Supporting Irrigation Networking in West and Central Africa: The Establishment of ARID-L

Document: Van t Hof, S. (2001) Supporting irrigation networking in West and Central Africa: the establishment of ARID-L.
Report KIT Information Services, 32 p. [general031.pdf, 1080 kB] Key words: technology transfer, irrigation, appropriate technology, small farms, diffusion of information, information systems, international cooperation Mots cl: transfert de technologie, irrigation, technologie approprie, petite agriculture, diffusion de linformation, systmes dinformation, coopration internationale Abstract: An account of the first year of operation of ARID-L, a small-scale irrigation network, is presented. In 1998, a workshop on small-scale irrigation development and technology was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was organized by ARID (Association Rgionale sur lIrrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de lOuest et du Centre) and IPTRID (International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage). One of the recommendations was to create within the framework of ARID/IPTRID a regional network for technology transfer and promotion of small-scale irrigation in Central and West Africa. The network was to be called ARID-L. A memorandum of understanding to define the responsibilities of the various partners with regard to the creation and first year of operation of ARID-L was signed by representatives of ARID, KIT (Royal Tropical Institute), FAO and IPTRID in October 2000. The first year of operation ended on 31st Dec 2001 after the creation of a mailing list, the diffusion of 2 newsletters in French and in English, and the design of a web site (now at http://www.eier.org/arid) Observations (Sjon van t Hof, HIPPO Foundation, 8/4/2002): Very useful, on-going project.
Supporting irrigation networking in West and Central Africa: the establishment of ARID-L
final report
Sjon van t Hof
Information Services Amsterdam, 31 December 2001
Fig. 1: French home page of the ARID-L web site (http://www.eier.org/arid) Click here for English version Comment s'inscrire l' ARID-L I L'ARID & ARID-L Lettres du Rseau I Chercher
ARID-L: le rseau sur la petite irrigation de l'ARID,

l'Association Rgionale sur l'Irrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre Les 23 pays de l'ARID sont: Bnin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cap Vert, Centrafrique, Congo, Cte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guine, Guine Bissau, Guine Equatoriale, Libria, Mali, Mauritanie, Niger, Nigria, Sao Tom, Sngal, Sierra Leone, Tchad, Togo. Les sujets proposs traitent de: l'irrigation localise I pompes nergie renouvelable I la rcolte de leau I la mise en valeur des bas-fonds I systmes de pompage faible hauteur d'lvation I l'irrigation peri-urbaine et urbaine I utilisation des aquifres peu profonds I transfert technologique I genre et pauvret I irrigation traditionnelle I l'environnement visites (>24/10/01):
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Supporting irrigation networking in West and Central Africa
Table of contents
Acronyms .................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. 4 1. Introduction........................................................................................................... 5 2. Partners ................................................................................................................. 5 2.1 IPTRID and FAO ............................................................................................... 5 2.2 ARID and EIER-ETSHER ................................................................................. 6 2.3 KIT Information Services................................................................................... 7 3. The project ............................................................................................................ 7 4. Main products ....................................................................................................... 8 4.1 Newsletters ....................................................................................................... 8 4.2 Web site ............................................................................................................ 9 4.3 Mailing list ....................................................................................................... 10 5. Discussion .......................................................................................................... 10 5.1 Sustainability................................................................................................... 10 5.2 Membership base and enthusiasm ................................................................ 10 5.3 Internal synergy of products........................................................................... 11 5.4 External linkages ........................................................................................ 12 6. Conclusion and suggestions............................................................................. 12 References .............................................................................................................. 16 Annex 1: Memorandum of Understanding ........................................................... 17 Annex 2: List of subscribers to ARID-L ................................................................ 19 Annex 3: Welcome message to new subscribers................................................ 20 Annex 4: The ARID-L newsletter ........................................................................... 27 Source of inspiration ............................................................................................. 27 Irrigation mailing lists and newsletters .................................................................. 27 Web sites .............................................................................................................. 28 Annex 5: The ARID-L web site............................................................................... 30 Annex 6: People involved in establishing ARID-L ............................................... 32
Acronyms
AFEID AGL AGPID AMID ANID ARID ARID-L ATID CEFOC Cemagref CFPI CNID-B EIER ETSHER FAO FAO-RAF GSAE HR-Wallingford ICID ICT ILRI IPTRID IWMI KIT MAE MOU NGO NINCID USBR
Association Franaise pour lEtude des Irrigations et du Drainage Land and Water Development Division of the FAO Association Guinenne des Professionnels de l'Irrigation et du Drainage Association Malienne pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage Association Nigrienne pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage Association Rgionale sur l'Irrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre Small-scale irrigation network of ARID Association Tchadienne pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage Centre de Formation Continue Commun Cemagref Cellule de Formation Professionnelle l'Ingnierie Comit National des Irrigations et du Drainage du Burkina Ecole Inter-Etats d'Ingnieurs de l'Equipement Rural Ecole Inter-Etats des Techniciens Suprieurs de l'Hydraulique et de l'Equipement Rural Food and Agriculture Organization FAO Regional Office for Africa (Accra) Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineers HR Wallingford International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage Information and Communication Technology International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage International Water Management Institute Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (France) Memorandum of Understanding Non-governmental organization Nigerian National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage United States Bureau of Reclamation
Acknowledgements
A list of people who were in some way involved in establishing ARID-L during the period 1999-2001 is presented in Annex 8. Special thanks are due to Audrey Nepveu de Villemarceau of IPTRID, Dr. Hamma Yacouba of EIER and Mr. Franois Gadelle (formerly Worldbank).
1. Introduction
In December 1998, a workshop on small-scale irrigation development and technology was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was organized by ARID (Association Rgionale sur lIrrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de lOuest et du Centre) and IPTRID (International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage) with financial support from AFEID (Asociation Franaise pour lEtude des Irrigations et du Drainage) and FAO. A general assembly of ARID was combined with the workshop. One of the recommendations was to create within the framework of ARID/IPTRID a regional network for technology transfer and promotion of small-scale irrigation in Central and West Africa. (Anon., 1999). A plan for a project to support the establishment of a network on small-scale irrigation was discussed during a subsequent meeting convened by IPTRID in Accra, Ghana, in May 1999. The network was to be called ARID-L, the small-scale irrigation network of ARID. A memorandum of understanding (MOU, see Annex 1) to define the roles and responsibilities of the various partners with regard to the creation and first year of operation of ARID-L was signed by representatives of these partners (ARID, KIT, FAO and IPTRID; see section 2) in October 2000. A steering committee (comit de pilotage) was established with representatives from these partners. Four comoderators were designated: Audrey Nepveu de Villemarceau (IPTRID), Nico van Leeuwen (FAO), Dr. Hamma Yacouba (EIER) and Sjon van t Hof (KIT). This report reviews specifically KIT output until 31 December 2001 and provides suggestions to enhance future sustainability and development.
2. Partners
2.1 IPTRID and FAO In 1991, the International Programme for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) was established by the World Bank at the request of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID, see www.icid.org ). ICID strives to promote programs to enhance sustainable development of irrigated agriculture worldwide. Sovereign countries having interest in the activities of the ICID are eligible to become a member and create a National Committee. Today, 88 countries have joined ICID to pool their efforts. The role of IPTRID is complementary: its mandate is to promote the research, development and transfer of irrigation and drainage technologies in and by developing countries. There are many linkages between IPTRID, FAO, ICID, the World Bank and other international organizations. One of the ICID work bodies is the IPTRID Advisory Committee and ICID has consultative status with FAO. During the World Food Summit of 1996, the lack of technology transfer in the field of irrigation was identified as one of main constraints to the development of irrigated agriculture, especially to the development of small-scale irrigation and private irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the conditions for technology transfer have
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never been better with the increased availability of electronic communication in developing countries. It was recommended that donors should help intensify the process of technology transfer by promoting the use of modern communication methods. Since 1998, IPTRID (http://www.fao.org/iptrid) is hosted and managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The IPTRID network works at 3 levels: (1) the Central Network, with international institutions, such as USBR, Cemagref, HR Wallingford, ICID, ILRI and IWMI; (2) Country Networks, which work with individuals and organizations within a country or a region; and (3) 5000 individual members and organizations spread across 160 countries. ARID operates at the second level.
