Burkina Faso: Evaluation of the Agriculture Development Project

The project included (1) the construction of an irrigated perimeter, known as the Di perimeter; (2) support for water management through technical assistance for integrated water resource management institutions, and support for local water user associations to improve management of irrigation perimeters in general; (3) training farmers, livestock holders, and other actors in the agriculture and livestock value chains; and (4) the rehabilitation of markets and the development of a market information system to collect and disseminate agricultural prices via mobile phones. Together, these activities make up the water management and irrigation (WMI) and diversified agriculture (DA) activities, which were designed to complement each other to increase agricultural productivity and income for beneficiaries. The WMI activity would guarantee reliable access to irrigation, and the DA activity would help farmers leverage this access into year-round farming so they can diversify into higher-value crops and obtain higher sales and profits. 

Given that the Di perimeter constituted the majority of MCC’s investment in the ADP, three of the evaluation components investigate different aspects of the construction and sustainability of the Di perimeter. First, the Di Lottery randomized controlled trial (RCT) leverages the land allocation lottery process to conduct an impact analysis of winning the Di Lottery. Second, the Di perimeter study assesses the effects of providing irrigated land on the perimeter as compensation for people displaced by the project and calculates the economic rate of return of the perimeter. Third, the final evaluation component investigates the ability of the new water-user associations to manage and maintain the perimeter infrastructure.

The evaluation will help build a better understanding of (1) the effects of investments in large-scale irrigation infrastructure on agricultural output and household incomes in Africa; (2) the effects of strengthening operations and management on the functioning of irrigated perimeters; and (3) the causal impact of receiving access to irrigated land on agricultural production, agricultural incomes, and household incomes. The Di Lottery RCT is a high-stakes RCT and the only such evaluation in which a subset of applicants received irrigated land. Since the lottery provided irrigated land to both men and women, we will be able to estimate the effects of providing land to females versus males.