High irrigation investment costs together with declining world prices for food and the failures of a number of high profile past irrigation projects are the main reasons for the reluctance of development agencies and governments in sub-Saharan Africa to invest more resources in irrigation. This study aims to systematically establish whether costs of irrigation projects in sub-Saharan Africa are truly high, determine the factors which influence costs and performance of irrigation projects, and recommend cost-reducing and performance-enhancing options to make irrigation investments in the region more attractive. It analyzes 314 irrigation projects implemented from 1967 to 2003 in 50 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America funded by the World Bank, African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The strong irrigation tradition has sustained the broad based community community interest in irrigation. The result is a very complex institutional milieu in which a set of formally established irrigation rules and organizations exists side by side with an intricate set of social institutions. The two sets act like a dual system often in conflict with each other. The authors, while analyzing the present institutional barriers, have highlighted the importance of irrigation rules and procedures in the institutional framework.