Agriculture in Tanzania consumes over 90 percent of water with most of it using inefficient gravity open canal and flooding or basin technologies. These methods lead to up to 45 percent water losses. This is despite the fact that critical parts of Tanzania and the Pangani River Basin, in particular, are considered “water-stressed” regions having 1,200 cubic meters per capita of renewable internal fresh water, compared to 1,608 cubic meters for Tanzania as a whole by 2015 (WB, Tanzania Economic Update 2017).

Although most of the farmers use buckets and watering cans, over the last few years, the use of 1.5-6.7hp motorized pumps combined with flood or basin irrigation has been on the rise. Though easy to install and cheapest among available technologies (compared to solar, electricity and wind), these pumps have high maintenance costs and short lifespan. At the same time, the open canal systems have the lowest efficiency rates of only 15-25 percent compared to 60-80 percent for lined canals and 90 percent for piped systems. The flooding/basin application systems on the other hand, though cheaper, also has low-efficiency rates of 60-70 percent compared to 90 percent for drip and 80 percent for sprinkler systems.

In 2018, the 2030 WRG Partnership in Tanzania plans to leverage funding from Rikolto (formerly VECO East Africa) to conduct focused assessments, carry out pilots and eventually develop viable financial products for water efficient irrigation technologies required by semi-commercial, commercial smallholder farmers and medium-sized farmers in Kikuletwa Catchment in Kilimanjaro region. This initiative aims to inform an ongoing design of a National Irrigation Financing Facility targeting to improve water use efficiency and agricultural water productivity. The partnership is working in collaboration with Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSDT), Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank and National Irrigation Commission to name a few.

The planned assessment aims to target smallholder farming groups such as:

(i) Semi–Commercial Smallholder farmers with cultivated land < 2ha
(ii) Commercial Smallholder with cultivated land (10-100 ha)
(iii) Medium sized (Emerging) Farmers with cultivated land (2-10 ha)

During the assessment, 2030WRG expects to develop and test three water efficient technological and financial solutions.

This assessment will focus on nailing down the suggested solutions per farmer profile as well as the expected return on investment. At the same time, a quick scan of the existing financial products will be done. The research findings will also be used in persuading other financial institutions to develop lending products for irrigation financing.

The assessment will analyse the required investments costs and margins of the selected technologies and at the same time determine whether the investment required for the technology is affordable and adds value to the smallholder farmers.,. The end result will be to prove the investment case in order to increase financing by commercial banks or any other financial institutions. The assessment will also assess the existing range of financing options offered by equipment providers, commercial, public and donor lending institutions available in Tanzania and the East Africa region. The research aims to ensure that financing schemes are reviewed for different farmer profiles i.e. large/smallholder farmers, individual, cluster/groups of farmers, different technologies including a diverse portfolio of loans from the farmers’/investors perspective;

Developing technological and financial packages for irrigation financing
There are several companies supplying irrigation equipment, including pumps, pipes, sprinklers, centre pivots, linear move systems, and precision drip and micro-sprinkler systems. However, these companies’ products are suitable for medium-sized farmers and large-scale farmers. The working group aims to design solutions technological and financial solutions for the semi-commercial smallholder farmers and commercial farmers. While doing this, particular focus will be put in ensuring appropriateness of technology in terms of affordability, suitability, accessibility and matching the same with skills of different profiles of farmers.

Market testing and rollout
The stakeholders will select the value chains and a number of smallholder farmers for a pilot of the prototype financial products. During this stage, useful information will be collected and collated to enable improvements to be made on technology and financial products. To buy down some risks, the stakeholders will seek funding for piloting of new financing and technology products. Successful pilots will be commercialized and rollout.

With the initiative and support of the 2030 WRG program in São Paulo, a working group is being established with the objective of supporting the implementation of new financing procedures that will allow greater effectiveness of investments and improved operation of autonomous sanitation services in small and medium-sized municipalities.

While Sabesp, a publicly traded water utility company controlled by the State of Sao Paulo, is responsible for providing water and sewage service to 366 municipalities of the State of Sao Paulo, there are 279 small and medium municipalities that operate their own water and sanitation systems in the state. These autonomous municipalities have a total population of 16.4 million inhabitants, approximately 38% of the population of the State of São Paulo.

