A Critical Look at Dams and Poverty Reduction in the
Upper East Region
A GNA Feature by Mohammed Nurudeen Issahaq
Bolgatanga, May 20, Ghanadot/GNA - Traditionally, economic activity
in the Upper East Region just as in the other two regions of
the Northern Sector of the country, is centred on
agriculture with about 80 per cent of the population engaged
in crop farming.
For a very long time it has been small-scale subsistence
farming except in the cases of rice and vegetable
production. However, they all rely mainly on rains.
Owing to climatic and environmental
changes over time, it has become an accepted fact that
rain-fed farming can no longer be relied on in the nation’s
quest for food security – the North being regarded as a
major food growing area. The duration of rainfall in the
area is increasingly getting shorter and its distribution
unfavourable for any sustainable crop production.
Cognisant of this trend, successive governments with the
support of external development partners came up with a
number of interventions aimed at reducing the dependence on
rain for agricultural purposes. In the case of the Upper
East Region, the most prominent of such interventions has
been the Land Conservation and Small-Holder Rehabilitation
Project (LACOSREP) funded jointly by the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) headquartered in Rome,
and the Ghana Government.
LACOSREP came in two phases with the singular focus on
boosting agricultural production and reducing systematically
the high levels of poverty in the Region. At the end of
LACOSREP One (1991-1997) a total of 44 small-scale dams and
dugouts had been rehabilitated, a few of them newly
constructed, in various parts of the Region.
Following the successful implementation of the project’s
first phase, its sponsors realized the need to consolidate
the achievement with a follow-up, which became known as
LACOSREP II. The implementation of the second phase of the
project (1999-2005) saw the provision/rehabilitation of
another 36 dams, bringing to 80 the total number of
small-scale dams/dugouts brought to the Region under the
Project.
To a large extent, LACOSREP has impacted positively on many
communities in the Region, but has on the whole left many
questions pertaining to sustainability unanswered. A report
submitted to the IFAD Governing Council by an evaluation
mission to the Region around 1999 led by Dr Zaki, a Former
Sudanese Finance Minister and Consultant to IFAD, stated
among other things that even though the Project had chalked
many successes “there is still much to be done by way of
poverty alleviation and household food security in a Region
where the poverty level is rated to be the highest in the
country.”
Considering such factors as the drought-prone nature of the
area and rapid population growth, there is a clear case for
more dams in many more communities if irrigation farming
should have the desired effect on the local economic
environment and bring back the smiles on the faces of the
people.
At the same time, however, it would
also be realistic to take a critical look at the entire
hypothesis of dams as an automatic panacea to rural poverty.
Logically, given the area’s geographical and environmental
circumstances, an alternative source of water or irrigated
farming for that matter, becomes imperative. But does the
provision of dams in itself present a solution to the
socio-economic problems confronting the people? So far, this
has been the perception propounded by politicians and
technocrats, and chorused at public functions by chiefs and
opinion leaders in the rural communities. The reality,
however, is that even though essential, dams are but a
primary ingredients that require the support of other
factors to become a successful tools for poverty reduction.
To check this assertion it might be pertinent to ask why in
many communities in the Region where dams are sited the
people still suffer abject poverty and high levels of
unemployment. The adage that a raging fire outbreak cannot
be extinguished with bare hands becomes very informative
here. What significant benefit can be obtained if the people
do not have what it takes, and if a conducive environment is
not created, to enable them to utilize the dams profitably?
In the absence of support factors such as the establishment
of serious viable cooperative farmers’ groups; effective
monitoring/supervision; the provision of substantial credit
facility to identifiable farmers associations to strengthen
their productive capacities and with no adequate attention
given to the crucial issue of sustainability, dams alone can
hardly serve the purpose for which they have been provided.
During the implementation period of LACOSREP, residents in
areas where dams existed were organized into Water User
Associations to take charge of the dams. There was also a
credit facility component attached to the project, under
which loans were disbursed to farmers’ groups. These were
very laudable initiatives but their effectiveness began to
wane with the phasing out of the Project, giving rise again
to the twin issues of close monitoring and sustainability.
Close monitoring to ensure that loans given out for crop
production were not diverted into other activities such as
the purchase of textiles from Accra for sale in the
Bolgatanga market, for instance. For sustainability, the
generation of sufficient commitment and enthusiasm among
stakeholders, coupled with the provision of the essential
structures/logistics, are vital prerequisites.
Experiences over the years show that the issue of credit
facility for agricultural production in the Region has been
rather problematic mainly as a result of the non-payment of
loans by farmers.
In this regard, most observers are of the view that apart
from the question of monitoring stated above, the meagre
nature of the amounts disbursed to beneficiaries also
constitutes part of the problem. Therefore, if this argument
is anything to go by, then it would make sense to advocate a
substantial increase in the loans advanced to farmers so
that they would not regard such monies as ‘chicken feed’ or
a gift meant to be squandered.
