Govt unveils participatory irrigation management model to ensure efficiency
The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has introduced a Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) model to ensure the involvement of farmers in irrigation schemes.
The Director, Irrigation and Drainage, Mrs Oyeronke Oluniyi, said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.
Oluniyi said the ongoing workshop on Establishment and Strengthening of Water Users Associations (WUAs) for the Management of Public Irrigation Schemes was aimed at sustaining all current measures towards transforming irrigation management in the country.
According to her, efforts of the present administration have seen the establishment of a well-structured Water Users Associations at the irrigation scheme levels.
This, she noted was being reflected with the resultant Irrigation Institutional and Management framework being propagated by the Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) Project.
The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, had earlier reiterated the importance of irrigation and food security in the socio economic development and poverty reduction in Nigeria.
Adamu, represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs Didi Walson-Jack, recalled that Federal Government had given irrigation, a priority status in the socio-economic development of the country.
This, he explained was aimed at meeting the cardinal programme of the government in poverty reduction, integrated rural development, employment generation, good environment management, and food security.
He reiterated Federal Government’s commitment to massively invest in irrigation sub-sector to make Nigeria food and water secured, by moving from drought-prone, rain-fed to irrigated agriculture.
He said this would promote self-sufficiency and poverty reduction.
The minister maintained that the ministry had identified irrigation sub-sector as one of the key policy thrusts of the Federal government to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030.
He added that the collaborative effort of the ministry and the World Bank in carrying out the TRIMING Project’s intervention in selected irrigation schemes across the country had acted as a model for other schemes.
He added that it would help to address rural poverty through progressive management transfer to regulated bodies in the form of Water Users Associations (WUAs).
He said full scale operationalisation of WUAs by farmers would aid improved performance of irrigation sub-sector with multiplier effects in efficient financial uses, sense of ownership of irrigation systems, among others.
Participants at the workshop include: government officials, members of the academia, irrigation stakeholders, traditional rulers, farmers, young professionals’ forum and country representatives among others.