2.2 ARID and EIER-ETSHER The Regional Association for Irrigation and Drainage in West and Central Africa (French acronym: ARID) is a regional Country network of IPTRID. It was established in 1996. With the exception of Nigeria (the Nigerian National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, NINCID), there were no active ICID national committees in West and Central Africa. Hence the need for IPTRID to stimulate the establishment of national committees through the creation of ARID. (The green countries in the map already had national committees). The 23 countries of ARID are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tom, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The objectives of ARID are to: (1) promote the sustainable development of land and water in order to increase agricultural production and achieve food security; (2) promote irrigation and drainage technology, including that of flood control and river development, be it in its aspects of engineering, agriculture, economics, the environment and socially, collect and distribute the results of studies and research; (3) promoting the exchange of experiences using South-South and NorthSouth networks; and (4) promote the establishment of national irrigation and drainage committees, where ARID is the regional representative of the ICID.
Fig. 2: The ARID mandate area (in light green and grey)
ARID relies heavily on external funds from France (Ministry of Foreign Affairs MAE - and the French national ICID committee - AFEID) and IPTRID for its activities. The functioning of its secretariat depends on EIER-ETSHER. The secretariat of ARID is at EIER-ETSHER (Ecole Inter-Etats d'Ingnieurs de l'Equipement Rural and the Ecole Inter-Etats des Techniciens Suprieurs de l'Hydraulique et de l'Equipement Rural, see http://www.eier.org), an international rural engineering college in Burkina Faso with a student base from the entire French-speaking part of sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past few years the main activities were the organization of 2 biennial regional workshops and the promotion of the establishment of national ICID committees in its mandate area. As a result of ARID activities, new national ICID committees are now
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in various stages of establishment in Chad (ATID), Mali (AMID), Burkina Faso (CNIDB), Niger (ANID), Ghana (GSAE), Senegal, and Guinea (AGPID). The Nigerian committee (NINCID) existed well before 1996 and is well integrated in ICID activities. General assemblies are held every two years: 4-5 July 1996, 3-4 December 1998, and 26 April 2001. General assemblies are combined with regional workshops on small-scale irrigation development. Other activities included the collection of information of organizations and persons interested in small-scale irrigation in Mali and three other countries. It was also recommended for ARID to elaborate projects, increase international co-operation, and diversify its partners. At the same time, IPTRID expects ARID to gradually develop information and documentation services for its members.
2.3 KIT Information Services KIT Information Services (http://www.kit.nl/information_services) offers information facilities to those working in the field of development. Its objectives are to contribute to the capacity building and institutional development of information services in developing countries; to collect relevant information in the field of international cooperation and make it available to developing countries, insofar as this information is supplementary to existing sources; and, to support international cooperation by the provision of information to professionals and intermediaries working in this field. Activities include advice on: establishment of libraries, information and resource centres, clearinghouses; establishment of inter-institutional information networks; development of information systems; development and implementation of databases; the development and publication of information or resource packages; newsletters; and training on information centre strategy development and operational management (Van Hartevelt, 2000).
3. The project
The aim of the project was to establish the ARID-L network as the electronic means of communication between ARID and ARID members. The general objective of the ARID-L network is to improve the exchange of and access to information and the results of research in order to encourage the use of small-scale irrigation technologies in rural, peri-urban and urban areas in Africa and to strengthen the local capacity for communication and application. To this end the network would dispose of the following services: an electronic discussion list or mailing list, an electronic newsletter and a web site. A thematic discussion list, such as ARID-L, would provide a quick, cheap and potentially powerful method for exchanging information between geographically dispersed persons. The ARID-L newsletter would provide information on: (1) experiences in small-scale irrigation research and development; (2) technical and other subjects; (3) conferences, seminars and workshops; (4) training courses; (5) job opportunities; and (6) Internet resources. The newsletter frequency is between 2 and 4 issues per year. The web site would provide project information. ARID would not provide hardware, software, Internet subscriptions or trainings for its members.
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The newsletter, subscription to the discussion list, and access to the web site would be free. On behalf of ARID and in collaboration with ARID, KIT was to initiate and develop the various information activities in order to establish ARID-L and to launch the semestrial newsletter. To that end, KIT would provide technical assistance transfer all responsibilities in relation to ARID-L to ARID on the 31st of December 2001. (see Memorandum of Understanding in Annex 1).
4. Main products
4.1 Newsletters Newsletters in French and English were produced and distributed using the e-mail list ARID-L, which is hosted on an FAO server. The subjects were: (1) Foreword by the secretary-general of ARID; (2) Background information on ARID; (3) General Assembly of ARID and Workshop on Irrigation in West Africa, April 2001; (4) ARID-L Networking Mechanisms; (5) Internet news and the ARID-L web site; (6) Development of the ARID-L web site; (7) Almost 100 ARID-L subscribers already; (8) Seminar on private sector participation and irrigation expansion in Accra; (9) Brainstorming on water-lifting technologies in West Africa; (10) Allahoury elected president of ARID; (11) Good practices on irrigated rice schemes in West Africa; (12) Ongoing small-holder irrigation initiatives by the World Bank; (13) Contest for innovative irrigation ideas and technologies; (14) Ongoing research on small-scale irrigation technology in Africa; (15) IPTRID programme manager post becomes vacant; (16) An overview of 43 articles on small-scale irrigation in GRID, the IPTRID magazine; (17) Irrigation technologies in maESTro, a UNEP database for Environmentally Sound Technology; (18) Documents and references on small-scale irrigation in WCA-infoNET; (19) IPTRID Newsletter; (20) Board meeting of ARID on 24 October 2001 in Accra; (21) Progress reports from the national ICID committees: Chad, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana, Senegal; (22) Call for contributions; (23) How to join ARID-L; and, (24) Contact. (Note that above links refer to the newsletter as published in the ARID-L sub-domain of the www.hipponet.nl web site. The main reason is that at the time of writing the second newsletter was not yet available on the ARID sub-domain of the www.eier.org web site). The approach used for making newsletters is described in Annex 4. To ease the transition to full responsibility for the newsletter by the ARID secretariat, preparations were made for a 3rd newsletter. It shows a trend towards more projectand Africa-related information, witness the following headings: Request for information on the maintenance cost of community-based irrigation schemes; Smallholder Irrigation Market Initiative (SIMI); CD-ROM Proceedings ARID workshop held in Ouagadougou, 23-26 April 2001; African Regional Working Group (AFRWG), Seoul, Korea; World Bank experience with new style irrigation development strategies; Irrigation management under resource scarcity; Africa and urban agriculture; Workshop on peri-urban agriculture, Montpellier (1998); Workshop on urban and peri-urban agriculture, Accra (1999); Extension notes on irrigation of EDIS, Florida; Overview of reports on small-scale irrigation by HR Wallingford; Module 8 on sprinkler irrigation of new FAO training manual; Guidelines for integrated planning of land resources; Field guide on small-scale irrigation from Malawi; Better water management leads to higher rice yields in Burkina Faso; Projet de developpement
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integral de l'aval de Manantali (PDIAM); Towards a development and research/training network on urban agriculture; FAO Investment Centres assistance to irrigation investment in Africa; West African Water Vision; Water management fellowships for women; and,Tunisian Water Week, May 2002. 4.2 Web site The web site provides English and French information for both English and French users. It has a French page daccueil and an English homepage, pointing to 23 country pages (in West and Central Africa), 11 subject pages, and 8 general pages. The general pages are: search, background information on ARID and ARID-L, subscription to ARID-L, resources, newsletters, contact, links, and a picture gallery. Most are mixed pages with English and French texts, depending on the language of the files they point to. There are also pages with an English abstract and a French rsum of information that is of particularly interest (see for instance: http://www.eier.org/arid/ressources/DGCID.htm). Finally, there are special pages, including those on workshops on small-scale irrigation technology and development in West and Central Africa and on the finalists of the 2001 small-scale irrigation contest (http://www.eier.org/arid/ressources/contest.htm). Various aspects of web construction are described in Annex 5. In all, the ARID-L web site has 117 linked files with a total size of 1242 kB or an average of 10.6 kB/file. There are also 31 pictures with a total size of 143 kB, or an average of 4.6 kB. There are only 4 slow pages exceeding an estimated download time of 15 seconds with a 56K modem. There are 1097 external hyperlinks, i.e. hyperlinks pointing to files outside the ARID-L web site. A web-based counter was installed on the English home page and the French page daccueil on 24 October 2001. The counter, being a free one, only registers visitors to the 2 home pages. The number of visitors is about 100 per month. A peak can be observed on the days following the e-mail distribution of the newsletter.
