Towards sustainable stakeholder engagement in smallholder irrigation schemes in Zimbabwe.

Abstract

Smallholder irrigation schemes in most developing countries including Zimbabwe have proved to be unsustainable after withdrawal of external assistance. The pre-independence community owned smallholder irrigation schemes had a fairly efficient management framework that, unfortunately, lacked the community ownership and professional execution. The post-independence smallholder irrigation schemes were heavily subsidized and failed to effectively empower the farmers to be managers of their own entities. This study was aimed at examining the stakeholder engagement and the sustainability of smallholder irrigation schemes. Understanding the problems faced in the engagement of these stakeholders will go a long way in enhancing the sustainability of the irrigation schemes. Three smallholder irrigation schemes from the Southern Eastern Low veld of Zimbabwe were purposively selected for the study. A total of 130 farmers were interviewed using questionnaires, 11 interviews of key informants and 3 focus group discussions with farmers in the 3 schemes were conducted. The study revealed that farmers had unsustainable sources of livelihood that were compromising their commitment to schemes. Due to very low levels of literacy, farmers were not participating in training programmes that were aimed at improving the production level. The farmers were struggling to pay the schemes’ utility bills and the billing systems were perceived to be unfair. The Government departments involved in the schemes were under resourced and less skilled to leverage sustainable commercial production in the schemes. Private sector participation was very minimal. The stakeholder engagement in the schemes lacked owners and the development agencies were failing to involve the beneficiary farmers on strategic issues about their scheme.