(Re)thinking Africa’s irrigation commons through decentralized irrigation reforms
While previous studies are primarily based on the US, a recently published article shifts focus to Ghana in Africa. We ( Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah , Thomas Yeboah , Kahad Adamu , Enoch Yeleliere , Thomas Padi Appai, Kwaku O. Twum and myself) examined Ghana’s decentralized irrigation reform and their impacts on water users’ capacities to self-govern and cooperate in managing their irrigation systems. The study area is the Kpong Irrigation Scheme (KIS) that started operation in 1998, irrigating about 2125 hectares of paddy rice farms and 1140 hectares of banana farms. We used both primary and secondary data including content analysis of key documents, stakeholder interviews, and surveys of farmers to explore the institutional designs informing the governance of KIS. The KIS case suggests an improvement in authority and responsibility principles in the institutional design of Ghana’s decentralized irrigation reforms. It also indicates that, on paper (rules-in-form), the decentrali...