Fig. 3: Peak in page views following the second newsletter on the 6th of December, 2001
Fig. 4: Visitors are from around the world, but mostly from western Europe and West Africa
Until the 31st of Dec. 2001, the ARID-L web site was hosted as a sub-domain of the HIPPO Foundation in the Netherlands (http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l). The HIPPO Foundation will close the sub-domain once the transition is completed to the web site of EIER/ETSHER in Burkina Faso (http://www.eier.org/arid). On the 6th of December
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2001 the entire web site of ARID-L was transferred as an e-mail attached zip-file to the ARID-L co-moderator Dr. Hamma Yacouba at EIER in order to facilitate uploading to the EIER web site.
4.3 Mailing list In February 2001, a welcome message in English and in French was produced and sent to every new subscriber to the ARID-L mailing list (see annex 5). The list was announced in GRID, the magazine of IPTRID, the Land and Water Newsletter if the FAO, and Afrique Agriculture. A presentation was made at the irrigation days at Ouagadougou in April 2001 to an audience of about 100 regional irrigation professionals. It was decided to establish a moderated e-mail list to avoid spamming. Several spamming attempts were registered, but never made it to the list. The main uses of the e-mail list ARID-L were the distribution of e-newsletters and alerting subscribers to upcoming events, such as workshops or the irrigation contest. It did not serve as a discussion list in the image of IRRIGATION-L1. Therefore it was not necessary to archive any e-mail messages. If the intensity of communication will increase, the decision not to archive e-mail messages may be reconsidered.
5. Discussion
5.1 Sustainability Starkey (1996) emphasized that networks thrive on enthusiastic member participation in specific activities that allow interaction and sharing. The success of many networks depends on the efforts of a highly committed network core group, of which the members consider the success of the network as an explicit objective of their professional lives and work. He adds that almost all individuals and organizations involved in agricultural development have excessive demands on their time and resources, and network business will only receive adequate attention if it is considered a priority. Early 2002, ARID will recruit a full-time person to assist the General Secretariat. This person will be involved in the second phase of the project "good practices in irrigation" (for first phase, see link). This project is considered a good opportunity for ARID to demonstrate its effectiveness as a regional organization. He/she will also be responsible for ARID-L2. To be effective, this person must be fluent in English and French. The prospects for providing more ARID content to the newsletter and web site are good. In the short term, most national networks are likely to require considerable encouragement and guidance before contributing to ARID-L. 5.2 Membership base and enthusiasm In December 2001, ARID-L had 100 e-mail subscription addresses, which seems reasonable for a regional thematic networking considering that IRRIGATION-L with a
1 2
IRRIGATION-L is the main discussion list on irrigation in the world. This person will probably need at least 300 working hours/year for ARID-L to do a credible job. 10
global mandate and a wider scope has about 600. The identity and affiliation of a number of subscribers is not known as a result of the simple subscription procedure, which only requires the submission of an e-mail address. These addresses and the names of their owners, if known, are not published3, but people are free to introduce themselves on the list to other members once they are subscribed. A number of internationally renowned specialists that actively reply to queries on IRRIGATION-L is subscribed to ARID-L. At least the following countries from the ARID mandate area are represented by one or more subscribers: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal. Other countries include Colombia, India, France, UK, USA and Zimbabwe. ARID was established in 1996 to meet the demands of irrigation and drainage professionals in West and Central Africa, while awaiting the establishment of national committees of the ICID (see section 2.2). It is clear that these national committees must first get organized at a national level before much sharing or interaction can be initiated at a regional level. On the basis of the subscription list4 it can be concluded that only a fraction of the irrigation professionals working with NGOs and other organizations in West and Central Africa are subscribed to ARID-L. Very few of the organizations and persons mentioned by Sangar (2000) in his list of those involved in small-scale irrigation in Mali are subscribed. Moreover, the list of Sangar on Mali is far from complete: major irrigation regions, such as Timbuktu and Gao, are missing entirely. It is safe to conclude that there is considerable scope for expanding the membership base of ARID-L, especially in countries, such as Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Nigeria. 5.3 Internal synergy of products There are a number of obvious linkages between the different ARID products, services and activities, such as those between: the production of newsletter items and finding web content; the organization of workshops, their announcement using the e-mail list or the newsletter, and the diffusions of their results; ARID information or research projects and the diffusion of results; the establishment of data bases on persons, organizations and projects involved in irrigation technology and development and the existence of national ICID committees; The design and development of a regional information system.
The only way to produce newsletters with up-to-date information on the activities and products of many different organizations is by using the Internet. An example of such a newsletter is Source5. By scouring the Internet for newsletter items, useful content for the web site is identified. Conversely, by looking for web content, newsletter items are found. Another example of synergy is that of ARID workshops or other workshops on irrigation in Africa: they could be announced either using the e-mail list
3 4
A list of addresses is attached in Annex 2. See Annex 2 5 See Annex 4 11
or the newsletter with supplementary information on the web site. It should become standard practice to produce abstracts of the proceedings with e-mail references of the authors to make sure that the workshop output becomes available to a wider audience as soon as possible after the workshop is over. Similarly, if ARID carries out information or research projects, such as the one on good practices in irrigation, ARID-L provides an excellent platform for efficiently exploiting the potential of the Internet. 5.4 External linkages Already, many English, American and international institutions and organizations use the Internet for publications.6 Increasingly, project results, especially those of pilot studies and research projects, will be published on the Internet. Thematic web sites and newsletters, such as those of ARID-L, can point out these Internet resources to members. An example of such a project is ANPIP in Niger. Its web site was constructed in a very short span of time early 2001 and at virtually no cost at all. It is likely that WCA infoNET (an Internet-based information initiative of IPTRID) will be able to provide ever better access to Internet-published information on water conservation and use in agriculture, including small-scale irrigation development and technology. However, for the collection of such information on countries and regions, it must rely on people and organizations in those areas. ARID could play a central role in the collection of information for WCA infoNET in West and Central Africa. Similarly, ARID could help members find relevant information in WCA infoNET. Note that WCA infoNET is a new FAO/IPTRID initiative that became operational in August, 2001. Most printed information will continue to be inaccessible by Internet or not freely accessible for some time to come. For a bilingual network, such as ARID-L, it is important to note that this is often the case with French language books, articles and reports, even those of a bibliographic nature. It will be a challenge to ARID-L to help improve access to these conventional sources of information. This is not necessarily by providing full text access, but could also take the form of Internet accessible bibliographies with information on how to explore existing document delivery services. By taking on regional information diffusion responsibilities, ARID could build on and possibly strengthen the existing information infrastructure of EIER/ETSHER, which already performs the role of general secretariat or ARID. The EIER/ETSHER complex has good library facilities, including a 13,000 volume collection of books. Considering the fact that a large number of students from all over French-speaking West Africa are trained at EIER/ETSHER every year, there is no better place for a repository of publications and grey literature on small-scale irrigation technology and development.
