Overview of the Initiative

In September 2004, the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) joined a group of 13 international collaborators working on an interdisciplinary development program called the West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI) -(see also WAWI partners website). The four core objectives of WAWI include improving access to safe water resources, reducing the prevalence of waterborne diseases, promoting ecologically and economically sustainable natural resource management, and fostering a new model of partnership and institutional synergy.

As an implementing partner in the WAWI consortium, CIIFAD provides facilitation in applied problem-focused agriculture and natural resource management issues throughout the project zones in Ghana, Mali, and Niger. CIIFAD also strives to build and develop professional capacities and strengthen partnerships with collaborating institutions, regarding these as complementary foci to WAWI’s principal goals of increasing access to safe water and enhancing ecological, financial, and social sustainability of water through participatory, problem-focused research and development

Objectives

The specific CIIFAD-WAWI objectives are to:

• Investigate the sustainability of water supply management at the village level in relation to the efficiency and effectiveness of water use.
• Investigate and assess local institutional mechanisms, gender relationships and patterns of decision-making in the management of water resources in WAWI areas.
• Empirically explore, identify and document livelihood strategies in WAWI-related regions in Ghana, Mali, and Niger that are compatible with sustainable management of natural resources and the environment.
• Build on emerging insights based on the objectives specified, explore opportunities and develop strategies for implementing and sustaining gender-related livelihood activities at the household and community levels in WAWI zones of intervention. 

Through funding made available by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, CIIFAD has been implementing a number of projects in Ghana and Mali, with an expanding effort to initiate programs in Niger.  Some highlights from these projects are discussed below.

Teaming Up With Students in Ghana

CIIFAD is closely integrating its research, development, and capacity building efforts in collaboration with the University for Development Studies in Tamale (UDS). A unique master's level program at the UDS offers students the opportunity to conduct student-led, problem-focused research identified through local dialoguing between students, faculty, and communities in northern Ghana. A number of projects have been completed with the field support of WAWI’s lead agency, World Vision. More recently, the projects have included borehole sanitation sensitization, community water resource management, community perceptions of bush fire control, land degradation management, and the socio-economic effects of charcoal burning.

In addition to these research projects, several community-based natural resource management projects are underway in the region (grasscutter domestication, bee-keeping activities, women-centered dry-season farming, community greening, and nursery management). World Vision is assisting with these projects by providing extension support in the communities.

Financial record-keeping workshops with vegetable production farmers in Tolon Kumbugu and Savlugugu Nanton are also being offered in collaboration with Winrock International. These opportunities are already providing direct assistance to women farmers in dry season vegetable production, improving family nutrition as well as household incomes.

Water Resource Management in Mali

A jointly managed project between Cornell, Winrock International, World Vision, and Mali's Ecole Nationale d'Ingenieur is underway to explore the impacts of drip irrigation technologies on vegetable and fruit production for smallholder farmers in the San region. With low annual rainfall and high annual ambient temperatures, it is important for farmers to optimize water applications to conserve water resources while providing sustainable agricultural yields. Two Malian agronomy undergraduates have been collecting data on okra and tomato production, two valuable local crops in Mali. The materials for microirrigation kits are supplied from India and made available through local markets.

A separate project currently underway in the San region of Mali is supporting two students to conduct water resource mapping and inventory exercises. The data collected will be useful to assist WAWI partners to explore appropriate water resource management innovations.

CIIFAD is also collaborating with the Rural Polytechnic Institute (IPR) of Katibougou to support five community-based research initiatives. The projects include:

• Providing agricultural processing materials to the Benkadi cooperative in the Mopti region. The materials include solar dryers and cutters for shallot processing.
• Promoting shallot production and processing using solar dryers and cutters to provide income generation opportunities in the village of Katibougou.
• Improving papaya production using drip irrigation systems at IPR of Katibougou.
• Introducing and improving rabbit breeding techniques at IPR of Katibougou.
• Improving tomato production and promoting extension activities at the smallholder garden site in Tiekelenso, Segou region.

Building Relationships in Niger

Having successfully established a research “platform” in Mali, a similar process was initiated in Niger in 2006 to establish networks and relationships with universities and research institutions in collaboration with World Vision/Niger.  The Director of CIIFAD, Dr. Alice Pell, and Dr. Margaret Kroma visited Niger in September 2006 to engage in dialogue with partners and begin to plan for future WAWI activities in the region.

Cornell University Graduate Research

In addition to these in-country initiatives, three Cornell graduate students have been conducting WAWI-supported research.

• Brett Gleitsmann completed a master's degree (2005) in Biological and Environmental Engineering with Dr. Tammo Steenhuis and Dr. Margaret Kroma.  His field work in Mali focused on domestic water-use patterns, choice-of-technology preferences, sustainability perceptions, regional pump conditions, and general hygiene practices in the Koro district of the Mopti region in Mali.  Data collected from this research is intended to provide a basis of knowledge accessible to WAWI partners and other actors in the Malian water supply sector to improve the sustainability of rural water projects in the region.  (See thesis)


• Kim Bothi, a doctoral student in Natural Resources, is currently working with Dr. Alice Pell and Dr. Norman Uphoff to conduct a cross-case analysis of water supply projects in semi-arid regions worldwide.  The analysis will provide WAWI with a framework of relevant literature in the areas of water use and agricultural sustainability, women in water supply management, and water-related health and sanitation issues.  Using the presence of WAWI partners in rural Mali as a platform for exploration, Kim is also looking at the local-level perceptions of development in rural Mali as well as the unintended consequences of development initiatives, including the role of women in the decision-making processes for local natural resource management.  She will return to Mali in 2008 to complete her dissertation research.



• Mamadou Chétima, a doctoral candidate in Animal Science working with Dr. Alice Pell, has recently returned from Niger after several months of field work. His dissertation is entitled “Animal Wealth, Subsistence Crisis, and Rural Economic Vulnerability in the Sahel: Dynamics of Size, Composition, and Distribution of Livestock in Zarma Households.” His study focuses on better understanding the existing livestock-based risk management and coping strategies in place to mitigate the effects of recurrent famines in the region.  It also examines the changing nature of rural economic vulnerability of agro-pastoralists.  Data collected by Chétima will provide information spanning a quarter-century worth to generate policy recommendations for food crisis and natural resource management in livestock-based systems of the Sahel.

  For additional information on CIIFAD’s work with the West Africa Water Initiative, contact Alice Pell, Margaret Kroma or Norman Uphoff.