Presentation at the Dupont Forum. The panel will look at how investing in technologies is insufficient on its own to enact effective agricultural water management, and will explore the importance of accompanying context appropriate policies and institutions.

1. Photo Credit Goes Here
Photo credit: 2006 Freweni Gebre Mariam/IFPRI
Simone Passarelli, International Food Policy Research Institute
December 4th, 2015, Dupont Summit, Washington, D.C.
Tapping Irrigation’s Potential for Women’s
Empowerment: Findings from Ethiopia and Tanzania

2. U.S. GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

3. PRESENTATION
• Gender-irrigation pathways
• Discussion of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index (WEAI) used for this study
• Findings from Ethiopia
• Findings from Tanzania
• Conclusions and next steps

4. GENDER-IRRIGATION LINKAGES
• There are five main pathways by which we hypothesize
gender and irrigation are linked:
– Production: Improved maternal and child nutrition through
increased diversity and quantity foods
– Income: Improved maternal and child nutrition and/or
increased household incomes
– Water Supply: Improved environmental conditions for better
maternal and child health outcomes; reduced time spent
collecting water
– Empowerment: Improved income generation and decision-
making power for women
– Health Risks: Reduced health and/or nutritional status
through waterborne diseases, pollution/contamination of
water sources and environmental conditions
See Domenech, 2015 paper in Global Food Security
Photo Source: IWMI Flikr

5. Potential Pathways through which Irrigation Influences
Nutrition and Health Outcomes and Women’s
Empowerment
Source: Domenech 2015

6. 2005-6
Jan Feb Mar April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
Height-for-Age Z-Scores of
children under 3 in India
NFHS Data
Lokshin and Radyakin 2012
Issue of Seasonality and Climate Change: Potential for irrigation
to address these challenges
0.2 is the median
impact of
complementary
feeding
interventions

7. Irrigated Agricultural Production and Gender
• Improvements in production through irrigation may
have positive impacts on women through improved
health status of themselves and their children
• Impact of irrigation on production outcomes
depends on who adopts and for what purpose
– Gender differences in crop choices: men may plant cash
crops while women may focus on homestead
gardens/consumption crops
– Cash crops have potential nutrition linkages through income
effect
– Direct potential for irrigated homestead garden production
to improve nutrition outcomes (Olney et al. 2009; Iannotti et
al. 2009)
The role of gender is highly contextual
Photo Source: IWMI, Ethiopia

8. Improved Water Supply and Gender
• Irrigation water may be used for other purposes
such as drinking, washing, bathing or other
productive purposes (e.g. livestock watering,
aquaculture)
• Multiple uses of irrigation water may be unplanned
or by design (van Koppen et al. 2009)
• Greater water for domestic purposes as a result of
irrigation resulted in lower diarrhea and stunting in
Pakistan (Van der Hoel et al. 2002)
• Time savings from water collection; women can
spend up to 3 hours per day on water collection
depending on context (James 2002)
• Water, sanitation and hygiene may play a significant
role in chronic undernutrition (Humphrey 2009)
*The extent to which women are involved in the design
of irrigation systems may encourage more multiple uses
of irrigation water

9. Health Risks Pathway
• Increased risk of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and
dengue
– Microdam construction in Ethiopia led to more malaria
(Ghebreyesus et al. 1999; Ersado 2005)
– Ijumba and Lindsay (2001) find irrigation does not increase
malaria, except in areas of unstable transmission
– Relationship depends on many factors: socioeconomic status,
vector control programs, presence of cattle
• Negative health outcomes from increased pollution (especially
pesticides)
– Clarke et al. 1997 found greater symptoms of headache, blurred
vision, nausea/vomiting among irrigation workers in Ghana
*Any gender-differentiated outcomes depend on gender
distribution of labor

10. ABOUT THE ILSSI PROJECT
• The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small-
Scale Irrigation, a project of the U.S.
Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, is a five-
year project in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania
aimed at benefiting the region’s farmers by
improving effective use of scarce water supplies
through interventions in small-scale irrigation
• Activities include field interventions with water
management technologies, capacity building,
research on irrigation-nutrition-gender linkages,
and provision of data and analysis of empirical
models of irrigation impacts (IDSS)