On the other side of the scale, modalities could be worked
out for Government marketing agencies to purchase the
produce at harvest, thus making it possible to deduct the
loans at source when payments are being made to beneficiary
farmers.
A close examination of the positive developments in dam
communities at Tono in the Kassena-Nankana District and
Bugre in the Garu-Tempane District bring out the fact that
organization, supervision, focus and capital are the major
driving forces needed to transform dams into effective
agents of agricultural production and significant tools for
poverty reduction.
With Tono, particularly, the role of the Irrigation Company
of Upper Region (ICOUR) is an important example that should
be replicated in other communities. Agricultural experts at
ICOUR provide vital technical support and monitor the
activities of the various stakeholders on the irrigation
site to ensure the success of the scheme.
Conversely, in most communities where dams have been
constructed and left ‘free for all’, they only serve as
ponds where cattle and other livestock go to drink water and
to cool off. For those communities the absence of motivation
and effective organization, have become major handicaps. In
the particular circumstances of the Upper East there are
three major constraints – timely land preparation, supply of
inputs and market avenues. If these are adequately addressed
in the rural communities where dams and well organised
farmers’ associations exist, the goal of food security on a
sustainable basis can be achieved.
Next door in Burkina Faso, the Bagre Dam Project, which this
Writer was privileged to visit, offers a good example of the
discipline, tenacity of purpose, and thoroughness in policy
implementation for which the Burkinabe are well known. That
facility alone is a major source of hydro-electricity, water
for all-year-round crop cultivation, and fish-farming. Every
farmer, every group leader, and every agricultural extension
worker carries out what precise role is expected of them and
the entire system rolls on smoothly, churning out hundreds
of tones of fresh crops and vegetables worth many millions
of CFA francs each year.
Here in Ghana, we lack that tenacity of purpose when it
comes to policy implementation. We come up with a brilliant
policy, but become sloppy or lose focus in the course of
implementation. Our history is replete with laudable ideas
and plans we began with enthusiasm but which fizzled out
mid-way because those in charge of ensuring their
concretization either lacked commitment or were downright
incompetent; or also because those in power did not offer
the needed support and vigilance.
First-time visitors to Ouagadougou are amazed at the green
environment there even though those parts are nearer the
desert than Bolgatanga and Tamale, for instance.
Conscious of the fragile nature of their environment, the
authorities in that country take tree-planting and
environmental protection very seriously. No right-thinking
Burkinabe would dare fell a tree or set a patch of
vegetation ablaze because they know how dire the
consequences would be when the law catches up with them.
The point about these long Burkina tales is that we in Ghana
need to sit up; shun lip-service and approach the
performance of national tasks with all sincerity. Government
should, as a matter of urgency, resolve to put an end to the
ad-hoc and the stop-gap fashion in which policies are
implemented in the country. Emphasis has to be placed on
consistency, thoroughness and a dogged determination to
obtain results, if we are to make significant progress.
Indisputably, irrigation farming holds the key to food
security not only in the Upper East Region, but the entire
nation. To derive the desired gains from these projects,
however, calls for a shift in our present approach which is
half-hearted and tends to take a lot of things for granted.
There is the particular need to inject some thoroughness
into the way dams are constructed for irrigation purposes;
the way farmers in the rural communities are organized; and
how the entire usage of dams can be streamlined to derive
maximum benefit from the investments made.
We should depart from the assumption that just by providing
dams in rural communities the poverty status of the people
would be automatically ameliorated – even if we do not go
the extra mile to ensure that the necessary conditions are
created so that those dams can be put into profitable use.
Each year the Upper East Region experiences a glut in tomato
production because there is no effective strategy to market
the produce.
This alone is an indication that given the same attention,
focus and unity of purpose, bumper harvests of staples such
as maize, millet, groundnuts and rice could also be recorded
just like the tomato glut – and that is within the limits of
possibility! Only then could it be said that maximum use is
being made of irrigation dams in the area.
Hopefully, some of the ideas articulated in this piece would
be taken onboard during the implementation of the Northern
Rural Growth Programme launched in Tamale recently by Vice
President John Mahama, for the benefit of all.
So in the final analysis, is the provision of dams relevant
to the area’s economic development? Absolutely yes! However,
this Writer proposes that before any further resources are
committed to the construction of more dams in the Region,
Government and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture should
carry out impact-assessment exercises in communities where
dams already exist to ascertain the extent to which those
facilities have actually benefited the inhabitants in terms
of poverty alleviation.
This would not only expose the missing links for redress,
but would also enable the Government to adopt a
well-informed and more pragmatic approach to the whole issue
of irrigation dams for all-year-round agricultural
production.
GNA
