Background
The economic and productive performance of smallholder irrigation is severely limited by women irrigators’ lack of empowerment. In Africa, as well as being major contributors to the irrigation workforce, women also bear a heavy responsibility for fetching and carrying water for their families. In order to achieve improvements in water use efficiency in Africa, women will have to become more efficient water users. This, however, will only come about if the complex interactions of physical, economic and social issues that bear upon improving the skills and participation of women are addressed.

Stakeholder participation in irrigation development and rehabilitation is essential to correctly identify beneficiaries and contributors. Failure to include all key stakeholders in the participatory process has detrimental effects on the outcome of projects. Unfortunately women are often neglected as stakeholders.

The report
Reviews of development literature and data collected by HR Wallingford strongly suggest that women irrigators want training and advice. They feel that training has a positive influence on irrigated production and their management capacity. The report discusses both the shortcomings and successes of the past and provides recommendations for improved training programme solutions.

The report helps users to identify constraints that prevent women from participating in project design and from receiving training and advice. It then goes on to provide recommendations for overcoming them.