6. Conclusion and suggestions
See Deininger, A. and Stein, T.-M. (2000) Irrigation information in the Internet 12
During the first 10 months of ARID-L existence it became clear that: (1) there is sufficient interest in electronic information on small-scale irrigation development and technology both in West and Central Africa and elsewhere in the world; (2) there is no lack of information on the Internet and from e-mail sources for publishing at least 2 newsletters a year with relevant content; and (3) it is feasible to create a thematic web site on small-scale irrigation development with an emphasis on West and Central Africa. The task of establishing a specialized network promoting information exchange on research programmes/results and development projects/approaches related to smallscale irrigation has by no means been completed and the question of sustainability is still open. It is clear, though, that ARID and ARID-L were established as part of existing ICID and FAO/IPTRID global networks. There is no viable alternative to ARID and ARID-L, even if their medium- and long-term financial and organizational sustainability has not yet been secured. Their relatively low cost7 and promise of global access to information are compelling reasons for using ICT-based solutions. There is synergy with existing and on-going initiatives, such as regional irrigation conferences. It is encouraging to note that there are movements to set up a second Regional Network for SADC (IPTRID, 2001). The following recommendations are offered to ARID for consideration in future ARIDL developments. (1) stimulate the collection and organization of information relevant to smallscale irrigation at sub-regional and national level; (2) harmonize the tools and methodologies for sharing information throughout the sub-region; (3) ensure that the results of research and development activities are incorporated into international as well as regional information systems; (4) strengthen Francophone-Anglophone collaboration; (5) ensure that repositories of relevant publications and grey literature are available in the sub-region; (6) produce bibliographic outputs for the benefit of users in the sub-region and worldwide; (7) seek support from existing institutions in the region; a highly committed core group could prove essential for network success; (8) promote network sustainability by using the simplest and most affordable methods first; (9) create a clear sense of purpose; and, (10) expand the membership base. A modest attempt to provide a list of detailed suggestions for elaborating the above recommendations is presented below: 1. stimulate the collection and organization of information relevant to small-scale irrigation at sub-regional and national level:
When use is made of existing electronic infrastructure, such as the www.eier.org web site, the only other cost factor is for personnel. The time requirement of a motivated, trained person should not normally exceed the time input during 2001, which was less than 400 hours. Recruited locally, such a person should not budgeted at more than 20% of US$ 1000/month, i.e. US$ 2400/year. It is envisaged that the full-time person who will be recruited for the best practice project will devote part of his time to the network. 13
1.1 involve newly established national ICID committees in West and Central Africa, such as those of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger, as well as older institutions, such as NINCID and the GSAE, in information-related ARID-L activities. Sangar (2000) indicates that it is very difficult to keep databases on persons, projects, enterprises and organizations involved in small-scale irrigation up to date. Such a task is best decentralized to national ICID committees. The same applies to the collection of grey literature and other information.8 1.2 combine the collection of information on persons, projects, enterprises and organizations involved in small-scale irrigation, such as that carried out by Sangar (2000), with the publication of this information on the ARID-L web site by directly obtaining explicit permission for Internet publication. The use of a single format throughout the sub-region should be encouraged. 1.3 a possible example of direct involvement of the ICID committees would be the publication of their whereabouts on the ARID-L web site; 1.4 encourage the awareness and diffusion of conventional publications on smallscale irrigation by African authors, especially those who are subscribed to ARID-L.9 1.5 (follows from 1.4) develop an Internet bibliography-cum-reprint service of conventional publications on small-scale irrigation in West and Central Africa. 2. harmonize the tools and methodologies for sharing information throughout the sub-region: 2.1 promote the use of the ARID-L newsletter and web site for sharing information throughout the sub-region; 2.2 promote the use of standard formats for electronic document storage and exchange; 2.3 consider using CD-ROMs for the following reasons and purposes: (1) they are cheap to reproduce; (2) they can reach those with poor or zero connectivity; (3) they can be used to improve access to documents referred to in the ARIDL web site or newsletter that take a long time to download with an ordinary modem connection; (4) it is possible to add searchable bibliographies or scanned documents (e.g multipage TIFF/PDF files) of valuable information that is not available electronically; (5) in fact, relatively little Francophone information is available electronically; multipage TIFF files could help solve this problem; (6) the Internet is not as stable a resource as an ordinary library; files disappear or change location all the time. A kind of reference CD in a biennial format to coincide with the biennial workshop on small-scale irrigation in Ouagadougou may be useful in several respects. 3. ensure that the results of research and development activities are incorporated into international as well as regional information systems: 3.1 examples are the use of AGRIS and WCA infoNET; 3.2 to support the use of AGRIS, searchable annotated bibliographies on various topics of small-scale irrigation development and technology in CD-ROM format (see 2.3) could help produce better abstracts. 4. strengthen Francophone-Anglophone collaboration: 4.1 special attention should be paid to accommodate Nigeria and NINCID in the ARID system;
At the same time it must be recognized that there is no way to beat the Internet for efficient information collection provided the information is published on the Internet.. See also suggestion 8.3. 9 To mention only two active African authors: Magatte Wade from Senegal and Mathias Fonte from Cameroon. There are many more. 14
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4.2 if annotated bibliographies on a number of ARID subjects are produced, attention must be paid to avoid a bias towards documents in the English language or containing an abstract in English; 4.3 a request could be addressed to IPTRID to put the French version of its magazine on-line (the English version has been available for years on the web site of HR Wallingford). 5. ensure that repositories of relevant publications and grey literature are available in the sub-region: 5.1 e.g. a repository in the EIER library in Ouagadougou, and possibly another one in the library of FAO-RAF in Accra. 6. produce bibliographic outputs for the benefit of users in the sub-region and worldwide: 6.1 the production of an overview and assessment of the literature or annotated bibliographies on a dozen or so small-scale irrigation subjects is the fastest way to provide quick access to conventional literature; 6.2 ideally, the bibliographies should point out details of document delivery services, such as those offered by IPTRID, FAO, USBR, HR Wallingford or KIT; 6.3: at some point, ARID could play a role of moderating the access to these document delivery services for its members. 7. seek support from existing institutions in the region; a highly committed core group could prove essential for network success: 7.1 an example is the Inland Valley Consortium of WARDA. 8. promote network sustainability by using the simplest and most affordable methods first: 8.1 decentralize the responsibility for the content of ARID-L country and subject pages to the national ICID committees and relevant institutions, preferably within the sub-region. This will provide a powerful signal of network sustainability based on member enthusiasm; 8.2 request the Inland Valley Consortium of WARDA to adopt the ARID-L page on inland valleys; 8.3 emphasize the need for decentralized information supply at all times. Increasingly, projects, institutions, donors, organizations and individuals in sub-Saharan Africa should be encouraged to supply information to the benefit of counterparts elsewhere in the continent. The need to use modern ICT approaches for diffusing this information is inescapable. 9. create a clear sense of purpose 9.1 Individuals involved in agricultural development have little time to devote network business unless they consider it a priority. Information must be practical. One way to ensure practicality, is by taking a good practice approach to networking (see Van t Hof, 2001); 9.2 consider involving a mailing list specialist, e.g. from Bellanet. 10. expand the membership base 10.1 there are various ways to expand the membership base. One is to continue to announce ARID-L. It seems wise to wait with further announcements, e.g. in IRRIGATION-L and Spore, until the ARID-L web site is successfully transferred from the HIPPO web site to EIER, in order to avoid unnecessary confusion; 10.2 national ICID committees must seek membership among irrigation professionals, so they are the best place to expand the ARID-L membership base, especially in the ARID area; and,
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10.3 national ICID committees should be encouraged to develop a balanced membership from government institutions, educational facilities, private enterprises (consultancies, equipment sellers), non-governmental organizations and farmer associations. Subscription to ARID-L should not be linked to committee membership.