11. THE ILSSI SURVEY
• IFPRI’s activities include collection of survey data
in all three countries, as well as analysis of
irrigation linkages with gender, nutrition and
health
• IFPRI is conducting household surveys in Ethiopia,
Tanzania and Ghana at the baseline and endline of
the ILSSI project
• Topics of the survey include:
– Crop & livestock inputs, production and practices
– Household and women’s dietary diversity
– Child health, diet, feeding and anthropometry
– Household shocks, assets, credit
– Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index
(WEAI)

12. THE WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN
AGRICULTURE INDEX
• The WEAI measures the
empowerment, agency and
inclusion of women in the
agriculture sector using the 5
domains of empowerment
(5DE) to the right and the
Gender Parity Index
• Both of these scores are
weighted and aggregated to
create the WEAI
• WEAI is on a scale from zero to
one, with higher values = greater
empowerment

13. Initial WEAI Results from Ethiopia and Tanzania
WEAI Irrigators
Gender
Parity Index
Non-
irrigators
Gender
Parity
Index
Contributors to
disempowerment
Ethiopia 0.82 .9 0.85 .91
• Group membership
• Leisure time
• Speaking in public
• Credit access
• Control over use of income
Tanzania 0.88 .96 0.86 .92
• Group membership
• Credit access
• Leisure time
• Speaking in public
• Autonomy in production

14. HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY AND
NUTRITION
Ethiopia Tanzania
Non-
irrigators
n=185
Irrigators
n=284
p-value of
two-sided
ttest
Non-
irrigators
n=224
Irrigators
n=227
p-value of
two-sided
ttest
Mean Mean Mean Mean
Household food
insecurity
access scale
5.78 4.04 0.000 3.92 2.58 0.0004
Female dietary
diversity score
3.69 3.58 0.293 3.71 4.20 0.0010
Household
dietary diversity
5.69 6.06 0.002 4.88 5.63 0.0002

15. IRRIGATION, GENDER AND
DECISIONMAKING IN ETHIOPIA
Major decision maker on plot Is the plot irrigated?
Yes No
Husband 27% 32%
Wife 6% 5%
Joint Husband and Wife 60% 48%
Wife and adult children 2% 2%
Husband and brothers 1% 1%
Husband and tenant 3% 10%
Total 98% 98%
Total irrigated plots in sample = 23%

16. CROP CHOICE AND DECISION MAKING IN ETHIOPIA
Plot Decision-Making for Irrigators Plot Decision-Making for Non-Irrigators
Starch Pulse Veget. Fruit
Cash
crop,
ined. Total Starch Pulse Veget. Fruit
Cash
crop,
ined. Total
Husband 28% 29% 37% 26% 23% 240 Husband 31% 33% 31% 39% 33% 910
Wife 5% 6% 5% 4% 8% 58 Wife 5% 4% 2% 1% 6% 144
Joint
Husband
and Wife 59% 59% 51% 68% 62% 538
Joint
Husband
and Wife 45% 46% 63% 55% 53% 1413
Adult
children 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1
Adult
children 0% 0% 1% 0% 0% 8
Husband
and
parent 1% 0% 0% 0% 2% 11
Husband
and
parent 2% 3% 1% 2% 2% 54
Husband
and
tenant 5% 6% 4% 0% 2% 24
Husband
and
tenant 14% 11% 1% 0% 2% 289
Total 100% 100% 98% 98% 97% 872 Total 96% 97% 99% 97% 97% 2818

17. DECISIONMAKING ON IRRIGATION IN ETHIOPIA
Women’s Responses: Ethiopia
How much input did you have
in making decisions about…
How much input did you have
in decisions on the use of
income generated from…
Irrigated food
crop farming
Irrigated cash
crop farming
Irrigated food
crop farming
Irrigated cash
crop farming
No Input 0% 2% 0% 1%
Input into very few decisions 14% 15% 13% 16%
Input into some decisions 52% 53% 51% 53%
Input into most decisions 23% 16% 23% 15%
Input into all decisions 11% 15% 13% 15%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

