Rwanda Irrigation Master Plan

The Rwanda Irrigation Master Plan (IMP) is a ten-year national sectoral plan providing planning tools for rational exploitation of its soil and water resources. The IMP aims for a full, efficient and sustainable exploitation of both surface (runoff, rivers and lakes) and underground water resources by promoting irrigation in its various forms.
In so doing, the IMP targets Rwanda’s various practitioners and stakeholders to ensure sustainable production of food, cash, export and industrial crops. The goal of the Rwandan government is to foster a rapid transition from subsistence- based agriculture, in which the majority of Rwandan farmers are currently involved, to market-oriented commercial agriculture. The interventions to be initiated to develop short-, medium-, and long-term strategic irrigation plans will be focused on financial and investment mechanisms, policy and legal issues, institutional arrangements, socioeconomic issues, marketing chain, and environmental issues.
The plan also seeks to address the social dimensions of the irrigation strategy, paying special attention to the role of gender in irrigation projects. Because women are major contributors of labour for both cash and food crop production, their participation in the design and implementation of irrigation development projects is essential to the achievement of development objectives at the community level. It is therefore important that women’s needs and concerns are determined and assessed as part of irrigation project design. For instance, user-friendly and affordable technologies will have to be identified to encourage their participation and boost the livelihoods of the poor.
In order to enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, participatory irrigational management (PIM) will be applied. PIM is defined as farmers’ participation in irrigation and drainage systems, such as planning, operation, management and investment in main, secondary or farm-level irrigation canals. Institutional requirements for irrigated agriculture will be divided into water users associations and cooperative societies. They will also provide technical assistance to members, extend credit, facilitate access to inputs and organize collective marketing
An inter-ministerial committee charged with the responsibilities of guiding and monitoring irrigation implementation will be established to look into the issues of reviewing and improvement of all irrigation projects, institutional linkages in a view to reduce duplication, implementation of acts and by-laws developed by Government or local support agencies, and training and capacity building of various actors and support to irrigation research. The Government of Rwanda will also set up an Irrigation Board/Authority to oversee institutional arrangements. This board should coordinate the construction and rehabilitation of major irrigation infrastructure, provide a conducive environment for conducting research, coordinate national irrigation schemes and promote the marketing of crops produced in the irrigation schemes. Finally, the board should formulate and execute policies regarding national irrigation schemes in conjunction with the water resource authority.