References
Anon. (1999) Irrigation technology transfer in support of food security FAO/IPTRID workshop for West and Central Africa. GRID, Issue 13, Feb. 1999, p. 13. ARID (2001) Newsletter issue no. 1 http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/ressources/newsletter1.htm ARID (2001) Newsletter issue no. 2 http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/ressources/newsletter2.htm Deininger, A. and Stein, T.-M. (2000) Irrigation information in the Internet FAO (2000) Protocole daccord relatif ltablissement dun rseau informatique sur la petite irrigation auprs de lAssociation Rgionale pour lIrrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de lOuest et du Centre, ARID. FAO (2001) IPTRID: promoting research and technology transfer. Achievements of the past 10 years, plans for the future. Richardson, D. (1997) Internet et le dveloppement rural : les possibilits dans le domaine de la foresterie. Echos du Cota, no 76, 1997-3, p.11-17. Sangar, S. M. (2000) Mise en place dun fichier sur la petite irrigation : rapport de collecte de donnes au Mali en vue de la mise en place dun fichier lEIER sur la petite irrigation en Afrique de lOuest. ARID/EIER/IPTRID (FAO). Starkey, P. (1996) networking for sustainable agriculture: lessons from animal traction development. IIEDs Gatekeeper Series, no. SA 58, pp. 18. Van Hartevelt, H. (2000) Contract management: a new government policy for output financing of products and services. IAALD Quarterly Bulletin, XLV, 3/4, 2000, p. 87-89. Van t Hof, S. (2001) Turning ARID-L into a best practice network on small-scale irrigation: creating a sense of purpose (unpublished, 4 p., e-mail version available at HIPPOMP@net.hcc.nl).
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Annex 1: Memorandum of Understanding

PROTOCOLE D'ACCORD relatif l'tablissement et au fonctionnement d1un rseau informatique sur la petite irrigation auprs de L' Association Rgionale pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, ARID L'Association Rgionale pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, ciaprs dsigne l'ARID, pour laquelle l'Ecole Inter-Etats d'Ingnieurs de l'Equipement Rural (BIER), Burkina Faso, assure le secrtariat; L'Institut Royal des Tropiques des Pays-Bas, ci-aprs dsign le KIT; L'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture, (ci-aprs dsigne la FAO); et Le Programme International pour la Recherche et la Technologie en Irrigation et Drainage (ci-aprs dsign l'IPTRID); parties ce protocole d'accord, ont convenu ce qui suit: Article premier 1. Les parties ce protocole d'accord conviennent de crer et d'appuyer le fonctionnement d'un rseau informatique sur la petite irrigation, appel ARI[)-L, dans le cadre des conditions gnrales dfinies ci-aprs. 2. L'objectif gnral du rseau est d'amliorer les changes et l'accs l'information et aux rsultats de la recherche en vue de promouvoir des technologies de petite irrigation dans les zones rurales, urbaines et pri-urbaines en Afrique et crer des capacits locales d'appropriation et de communication. 3. Les activits prvues et leurs produits sont: (a) un forum lectronique avec archivage des documents; (b) la production d'une lettre du rseau trimestrielle; (c) un service de questions-rponses li celui de l'IPTRID; (d) un site Web li ceux de l'IPTRID et de l'ARID avec une liste de membres et un inventaire des projets; et (e) un service bibliographique li celui de l'IPTRID. Article 2 Les parties tabliront un comit de pilotage de l'ARID-L, comprenant le prsident, le secrtaire gnral et le secrtaire des publications de l'ARID, un reprsentant du secrtariat de l'ARID (l'EIER), le responsable du Programme IPTRID, le responsable thmatique pour l'Afrique de l'IPTRID, un fonctionnaire du Bureau rgional de la FAO pour l'Afrique et un reprsentant du KIT. Article 3 La FAO accepte d'accueillir dans le serveur de la Division de la mise en valeur des terres et des eaux, AGL, la liste de discussion ainsi que l'archivage lectronique des dbats du
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rseau de manire assurer la continuit ncessaire, avant le transfert de la totalit de ces donnes un serveur Ouagadougou le 31 dcembre 2001. Article 4 1. L'ARID accepte, pendant la priode d'excution de cette lettre d'entente, jusquau 1er juillet 2001, de contribuer la cration et au fonctionnement de l'ARID-L travers la traduction ventuelle vers l'anglais ou le franais des documents et le classement de documents sur papier son sige Ouagadougou. 2. L'ARID mobilisera le personnel et les ressources ncessaires la gestion intgrale de ARID-L partir du 1er janvier 2002. Article 5 1. Le KIT accepte de raliser an nom de l'ARID et en collaboration troite avec celle-ci les programmes informatiques ncessaires l'tablissement de l'ARID-L et de lancer une lettre d'information semestrielle du rseau. Le KIT fournira l'assistance technique requise reprsentant un maximum de 50 (cinquante) jours de travail pendant a priode d'excution de cette lettre d'entente. 2. Le KIT transfrera toutes ses responsabilits relatives l'ARID-L l'ARID au 31 dcembre 2001. Article 6 L'EIER appuiera l'tablissement de l'ARID-L travers l'utilisation de ses liens lectroniques et son site Web. En sa qualit de secrtariat de l'ARID, lEIER contribuera la cration et au fonctionnement de l'ARID-L travers la traduction ventuelle et l'archivage des documents sur papier Ouagadougou. Article 7 Les parties prennent note que lIPTRID, dans le cadre dun lettre daccord entre la FAO et lARID, a effectu une contribution en faveur de lARID destine lachat dun microordinateur et de logiciels, ladaptation du logiciel existant de lEIER, la constitution dun fichier des institutions et personnes intresses par lirrigation et le drainage en Afrique de lOuest, la constitution du fichier pour quatre pays et un appui la publication de deux numros de la revue, Suc, Science et Technologies sur le projet. Article 8 Les parties prendront toutes les mesures appropries pour rsoudre dventuelles difficults qui pourraient survenir l'occasion de lexcution de ce protocole daccord. Article 9 Ce protocole daccord entrera en vigueur la date de signature des diffrentes parties la plus rcente jusquau 31 dcembre 2001.
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Annex 2: List of subscribers to ARID-L

These are the Internet (ISO 3166) codes of the ARID countries and their frequency in the list of subscribers: Benin bj (1), Burkina Faso bf (1), Cameroon cm (1), Cape Verde cv, Central African Republic cf, Chad td (2), Congo cg, Equatorial Guinea gq, Gabon ga, The Gambia gm, Ghana gh, Guinea gn, Guinea-Bissau gw, Ivory Coast ci, Liberia lr, Mali ml (2), Mauritania mr, Niger ne (1), Nigeria ng, Sao Tom st, Senegal sn (6), Sierra Leone sl, Togo tg. N.B.: many subscribers from ARID countries use internet-based e-mail addresses with .com, .org or .net and not with their country codes. Probably, there are between 30 and 40 African subscribers.