Despite receiving subsidies from the Government of São Paulo for decades, the performance of sanitation services in many of these small and medium municipalities that operate without concession contracts with the state company (SABESP) or with private enterprises, remains very low. Although there is no available consistent data on sewage treatment, the water quality at the regional water bodies shows that only a small portion of their domestic sewage is collected and treated. In addition, even the small portion that is treated presents systematically lower quality of effluents than the legally defined standards for release into bodies of water.

The working group aims to identify the obstacles and barriers that have often rendered the investments historically ineffective, as well as to develop and propose consistent alternatives for financing and sustainably managing local systems. The various types of challenges are being identified.

In many cases, the local implementation of water and sanitation services does not favor the creation of technical management bodies capable of structuring projects, developing bids, controlling contracts. One proposal is to discuss the creation of clusters of municipalities that would allow the joint operation and the contracting of private services.

There are, however, political and institutional challenges for the organization of regional services which would articulate several municipalities. For example, the discussion about which would be the best criteria for the establishment of regional services raises concerns, also because the municipal administrative boundaries do not coincide with those of hydrographic basins.

Another complex challenge is the economic sustainability of sanitation services, since for many mayors the political costs of implementing sustainable tariffs for sanitation services are unacceptable.

Finally, subsidies policies and other sources of public financing need better levels of transparency. This might require initiatives involving public communication and debates that would guide the transition to sustainable tariffs. When subsidies are delivered without comprehensive discussions, the common consequence is social injustice and inefficient use of the resources.

The working group will support the development of technical, financial, legal and institutional solutions in coordination with the main local partners, in order to promote sustainable public and private investments and guarantee improvements in the quality of the rivers and streams of the State.

Mumbai, February 12, 2018 – 2030 WRG and the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA) organized an important discussion on water accounting as a policy tool on 12 February 2018. The Maharashtra Multi-Stakeholder Platform is already working on Rain-fed-, Command Area- and Urban Industrial Water Security. Complementing the three workstreams in Maharashtra, 2030 WRG and a key participant in the MSP process, the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA), brought to the forefront the essentials of water balancing and accounting through a discussion around River Basin Water Stewardship.

Water accounting efforts have been made by several stakeholders in India. The River Basin Stewardship and Water Accounting workshop included participation from leading not-for-profits and researchers focused on water issues in Maharashtra, namely, ACWADAM, CII, IIT-Bombay and WOTR. This workshop was attended by experts from MWRRA, Water Resources Department, The World Bank, Tata Sustainability Group, ITC, Tata Trusts, Urban Local Bodies, American Water Works Association to name a few.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (Vishnu Khedkar) and a leading private sector, ITC (K. Binoy), deployed an interesting tool using GIS-mapping, rainfall and river-flows and groundwater data in the Ghod Basin, in the proximity of the urban and industrial district of Pune. ACWADAM (Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni) presented their work related to groundwater and aquifer mapping techniques highlighting empirical evidence gathered through specific activities in Maharashtra. WOTR (Crispino Lobo) presented the essential links between water balance studies driven through community participation as a design tool to drive decisions related to cropping patterns in the rainfed areas of Maharashtra. IIT-Bombay (Prof. Milind Sohoni) presented the essentials of water balancing at the water-shed/villages that have been used in Maharashtra as a tool to make important investment decisions related to Government of Maharashtra’s more crop per drop project implementations.

While the Maharashtra-related bottom-up approaches were presented at the workshop, Prof. Wim Bastiaanssen from IHE-Delft presented the global best practice Water Accounting Plus (WA+), which uses satellite remote-sensing-based data to capture the water stress in the state of Maharashtra. WA+ tool informs the users and policy-makers on water accounting similar to financial accounting using fact-sheets, tables and maps. This methodology is already being deployed at the national level in India through 2030WRG’s engagement on “Blueprint for Water Accounting”, involving training of Central Water Commission, Central Groundwater Board, National Institute of Hydrology and others on the WA + methodology. As a result of the workshop in Mumbai, the Maharashtra MSP, in partnership with IHE-Delft, is planning a teaser WA+ training workshop for participants from Maharashtra during the coming quarter.

Further reading:

Maharashtra Water Multi-Stakeholder Platform Steering Board

Presentations made at the River Basin Stewardship and Water Accounting Workshop of 12 February 2018