Cost recovery strategy for large-scale irrigation projects in Nigeria

A technical assessment of the services provided by the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority to their host communities was carried out to test and validate some of the problems perceived by the participating farmers and the officials as militating against the development of irrigation projects and other non-water and water services. In-depth interviews were conducted with 100 participating farmers and 50 management and project staff concerning the perceived problems facing the authority. After the survey, follow-up by site investigation of the project areas, review of annual reports, official publications and previous studies was carried out in order to probe some of the results of the surveys. This paper reports on what was learned from both the survey and the follow-up investigation and examines the implication of these findings for cost recovery strategies in large-scale irrigation projects in Nigeria.