hamma.yacouba@eier.org Wolfgang.Prante@fao.org> Hippomp@net.HCC.nl Ines.Beernaerts@fao.org const.c.mbajiorgu@talk21.com r.c.carter@cranfield.ac.uk tvaishnav@yahoo.com jgmunoz@corpoica.org.co m_chebaane@yahoo.com melvynkay@rtcs.org.uk john.r.storer@btinternet.com gadri@hotmail.com AnnOberle@t-online.de adnan_fattah@hotmail.com vancotthem@tcdialogue.org m.azouggagh@iav.ac.ma elzeir@mum.mans.eun.eg aloni@plastro.com tony@pronet.net.in aliouiam@caramail.com b.maheshwari@uws.edu.au Tove.Lilja@fao.org moriarty@irc.nl athust@unccd.int Tom.Brabben@fao.org JeanMarc.Faures@fao.org ara1968@hotmail.com tremington@crsearo.org solartec@worldonline.nl GADELLEf@afd.fr rchapinw@imcnet.net jbaraon@ufro.cl cburt@calpoly.edu phpallas@tin.it dunia.tabet@darbeirut.com r.g.bloemers@hccnet.nl lieshout@itc.nl seninge@sentoo.sn Claudio.Gregorio@fao.org fkramer@ideorg.org ericpatrick@hotmail.com hermann_pfeiffer@hotmail.com dmt@nru.com.au praxis@telecomplus.sn PPONSY.CEDRE@wanadoo.fr p.fraval@sentoo.sn g.pearce@hrwallingford.co.uk Karen.Frenken@fao.org agl-htm-archives@fao.org ARID-L-counter@PMDFEXT.fao.org ARID-L-disclstore@PMDFEXT.fao.org plusquel@clark.net patriceewwbf@liptinfor.bf Iminami@worldbank.org h.j.vanhoof@larenstein.nl coordinator@inpim.org j.skutsch@hrwallingford.co.uk jnaugle@epix.net belieres@cefib.com Benjamin.Kiersch@fao.org David.Casanova@pobox.com DMOLES@compuserve.com Urs.Heierli@deza.admin.ch Andries.Bosma@fao.org E.BOELEE@CGIAR.ORG kabirou.Ndiaye@ier.ml gilari@netafim.com wri@ghana.com dwg@ihe.nl kimk@enterpriseworks.org sunil@agriwatch.com DNELSON@gp.usbr.gov m.f.fonteh@camnet.cm hespav.ves@bow.intnet.bj dramane.arby@caramail.com ingrid.hermiteau@eier.org magatte.wade@sentoo.sn chrisvaught@hotmail.com ajaasy@yahoo.fr cooperation@france-mali.org.ml sogec.inter@intnet.td rayakasai@yahoo.com christophe.rigourd@eier.org ouedrago@yahoo.fr sisp@assp.co.zw dgrha@intnet.td Kennedy.Mudima@fao.org Seremie@worldbank.org paradza@assp.co.zw megnaglo"@yahoo.fr smitsvi@sentoo.sn rcolin@attglobal.net isajalo@yahoo.com isaacfemi@hotmail.com rcolin"@attglobal.net Jstoutjesdijk@worldbank.org magatte@sonatel.sn Couture.Jean-Louis@wanadoo.fr francois.blanchet@eier.org arby.dramane20@caramail.com imbas.ca@rcl.nig.com SBIA@menara.co.ma diargaou@yahoo.fr
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Annex 3: Welcome message to new subscribers
Bienvenue sur la liste de diffusion ARID-L ! Conservez ce message pour rfrence ultrieure. Vous y trouverez des informations gnrales sur la liste laquelle vous vous tes abonn. Merci. NOTE IN ENGLISH: This is a bilingual welcome text. The English version starts halfway this document. Au risque de le redire, ARID-L est le rseau de l'ARID sur la petite irrigation. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Introduction Inscription / retrait de la liste de diffusion Autres commandes automatiques disponibles par le serveur de la FAO Contributions Archives de la lettre d'information Accs l'information de sites Internet par mail Dernire mise jour fvrier 2001 1. Introduction ARID-L, rseau et liste de discussion sur la petite irrigation, est un produit de l'Association Rgionale pour l'Irrigation et le Drainage en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, ARID, une association but non lucratif cre en 1996. La FAO (http://www.fao.org), l'IPTRID (http://www.fao.org/iptrid) et le KIT (Royal Tropical Institute nerlandais, http://www.kit.nl) ont dcid d'apporter leur soutien au lancement de ce rseau. L'objectif principal de l'ARID-L est d'changer information et expriences sur le dveloppement et les technologies de petite irrigation en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. Pour en savoir plus, visitez le site http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/. Les changes se font principalement par mail. Les possibilits d'Internet sont dveloppes : site Internet, archives disponibles sur Internet. Compte tenu de la diversit des personnes concernes (services de vulgarisation, gestionnaires de primtres, ONG, entreprises prives, fonctionnaires gouvernementaux, donneurs), les expriences concernent des sujets proposs par le modrateur, moins que vos contributions indiquent un intrt pour un sujet particulier. L'activit principale d'ARID-L est une liste de discussion non commerciale, avec un modrateur (qui vite surtout la diffusion des messages commerciaux) et un archivage des contributions (disponibles sur le site Internet, ou par mail sur demande). A titre indicatif, les sujets proposs traitent des primtres irrigus par des aquifres peu profonds, des pompes, de l'irrigation pri-urbaine ou de bas-fonds. La liste de discussion peut galement tre utilise pour obtenir des rponses spcifiques de la part de pairs. Une lettre d'information trimestrielle (distribue par mail et disponible sur le site Internet) informe sur l'actualit, les vnements et formations futurs, les nouvelles publications et les postes pourvoir et fournit des 20
mises jour sur les projets. Chaque fois que possible, les adresses mail et Internet de la source d'information sont mentionnes. Nous esprons que vous trouverez ce moyen de communication intressant et efficace, et attendons vos contributions et commentaires avec intrt. NB 1 : Les inscriptions ne sont l'Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. pas limites aux ressortissants de
NB 2 : Les adhrents la liste sont censs respecter l'thique d'une liste de discussion lectronique. Nous sommes tous soumis la lgislation sur les droits d'auteur, et les documents ne devraient pas tre utiliss but commercial sans les accords appropris. La lettre d'information de l'ARID-L est envoye depuis la FAO, hte de la liste de discussion. Le format des mails permet au modrateur de trier les messages qu'il reoit. Nous vous remercions par avance d'utiliser les formats que vous trouverez ci-dessous. En particulier, les commandes au serveur doivent tre en anglais pour tre reconnues. N'hsitez pas nous envoyer vos ides, remarques, suggestions... 2. Comment s'inscrire / se retirer de la liste Inscription l'ARID-L Adresse Objet : Message Message : mailserv@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : subscribe ARID-L ligne 2 : end
Terminer l'abonnement l'ARID-L Adresse Objet : Message Message : mailserv@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : unsubscribe ARID-L ligne 2 : end
Pour toute difficult vous retirer de la liste ou pour toute question sur la liste elle-mme, crivez ARID-L-Moderator@mailserv.fao.org. 3. Autres commandes automatiques disponibles par le serveur FAO Pour recevoir des dtails sur les commandes du serveur, envoyez le mail suivant : Adresse Objet : Message Message : mailserv@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : info ligne 2 : end
Vous pouvez aussi utiliser 'help' au lieu de 'info'. Pour obtenir l'historique des changes prcdents, envoyez ce message : Adresse Objet : Message Message : mailserv@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : dir listlog/arid-l.* ligne 2 : end
Si vous cherchez cet historique pour un mois en particulier, envoyez : Adresse : mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Objet : (laisser en blanc) 21
Message ligne 1 : get listlog/arid-l.mmmyyyy Message ligne 2 : end Attention ! Le message de la premire ligne est sensible aux majuscules / minuscules (mmm = Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr... car les commandes du serveur sont en anglais, et yyyy = 2001...). 4. Contribution et retour d'information (commentaires, suggestions...) Nous vous invitons envoyer vos contributions (non commerciales), en franais ou en anglais (ou les deux), condition qu'elles traitent du dveloppement et des technologies de la petite irrigation dans les pays en dveloppement, en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre en particulier. Vous pouvez galement utiliser l'adresse mail ci-dessous pour nous envoyer vos commentaires sur la lettre d'information d'ARID-L. Envoyez votre contribution comme suit : Adresse : ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org Objet : (sujet principal de votre message) Message : (votre message) Si une rubrique de la lettre d'information vous a intress et que vous cherchez des complments d'information, nous vous prions d'utiliser directement l'adresse mail de la source d'information qui est fournie, SANS PASSER PAR LE MODERATEUR. Les contributions mail la liste de discussion d'ARID-L sont archives et disponibles sur Internet la FAO, Italie jusqu'au 31 dcembre 2001. Elles seront ensuite transfres l'EIER, Secrtariat de l'ARID. 5. Archives de la lettre d'information Les numros passs de la lettre d'information d'ARID-L peuvent tre tlchargs depuis http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/newsletters. Ils peuvent galement tre obtenus en envoyant le mail suivant : Adresse Objet : Message Message : ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : receive ARID-L [numro] (ex: 20010, 20011, 20012 etc.) ligne 2 : end
Pour obtenir la liste des numros passs, envoyez le message suivant : Adresse Objet : Message Message : ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org (laisser en blanc) ligne 1 : index ARID-L ligne 2 : end
