Innovation for better water resource management in southern North Africa - MASSIRE

This project aims to select innovations with high potential for water management and to assess the conditions for their adoption in southern North Africa, through a participatory approach. It will give young rural people working in family farming access to the technology and services required to develop sustainable family farming operations, by providing them with training and involving them in networks.
Solar panel powering irrigation in Tinghire, Morocco. The farmer turns the panel (to follow the sun) to increase its operating time during the day © F. Hamamouche, CIRAD

Solar panel powering irrigation in Tinghire, Morocco. The farmer turns the panel (to follow the sun) to increase its operating time during the day © F. Hamamouche, CIRAD

Issues

Some inland parts of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are undergoing rapid agricultural expansion, the pace of which is increasing pressure on water resources. These resources are being depleted, which could create inequalities and threaten the sustainability of farming activities in these areas. The challenge for the project is to place small family farmers at the heart of sustainable agricultural and rural innovation systems, where they will be able to work continuously with innovators.

Description

The goal of this project is to work in cooperation with local actors - especially young men and women from rural areas engaged in small-scale family farming - to identify and test technical innovations (subsurface drip irrigation, new solar pumping technologies, wastewater reuse) and organizational innovations (water governance, innovation systems). The aim is also to explore the irrigation and agricultural practices, often inspired by agroecology, that have the greatest potential for increasing the resilience of these territories. The project will thus strengthen the capacities of these water management stakeholders, through training and networking. It will develop a knowledge network at the North African level linking young rural men and women from marginal areas to other stakeholders, including irrigators’ associations, farmers’ cooperatives, NGOs, authorities, researchers, and also local start-ups.

Expected impacts

  1. A knowledge base listing relevant innovations in the zones covered by the project.
  2. Young professionals capable of supporting local innovation via agricultural and rural innovation networks.
  3. Knowledge, and knowledge production methods, available to other R&D projects.

Contract partners

INAT and INRGREF in Tunisia; CREAD and CU Tipaza in Algeria; ENA Meknes and IAV Hassan II in Morocco; and CLERSE/Lille and INRAE in France.