OVERVIEW

Over 70 percent of Afghanistan’s population lives in rural areas, and a major part of Afghanistan’s population is dependent on the agriculture sector. The Government of Afghanistan recognizes agricultural development as a major driver of economic growth and food security. However, most of the modern irrigation systems in Afghanistan were damaged during years of warfare and/or were in a state of disrepair as a result of long-term neglect.

The On-Farm Water Management Project (OFWMP) is an activity under the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), providing farmers with improved, reliable, and equitable distribution of irrigation water to increase agricultural productivity and farm incomes and improve food security.

The World Bank established ARTF in 2002 to provide a coordinated financing mechanism for the Government of Afghanistan's budget and priority national investment projects. USAID is the largest co-financier of ARTF. The co-financing mechanism allows USAID to meet its international commitments on donor coherence and the use of country systems, while meeting key USAID strategic goals.

OFWMP improves agricultural productivity by enhancing the efficiency of water use in 23 provinces: Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Panjshir, Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, Paktia Nangarhar, Laghman, Nurstan, Kunar, Bamyan, Baghlan, Balkh, Samamngan, Faryab, Jawzjan, Sari Pul, Takhar, Kundoz, Herat, and Ghor.

ACTIVITIES

• Rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure to provide water to up to 50,000 hectares of farmland
• Develop a standard procedure for establishing irrigation associations
• Establish an additional 100 irrigation associations as a follow-on to the 175 established in Phase 1 of OFWMP
• Develop a draft irrigation and drainage law and a 10-year implementation plan

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Rehabilitated nearly 380 kilometers of canal and completed over140 irrigation schemes
• Provided water to more than 55,960 hectares of irrigable land
• Established over 385 irrigation associations to operate and maintain the rehabilitated irrigation infrastructures
• Increased the average water productivity in the catchment area from 0.63 tons per cubic meter in 2010 to 0.94 tons per cubic meter of water used by crops in 2018
• Improved water conveyance efficiency from 40 percent in 2010 to 83 percent in 2018
• Increased crop productivity from two tons per hectare in 2010 to nearly three and half tons per hectare in 2018
• Rehabilitation of canals and increase in agriculture productivity benefited over 42,600 households and nearly 296,530 individuals