Charlotte de Fraiture
Professor of Hydraulic Engineering for Land and Water Development
Charlotte de Fraiture has over 20 years of international working experience in the field of water management for agriculture. During the first five years of her career, she was involved in implementation and management of irrigation and rural development projects in Senegal and Nepal. She worked for the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) from 1996 to 2011 based in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Burkina Faso. She was involved in several research projects related to watershed development, irrigation performance, irrigation management transfer and modeling of global water supply and demand, leading the development and application of the global water and food model. This model was applied for global future scenarios on water, food and the environment as part of the Comprehensive Assessment on Water Management in Agriculture. She was project leader of several research projects, among others a large BMGF funded project on identifying promising options for smallholder water management in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia and India. Besides research she fulfilled several management tasks, being Head of Office of the West-Africa office, Theme Leader and Group Head. Since January 2012 she joined UNESCO-IHE as professor of Land and Water Development.
She holds a PhD in Civil Engineering (specialization Water Resources Management) from the University of Colorado in Boulder-USA, a MA in economics from the University of Colorado in Boulder-USA and a MSc in irrigation water engineering from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Chaired by Bruce Lankford
Currently the Chair of ICID.UK, Bruce Lankford is Professor of Water and Irrigation Policy at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK. He has worked for more than 25 years in the fields of irrigation and water resources management, starting in Swaziland in 1983. His main research and advisory work covers irrigation management and water policy in Sub-Saharan Africa, Other interests cover the use of games in natural resource management, resource use efficiency, river basin management, water allocation and ecosystem services. He is a co-Director of the UEA Water Security Research Centre and a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
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Date
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20 MAY 2013
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Time
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18:00 - 19:35
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Event Type
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Lecture
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Gerald Lacey Memorial Lecture
An increasing number of smallholder farmers engage in irrigation using their own resources. They buy or rent irrigation equipment and draw water from nearby sources, such as rivers, canals, reservoirs and groundwater, without depending on or interference from public agencies and Water Users’ Associations.
The individualization of agricultural water management has been ongoing for some decades in South-Asia where most irrigation now takes place from privately owned wells. Recently, this type of irrigation is emerging in Sub-Saharan Africa as well. It is farmer-driven, responds to a genuine demand from smallholders, is highly profitable, contributes and food security and has substantial potential for upscaling.
Not surprisingly, in several African countries the area under informal irrigation is larger than under public irrigation schemes, and still expanding. However, the individualization of irrigation and its spontaneous unchecked spread pose challenges to equitable access to water and sustainable management of the resource.
Groundwater mining in Western India and the difficulties to curb this trend are well-known. Overexploitation, pollution and conflicts over water are some of problems emerging in the informal irrigation sector sub-Sahara Africa.
This lecture describes the thriving informal irrigation sector, analyses its actual and potential contribution to food security and draws lessons for further irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa.
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