This paper reviews the evidence available on the provision of financing for African smallholder farmers to purchase irrigation equipment such as pumps, pipes and drip irrigation systems. It sets the scene by first reviewing the literature on experiences with providing microcredit and other microfinance services as a poverty reduction strategy.

Understanding the gender dimensions of community-based groundwater governance is important because men and women differ in their need for and having access to groundwater, and their participation in the development, management and monitoring of the resource.

Irrigated agriculture has once again risen to prominence among sub-Saharan Africa’s development priorities, after a long lull prompted by disappointment in the results of major investments during the 1970s and 1980s.