Sector Results and Learning:
Agriculture and Irrigation

This Agriculture and Irrigation Sector Results and Learning page is a repository of evidence generated by all MCC-funded agriculture and irrigation interventions. To promote learning and inform future program design, this page captures monitoring data from key common indicators, showcases recent and relevant evaluations, includes all agency lessons from completed agriculture and irrigation evaluations to-date, and links to learning that has been aggregated across completed evaluations in the sector.

What Do We Invest In?

MCC has funded $1.7 billion in agriculture and irrigation interventions as of March 2023. These interventions fall into the following categories: agriculture infrastructure; producer organizational development; policy and regulatory reform and systems strengthening; market development; climate resilience resource management, and research; and agriculture finance and investment.

Agriculture Infrastructure

These programs address constraints in the agricultural economy through infrastructure investments such as irrigation, rural roads, and warehouses.

Producer Organizational Development

These programs address constraints in agriculture-related organizations such as water user associations and farmer cooperatives.

Policy and Regulatory Reform and Systems Strengthening

These programs address reforms and supporting institutions in the policy and regulatory environment of the agricultural economy.

Market Development

These programs address constraints in agriculture and food market systems such as market linkages and value chain development while crowding in the private sector.

Climate Resilience, Resource Management, and Research

These programs address constraints to mitigation and adaptation for climate change throughout the agricultural economy.

Agriculture Finance and Investment

These programs address constraints to access to finance and investment in the agricultural economy.

What Have We Completed So Far?

MCC and its country partners develop and tailor Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for each program and country context. Within these country-specific plans, MCC uses common indicators to standardize measurement and reporting within certain sectors. See below for a subset of common indicators that summarize implementation achievements across all MCC agriculture and irrigation investments as of June 2023.

435,357

farmers trained

127,112

farmers who have applied improved practices as a result of training

1,016

enterprises that have applied improved techniques

203,963

hectares under improved irrigation

What Have We Achieved?

MCC commissions independent evaluations, conducted by third-party evaluators, for every project it funds. These evaluations hold MCC and country partners accountable for the achievement of intended results and also produce evidence and learning to inform future programming. They investigate the quality of project implementation, the achievement of the project objective and other targeted outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of the project. The graphs below summarize the composition and status of MCC’s independent evaluations in the agriculture and irrigation sector as of February 2023. Read on to see highlights of published interim and final evaluations. Follow the evaluation links to see the status of all planned, ongoing, and completed evaluations in the sector and to access the reports, summaries, survey materials, and data sets.

Go to our List of Evaluations to see the status of MCC’s agriculture and irrigation sector evaluations

Highlighted Evaluations

Fishing boats on the shore in Morocco

November 28, 2022 | Morocco Compact

Modernizing the Small-scale Fisheries Value Chain in Morocco

Fishers report improved conditions, but the project did not increase revenues

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $650.1 million Morocco Compact (2008-2013) funded the $111.2 million Small-Scale Fisheries Project to improve fish quality, the value chain, market access, and sustainability by constructing or rehabilitating 10 fish landing sites, 10 port facilities, 3 marine protected areas (MPAs), and 5 wholesale fish markets. The project also provided training and technical assistance to fishers and staff at the facilities. The activities were based on the theory that improving fish quality, through better handling and cold chain management, and increasing access to markets would allow fishers to obtain higher revenues.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

Shrubbery lines a river with numerous rocks in it under a blue sky

October 1, 2022 | Malawi Compact

Supporting Sustainable Land Management in Malawi

Changes in land management practices and gender roles were widely sustained

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $345 million Malawi Compact (2013-2018) funded the $20 million Environmental and Natural Resources Management (ENRM) Project, which aimed to reduce disruptions and increase efficiency of hydropower generation by decreasing aquatic weeds and sedimentation in the Shire River Basin. The ENRM and Social and Gender Enhancement Fund (SGEF) activities established a grant facility that provided 11 grants to promote sustainable land management and gender equality, since women are often land-use decision makers.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

September 1, 2021 | Senegal Compact

Improving Irrigation and Land Rights in Senegal

Land under cultivation and horticulture have grown but not to expected levels

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $540 million Senegal Compact (2010-2015) funded the $170 million Irrigation and Water Resources Management (IWRM) Project to improve the productivity of the agricultural sector in certain agricultural-dependent areas of northern Senegal. The project rehabilitated or built 266 km of irrigation and drainage infrastructure, constructed a 450-hectare perimeter, mapped irrigated land, and trained officials to better administer land. The project was based on the theory that improved irrigation and land rights increase agricultural investment, productivity and ultimately household income.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

A herd of cattle grazing

July 30, 2020 | Namibia Compact

Improving Rangeland and Livestock Management in Namibia

Better management did not improve livestock, rangeland, or economic outcomes

  • Evaluation Type:
  • Evaluation Status: Final

MCC’s $304.5 million Namibia Compact ((2009–2014) supported rural development in Namibia’s Northern Communal Areas through the $12 million Community-Based Rangeland and Livestock Management Sub-Activity. The sub-activity was built on the theory that supporting land and livestock management strategies in communal areas would reduce rangeland degradation, improve livestock productivity, and ultimately raise farmer incomes.

