Definition

Irrigation water use is water artificially applied to farm, orchard, pasture, and horticultural crops, as well as water used to irrigate pastures, for frost and freeze protection, chemical application, crop cooling, harvesting, and for the leaching of salts from the crop root zone. In fact, irrigation is the largest category of water use worldwide.

Programmes that promote access to irrigation aim to ensure sustainable withdrawal and supply of freshwater, in order to:

• Reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity;
• To increase agricultural productivity through improved access to water by small-scale food producers, and
• To improve water data collection for transparent, coherent and participatory making decisions.

Rationale

Access to irrigation water constitutes a critical determinant of agricultural productivity, rural livelihoods, and food security, particularly in regions characterized by high climate variability and increasing water stress. Irrigation significantly enhances crop yields, reduces production risks, and enables multiple cropping cycles, thereby contributing to income stability and poverty reduction among small-scale producers.

However, access to irrigation remains highly unequal across and within countries. Smallholder farmers, women, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, and other marginalized groups often face structural constraints in accessing reliable water resources due to inadequate infrastructure, insecure tenure arrangements, weak institutional frameworks, and limited financial capacity. These disparities are further exacerbated by climate change, which intensifies the frequency and severity of droughts and water scarcity, increasing competition over water resources across sectors.

Moreover, unsustainable water extraction and inefficient irrigation practices contribute to groundwater depletion, land degradation, and ecosystem stress, undermining the long-term viability of agricultural systems. This underscores the need for integrated approaches that balance increased water access with sustainable resource management. Investments in irrigation must therefore be accompanied by improved governance systems, inclusive water tenure arrangements, and strengthened institutional capacities to ensure equitable and efficient allocation of water resources. Enhancing access to irrigation also requires the promotion of water-efficient technologies, participatory management mechanisms, and robust data systems to support evidence-based decision-making.

Key interventions

• Comprehensive assessments of water resources: conduct both water accounting and tenure assessments to ensure sustainable use and equitable access of water, particularly for groups in vulnerable situations. This process includes participatory inventorying of surface and groundwater resources and assessing water usage across sectors. Additionally, it involves participatory mapping of legal, customary and social water arrangements, identifying existing conflicts, and evaluating inclusive mechanisms for dispute resolution, with a specific focus of meaningful participation of the groups in vulnerable situation. Identifying gaps between legal frameworks and actual practices, and highlighting effective customary arrangements is also important. Integrating these findings through data analysis and spatial visualization supports the development of targeted policies and interventions.
• Financial incentives and investment in infrastructure for the adoption of water efficient solutions: Provide financial incentives for adopting efficient and sustainable irrigation technologies and water-saving practices, like drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting. Invest in building and maintaining water infrastructure, including dams, reservoirs, and distribution networks, to ensure a reliable water supply for both drinking and irrigation.
• Decentralized and participatory water management: Establish local water management institutions, such as river basin organizations or community water committees, to involve various constituencies and stakeholders in decision-making addressing potential power imbalances. Facilitate participatory approaches where local communities are actively involved in water management decisions, ensuring that their needs and knowledge are incorporated into policy and practice. Special care may need to be taken to ensure equal participation of women, young people and other traditionally marginalized actors.
• Community Education and Training: Community-led educational policies to raise awareness about water conservation, hygiene practices, and efficient water use among communities, ensuring sustainable management of water resources. Address tenure issues by triggering bottom-up analysis and making the links between formal and customary tenure systems as well as water accounting. The beneficiaries, as right-holders, will enhance their understanding of water tenure systems, e. g. permits, and will be empowered to improve the security of their access to water, e.g. through formalizing their rights including their right to water and sanitation and the right to adequate food.
• Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, pastoralist and other traditional communities' territories: identify and acknowledge the rights of Indigenous Peoples according to the provision in the UN Declaration of the Right to Indigenous Peoples including in respect to their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to the management of their territories and the associated resources, establish their territorial extension, and their management arrangements and apply FPIC to the management of  territories of local and traditional communities.
• Gender-Inclusive water tenure policies: Gender-responsive/transformative-water tenure reform policy to addresses the inequities women face in accessing and managing water resources. This policy aims to untangle the link between land ownership and water rights, thereby empowering women to meaningfully participate in water management processes.
• Community-led stewardship of water in small-scale fisheries: aims at improving the livelihoods of small-scale fishers and fishing communities. Secures the rights of small-scale fishers (as right holders) and their organizations to access and manage marine and inland fisheries resources through the establishment/strengthening of decentralised and community-led co-management institutions and preferential access areas.

This policy instrument is usually mentioned in and may contribute to the following:

• Development plans;
• Territorial planning plans /strategies;
• Territorial planning around the water plans/strategies;
• Water Allocation Plan;
• Irrigation Plans;
• Integrated Water Resources Management Plans;
• Water Quality Standards;
• Water-Use Audits and Reporting;
• Water Pricing;
• Productive strategies;
• Climate change, adaption and mitigation plans.