18. DECISIONMAKING ON IRRIGATION IN TANZANIA
Women’s Responses: Tanzania
How much input did you have in
making decisions about…
How much input did you have in
decisions on the use of income
generated from…
Irrigated food crop
farming
Irrigated cash
crop farming
Irrigated food
crop farming
Irrigated cash crop
farming
No input 0% 0% 1% 0%
Input into very few
decisions 9% 11% 11% 14%
Input into some decisions 23% 31% 26% 30%
Input into most decisions 30% 24% 29% 23%
Input into all decisions 37% 34% 34% 34%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

19. CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS
• Irrigation and gender seem to indeed be linked: however, whether this
relationship is beneficial or not remains inconclusive
• The ILSSI survey has provided a baseline that will allow us to monitor these
relationships over time (especially in Ghana)
• The relationship between irrigation and gender likely depends on a
multitude of factors, such as crop type, household structure, local extension
system biases, and existing intra-household decisionmaking structures that
are difficult to tease out with our sample size

20. NEXT STEPS
• Look at the different domains of the WEAI to observe their relationship with
irrigation
• Continue crop level analysis, to see whether empowerment has a relationship
with crop choice (fruits, vegetables, cash crops, cereals etc.)
• We are currently preparing a paper on the relationship between irrigation and
maternal and child nutrition
• We plan to investigate these linkages further and welcome your feedback and
suggestions for research directions

21. THANK YOU!

22. IRRIGATION AND CROP CHOICE
Is the plot irrigated?
Yes No
Starch 8% 58%
Pulse 2% 9%
Vegetable 24% 3%
Fruit 14% 6%
Cashcrop, inedible 52% 15%
Fallow/cover 1% 6%
Oilcrop 0% 2%
Total 100% 100%

23. Production Pathway
• Higher yields due to use with improved varieties & complementary inputs
(e.g. Burney et al 2010: microirrigation yield gains, Benin)
• Growing in the lean season (e.g. Aseyehen et al 2012: crops planted 2-3
times compared to rainfed production in Ethiopia)
• Some evidence that greater production/more crop diversity as a result of
irrigation leads to greater intake or improved diets:
– Consumption of more vegetables among irrigating HH in the Sudano-Sahel led to less
food insecurity (Burney et al. 2010)
– HH in Mali with irrigation had greater calorie intake (Dillon 2008)
– Greater crop diversity? (Namara et al. 2005, India)
– No difference? (Namara et al. 2011, Ghana)
– More monocropping? (Hossain et al. 2005, Bangladesh)
– Production diversity does not always led to dietary diversity (Sibhatu et al. 2015)
– More production of vegetables and fruits (Fraiture and Giordano 2014) and cash crops
(Burney et al 2013; Nkonya et al 2011)
Irrigation may increase agricultural production, and potentially nutritional
outcomes for women and children

24. Potential increase in gross revenue per hectare
from small-scale irrigation
Source: IFPRI (2010)

25. Irrigation can impact millions in Africa
SSA: motor pumps
• 185 million potential rural beneficiaries
• Net revenues up to US$22 billion/yr
Tanzania: motor pumps could benefit 2-4
million people (8-12% of rural households)
Crop Low-input, rainfed
yield (t/ha)
High input, irrigated
yield increase (%)
Maize 1.0 141-195
Paddy 0.9 270-283
Groundnuts 0.7 238-251
SSA: Potential yield improvements from AWM investments
Source: http://awm-solutions.iwmi.org

26. Income Pathway
• Irrigation as a source of income through market sales of
surplus
– Food expenditures higher among irrigating HH in South Africa
(Sinyolo et al. 2014)
– Greater health spending (e.g. malaria treatment and prevention)
– Market access/infrastructure is key (Chazovachiii 2012—lack of
market access limits income generation potential of irrigation,
Zimbabwe)
• Employment generation due to increased productivity and
expanded production calendar
• Again, gender is key—who controls the income from sale
of crops and from ag employment will influence health
and nutrition outcomes

27. Potential Pathways through which Irrigation
Influences Nutrition and Health Outcomes and
Women’s Empowerment
 Production pathway*
 Income pathway*
 Water supply pathway*
 Health risks pathway*
 Women’s empowerment pathway*
*Gender plays a key role in all pathways
Source: Domenech 2015