized Control Trial (RCT), Burkina Faso Compact, Farmer training, Water user associations, Irrigation

Name	Abbreviation	Role
Millennium Challenge Corporation	MCC	Review of Metadata
Mathematica		Metadata Producer

Version 1.0

DDI-MCC-BFA-MPR-ADP-2019-v1Agriculture Development Project Compact in Burkina FasoWith the goal of reducing poverty through economic growth, MCC entered into a five-year, $480.9 million compact with the Government of Burkina Faso in July 2009. The compact attempted to reach this goal by investing in four areas: (1) agriculture, (2) land tenure, (3) roads, and (4) girls' education. Accordingly, the compact was comprised of four separate projects: (1) the ADP, which aimed to improve agricultural outcomes; (2) the Rural Land Governance Project, which aimed to improve land tenure security and land management in rural areas of Burkina Faso and to increase efficiency of land institutions and access to them; (3) the Roads Project, which aimed to enhance access to markets through investments in the road network; and (4) the BRIGHT 2 Schools Project, which aimed to increase school enrollment and retention rates among girls. By the end of the compact, over 98 percent of anticipated funds had been disbursed. The ADP consisted of the WMI and DA activities, which Mathematica will evaluate, as well as the ARF activity, which supported a lending facility for farmers and small- and medium-sized rural agricultural enterprises and aimed to improve the capacity of financial institutions and increase access to credit. However, due to low take-up of ARF services and limited progress toward the project's targets, MCC terminated the activity in July 2013 (MCC 2016c).Agriculture and Irrigation (Ag & Irr)The MCC program was designed to address low agricultural productivity in farming and livestock rearing as well as low incomes from sales of agricultural production in the Sourou Valley and the Comoé Basin, the two primary project areas. These two areas, near the country's borders with Mali and Côte d'Ivoire, respectively, are both predominantly rural areas located outside provincial capitals. Throughout the Sourou Valley, agriculture is the principal activity for over 90 percent of the population, the majority of whom also keep livestock. Cereals, legumes, and rice are the main crops, with rice being harvested primarily by female farmers (MCC 2008b). Before the construction of the Di perimeter, irrigated perimeters in the Sourou Valley covered about 3,817 hectares, primarily near Niassan. With the exception of rice, farmers in the Comoé Basin grow largely the same crops; however, some farmers are also involved in livestock, fishery, and forestry. Agriculture in the area has traditionally been rain-fed, but government programs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) began introducing irrigation infrastructure and other new technologies in the late 1990s (MCC 2008a). Underlying the logic for the ADP is the need for multiple approaches to supporting agriculture at each step of the value chain, including land tenure, irrigation, animal health, farming and livestock techniques, and market opportunities. The various components of the ADP were designed to work together to address the varied challenges facing farmers in Burkina Faso.Persons affected by the project (PAPs) are individuals who have been displaced as a result of the construction of the Di perimeter and who were compensated with irrigated land. Other program participants are all households in disadvantaged neighboring communities that were not PAPs, called non-PAPs from disadvantaged villages, and Di Lottery beneficiaries.