6. Accs l'information de sites Internet par mail Les participants la liste de discussion qui n'ont pas accs Internet peuvent utiliser les serveurs mentionns ci-dessous pour lire les pages Internet (sous format txt) mentionnes dans la lettre d'information. Adresse : getweb@unganisha.idrc.ca Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : GET [URL] (ex: GET http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/) Adresse : webmail@www.ucc.ie Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : send [URL]
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Adresse : www4mail@web.bellanet.org Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : GET [URL] Adresse : wwwmail@bnl.org Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : GET [URL] Pour les pays en dveloppement seulement : Adresse : agora@www.undp.org Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : SEND [URL] Des informations plus dtailles sont disponibles dans le document "Accessing the Internet by E-mail: Doctor Bob's guide to off-line Internet access" que l'on peut demander en envoyant le message suivant : Adresse : mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-e-mail. Pour ceux hors des Amriques, envoyez le message suivant : Adresse : mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Objet : (laisser en blanc) Message : send lis-iis e-access-inet.txt Des informations plus dtailles sont disponibles dans le document "Accessing the Internet by E-mail: Guide to Offline Internet Access". La version 9.0 de fvrier 2000 est disponible en anglais : http://www.geocities.com/CapitoHill/1236/
Welcome to the ARID-L mailing list ! Please save this message for future reference. It information on the list you've subscribed to. Thank you. ARID-L the small-scale irrigation network of ARID 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Background How to subscribe / unsubscribe to the list Other automated mailserver commands Contributions Archives of newsletters Accessing www pages listed in the ARID-L newsletter by e-mail Last update February 2001 1. Background ARID-L is the network and discussion list on small-scale irrigation set up by the Regional Association for Irrigation and Drainage in West and Central Africa, ARID (NGO created in 1996). FAO (http://www.fao.org), IPTRID (http://www.fao.org/iptrid) and KIT (Dutch Royal Tropical Institute, http://www.kit.nl) pledged support to help launch the network. The main purpose of ARID-L is to exchange information and experiences on small-scale irrigation technology and development in West and Central 23 contains general
Africa. For more information, visit http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l. E-mail is the main means of exchange, but Internet connections are also being developed (website, downloadable archives). As the audience targeted is wide (extension workers, scheme managers, NGOs, private companies, government professional officers, donors), the experiences are exchanged on topics proposed by the discussion list moderator, except when spontaneous contributions point out a special topic of interest. ARID-L's main activity is a non commercial e-mail discussion list, with a moderator (mainly to avoid commercial messages) and archiving of mail contributions (accessible from the website or by e-mail upon request). Indicative subjects tackled are low-lift pump schemes; pumpsets; peri-urban or low-land irrigation, etc. The mailing list can also be used to seek answers to specific questions from peers. A network newsletter produced four times a year (sent by e-mail and available on the website) provides short news items, information on forthcoming events and courses, project updates, new publications and vacancies. Each item includes, where possible, an E-mail contact address and the Internet address of the news source We hope you find this means of communication interesting and efficient. We look forward to your contributions and comments. NB 1 : Subscription is not limited to ARID member countries. NB 2 : Subscribers are expected to respect the standard ethics of electronic discussion lists. We are all subject to copyright laws, and documents should not be used for commercial purposes without appropriate consent. The ARID-L newsletter is sent from FAO, host of the discussion list. The format of mail help the moderator to sort them out. Thank you in advance for using the following format for your contributions, comments and suggestions. 2. How to subscribe/unsubscribe Subscribing to ARID-L Address: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: subscribe ARID-L Message line 2: end Unsubscribing from ARID-L Address: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: unsubscribe ARID-L Message line 2: end If you ever have trouble unsubscribing, or have questions about the list itself, send e-mail to ARID-L-Moderator@mailserv.fao.org. 3. Other mailserver automated commands To receive more detailed information on mailserver commands, send the following mail Address: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: info 24
Message line 2: end You can also use 'help' command instead of 'info'. In order to get an overview of back issues, send : Address: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: dir listlog/arid-l.* Message line 2: end In particular, if you are looking for back issues of a particular month, send the following message : Address: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: get listlog/arid-l.mmmyyyy Message line 2: end Nota : The message line 1 is case sensitive (mmm = Jan, Feb, Mar... and yyyy = 2001...). 4. Contribution and feedback You are invited to send (non-commercial) contributions in either French or English (or both), provided they are within the scope of small-scale irrigation development in developing countries in general, and in West and Central Africa in particular. You can also use the mail address below to send your comments on the ARID-L newsletter. Send messages to the list as follows: Address: ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (main topic of your message) Message: (your message) If an item of the newsletter interested you and you are looking for more information, please directly use the mail or Internet address mentionned, WITHOUT going through the moderator. E-mail contributions to ARID-L discussion list are archived at FAO, Italy and downloadable from the website until 31 December 2001. Then, ARID-L will be transfered to EIER, ARID Secretariat. 5. Archives of newsletters Back issues of ARID-L newsletter are downloadable from http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/newsletters. They can also be obtained by sending an e-mail with the following command: Address: ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: receive ARID-L.[issue no.]. (e.g. 20010, 20011, 20012 etc.) Message line 2: end To get an overview of available back issues send an e-mail with the following command: Address: ARID-L@mailserv.fao.org Subject: (leave blank) Message line 1: index ARID-L Message line 2: end
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6. Accessing web pages listed in the newsletter by e-mail Subscribers without full access to Internet can use one of several servers listed below (non exhaustive list) to read web pages (as text files) mentionned in the ARID-L newsletter. Address: getweb@unganisha.idrc.ca Subject: (leave blank) Message: GET [URL]. (e.g. GET http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/) Address: webmail@www.ucc.ie Subject: (leave blank) Message: send [URL] Address: www4mail@web.bellanet.org Subject: (leave blank) Message: GET [URL] Address: wwwmail@bnl.org Subject: (leave blank) Message: GET [URL] For developing countries only: Address: agora@www.undp.org Subject: (leave blank) Message: SEND [URL] More detailed information is available in the document "Accessing the Internet by E-mail: Doctor Bob's guide to off-line Internet access" which can be requested by sending a message to: Address: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu Subject: (leave blank) Message: send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-e-mail. If you are outside the Americas send a message to: Address: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Subject: (leave blank) Message: send lis-iis e-access-inet.txt More detailed information is available in the document "Accessing the Internet by E-mail : Guide to Offline Internet Access". Version 9.0 dated February 2000 is available in English at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitoHill/1236/
26
Annex 4: The ARID-L newsletter