Read Evaluation Details or the Evaluation Brief

Go to our Evaluation Brief page to see all completed agriculture and irrigation sector evaluations

What Have We Learned from Our Results?

To link the evidence from the independent evaluations with MCC practice, project staff produce an MCC Learning document at the close of each interim and final evaluation to capture practical lessons for programming and evaluation. Use the filters below to find lessons relevant to your evidence needs.

  • The randomized roll-out evaluation approach has risks. In a randomized roll-out approach, a first round of treatment farmers is compared to a control group of farmers that receive training at a later date.

    The randomized roll-out evaluation approach has risks. In a randomized roll-out approach, a first round of treatment farmers is compared to a control group of farmers that receive training at a later date. The key to this approach is that there be enough time between the two phases to see behavior change and the accrual of benefits for the first farmers before the second round of farmers is trained. Timelines for farmer adoption of new practices, the five-year compact timeline and inevitable implementation delays can make a randomized roll-out a very risky approach. In the case of Ghana, the randomized roll-out resulted in training the control group before the end of the compact, allowing only one crop cycle between the first treatment and the incorporation of the controls. Given the loss of the counterfactual, it is not possible to estimate the causal impact of the training on outcomes with additional crop cycles.

  • Better water monitoring tools could help Water User Associations while also providing better measurement of outcomes.

    Better water monitoring tools could help Water User Associations while also providing better measurement of outcomes. Improved water delivery and reduced losses were fundamental expected outcomes of the Irrigation Infrastructure Activity, but the existing data have not been validated, and there are not accurate measures of water delivery to farmers. This makes it difficult to know whether water availability has actually improved for individual farmers. Creating the means for WUAs to more precisely measure water delivery would also potentially help them manage their resources more effectively.

  • Reliance on other donors for sustainability increases project risk and requires committed partners along with active engagement before and during implementation.

    Reliance on other donors for sustainability increases project risk and requires committed partners along with active engagement before and during implementation. MCC intended for USAID and other donors to conduct farmer training and follow-up activities in the IWRM Project areas. However, it is unclear if these activities occurred as initially anticipated. Given the importance of this in the program logic, the activities should have either been built into the project (preferred) or anchored more securely with another donor. A preferred approach would be to build off an already successful donor project, if possible.

  • Programs should have an evidence-based theory for the extent of behavior change necessary to achieve intended outcomes and be implemented in a way likely to foster that change.

    Programs should have an evidence-based theory for the extent of behavior change necessary to achieve intended outcomes and be implemented in a way likely to foster that change. One notable success of CBRLM is that it resulted in substantial adoption of key practices, many of which were sustained two years after the program ended. However, these new practices did not translate into the material outcomes anticipated in the program’s theory of change. The evaluation measured the nature and intensity of behavior change and found imperfect adoption, including a lack of coordination across farmers in a community, and individual farmers failing to implement all key behaviors, or to implement them throughout the day, throughout the year, or rigorously enough. The evaluation noted that the three-year implementation period may have been too ambitious for this kind of program, and the number and geographic distribution of participating communities made it difficult for facilitators to spend significant time in each one. Perhaps individual or community compliance would have been higher with more intensive implementation, though it is also possible that CBRLM methods were not suitable to bring about the desired changes in this environment or timeframe. Future programs should be aware of such complexities and be clear and realistic about (i) the type of behavior change sought; (ii) the quality of evidence supporting that behavior change; (iii) why the behaviors should be appropriate for the context; (iv) how the program might need to adapt given cultural or ecological variation; and (v) the duration or intensity of assistance required to bring about the targeted change.

  • Expectations of Beneficiaries: At several locations the intended beneficiaries are not yet using the improved facilities constructed by the Project.

    Expectations of Beneficiaries: At several locations the intended beneficiaries are not yet using the improved facilities constructed by the Project. There was insufficient space at both Agadir and Mohammedia to construct enough lockers to accommodate all the boats registered at these ports. The cooperatives responsible for allocating these facilities have been reluctant or unwilling to do so. This is difficult for outsiders – MCC, MCA Morocco and Morocco’s National Fisheries Office (ONP) – to understand given that the cooperatives were well aware of the situation prior to the start of construction. In retrospect it appears that the Project did less than it should have to help the cooperatives at each location make acceptable allocation and rationing decisions and to manage the expectations of their members. Thus far ONP has been unable to resolve these problems during the Post-Compact period.

How Have We Aggregated Learning Across the Sector?

MCC has developed a Principles into Practice paper using evidence from completed independent evaluations in the agriculture and irrigation sector – Principles into Practice: Impact Evaluations of Agriculture Projects. The Principles into Practice series offers a frank look at what it takes to make the principles MCC considers essential for development operational in the projects in which MCC invests. The learning captured in this paper informs MCC’s ongoing efforts to refine and strengthen its own model and development practice in the agriculture and irrigation sector. MCC hopes this paper will also allow others to benefit from, and build upon, MCC’s lessons.