Source of inspiration The Source newsletter of the International Reference Centre (IRC), Delft, the Netherlands was used as an example for the ARID-L newsletter. Below follows an account of the description of the production process by the editor of Source, Mr. Cor Dietvorst. The address of Source is: http://www.wsscc.org/source/index.html. Source is a biweekly newsletter on water supply and sanitation. It now has 1700 subscribers. Its production is fairly labour-intensive and takes about 28 hours for every issue. Attempts are made to automate production using special software (e.g. of www.autonomy.com ), but so far this doesnt work too well. Until now there was only a version in English, but a once-a-month French version is contemplated. The main sources for Source are mailing lists (only 2 are really interesting), newsletters, and the whats new pages of a large collection of drinking water-related web sites (they are listed on a somewhat hidden page http://www.irc.nl/LINKS/Index.htm - because information is difficult to keep up to date). For each issue, the editor makes a directory with subdirectories for each subject: (1) quotes of the week; (2) international news; (3) Africa south of Sahara; (4) North Africa/Middle East; (5) Asia and Pacific; (6) Latin America; (7) lessons learned; (8) vacancies; (9) new publications: (10) new on the net; (11) names in the news; en (12) conference and events calendar. In 2000, a reader survey was held, which led to this set of subjects. One of the new subjects is the lessons learned, because many readers have a preference for practical information. For the same reason a best practice approach to irrigation networking was advocated by Van t Hof (2001). As time passes, information from newsletters, mailing lists and contributions from readers (now about 10% of Source content), is put in various sub-directories. A few days before the deadline arrives, a large number of whats new pages is scoured for interesting items and also put in the relevant sub-directories. Once this is over, a final selection is made of the topics in the subdirectories to make sure that about 3 remain. These are edited to compact items of about 100 words (about 700 characters or 10 lines with a maximum of 80 characters in the e-mail newsletter). For every item an e-mail address is provided, for those among the readers who cant open or download html pages (of course they could request for html pages in txt formation by e-mail). The final phase comprises editing the English, use of the spell-checker, and verification of the links. Especially newspages can be archived or changed very quickly. Irrigation mailing lists and newsletters Information from the following mailing lists and newsletters may have information for ARID-L (the interesting ones are IRRIGATION-L and the IPTRID newsletter). 1. IRRIGATION-L, see on http://www.hipponet.nl/arid-l/liens.htm 2. TRICKLE-L http://www.microirrigationforum.com/ 3. IPTRID newsletter, since July 2001-12-24 http://www.fao.org/iptrid/ 4. newsletter of KeyWATER http://keywater.vub.ac.be
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5. FAO Land and Water newsletter http://www.fao.org 6. INPIM electronic newsletter http://www.inpim.org 7. Water events on the UNESCO Water Portal: http://www.unesco.org/water Web sites A list of web sites to facilitate searching for information or news on small-scale irrigation technology and development was made. Their relative importance is indicated with a number between 1 and 5, 1 representing essential sites and 5 representing organizations or web sites with potentially interesting information but none was found so far. Considering that it is co-funding almost everything in subSaharan Africa, the EU is one of the most disappointing organization in terms of information supply. For many organizations their own search engine gives poor results. In such cases it is much better to use the site search function of Google (e.g. small-scale irrigation site:www.worldbank.org). Unfortunately, many of the larger organizations use more than one web site. With the possible exception of IPTRID, there are no organizations dealing specifically with small-scale irrigation and there seem to be hardly any relevant whats new pages to be tracked and scoured for finding news items on small-scale irrigation. In that case it is better to use Google or another search engine in the advanced mode and ask it to return pages updated in the past 3 or 6 months. An example of a suitable search instruction for Google is irrigation petite Afrique OR Sahel for French pages and irrigation small Africa OR Sahel for English pages. With time, it will be possible to develop a comprehensive and efficient search strategy.
econ.worldbank.org www.worldbank.org wbln0018.worldbank.org lnweb18.worldbank.org http://www.worldbankbangladesh.org www-wds.worldbank.org www4.worldbank.org www.developmentgateway.org www.sce.ait.ac.th www.ait.ac.th www.icdf.org.tw afeid.montpellier.cemagref.fr www.iisd.ca www.odi.org.uk www.wri.org www.reliefweb.int www.afdb.org www.acdi-cida.gc.ca www.cgiar.org www.agricta.org www.fao.org www.hrwallingford-group.co.uk www.idrc.ca www.ilo.org www.cgiar.org allafrica.com fr.allafrica.com www.pseau.org www.undp.org www.info.usaid.gov www.usaid.gov www.lboro.ac.uk 1 Worldbank
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Asian Institute of Technology ICDF htp://www.icdf.org.tw/english/100/operations4-1-13.htm Association Franaise pour lEtude des Irrigations et du Drainage International Institute for Sustainable Development ODI World Resources Institute African Development Bank Canada Intern. Devel. Ass. CGIAR CTA FAO HR-Wallingrford http://www.bcb.co.uk/database/Member103.htm IDRC/CRDI ILO, BIT IWMI etc. News/nouvelles PS-Eau (French, commercial ???) UNDP/PNUD USAID Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC), Loughborough University of Technology
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www.imf.org www.wfp.org www.bbc.co.uk www.careinternational.org.uk http://www.careinternational.org www.care.org www.cseindia.org www.dfid.gov.uk nt1.ids.ac.uk www.ids.ac.uk europa.eu.int www.uncdf.org www.ifad.org www.iita.org www.interaction.org www.ipsnews.net www.silsoe.cranfield.ac.uk www.eng.warwick.ac.uk www.vita.org www.africanewswire.com Search indirectly www.orleans.ird.fr www.fordfound.org www.hipponet.nl www.inra.fr www.jhuccp.org www.nytimes.com www.oxfam.org.uk www.unops.org www.essex.ac.uk www2.essex.ac.uk www.oneworld.org www.apc.org www.isdb.org www.catholicrelief.org www.cseindia.org www.cnn.com www.coordinationsud.org/ www.um.dk www.dwhh.de www.gtz.de www.unep.or.jp www.un.org www.wsp.org www.worldvision.org www.comminit.com www.sponpress.com www.adb.org www.aed.org www.enda.sn www.soton.ac.uk www.ip3.org www.rainwaterconference.org www.kfw.de www.nwp.nl/ www.norad.no www.panos.org.uk www.ppiaf.org www.rockfound.org www.sida.org www.siwi.org www.unhcr.ch www.wef.org www.watertechonline.com
1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
West African Development Bank World Food Programme, Programme Alimentaire Mondiale BBC CARE Centre for Science and Environment (India) DFID Eldis European Union FENU, UNCDF IFAD IITA Interaction, American NGOs IPS News Silsoe College, Cranfield Univ. University of Warwick Volunteers in Technical Assistance Africa Newswire Network caritas Centre dIRD Orleans Ford Foundation HIPPO Foundation Institut National de Recherche Agronomique Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs New York Times OXFAM UN Office for Project Services University of Essex, Centre for Environment and Society Association for Progressive Communications Banque Islamique de Dveloppement (BID) Catholic Relief Services Centre for Science and Environment CNN Coordination ONG franaises DANIDA Deutsche Welthungerhilfe GTZ United Nations Environmental Programme United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) Water and Sanitation Program World Vision / Vision Mondiale
Asian Development Bank Change Project environnement et dveloppement du tiers-monde Inst. Of Irrigation and Development Studies (IIDS), Southampton Univ. Institute for Public-Private Partnerships, Inc. (IP3) International Conference on Rainwater Catchment Systems KfW Netherlands Water Partnership News [Dutch] NORAD PANOS Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) Rockefeller Foundation SIDA Stockholm International Water Institute UNHCR Water Environment Federation WaterTech Online
29
Annex 5: The ARID-L web site

In the Web style guide: basic design principles for creating web sites (see http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html ) a distinction is made between teaching, education, browsing, training and reference web sites. ARID-L is probably best characterized as a reference site. The best-designed reference Web sites allow users to quickly pop into the site, find what they want, and then easily print or download what they find. Content and menu structure must be carefully organized to support fast search and retrieval, easy downloading of files, and convenient printing options. Graphics must be kept minimal to speed download times. The use of search software instead of relying exclusively on indexlike lists of links is advocated. The following software and services were used for creating the ARID-L web site: 1. A subdirectory of www.hipponet.nl, namely www.hipponet.nl/arid-l. This arrangement was convenient because the web site administrator was the secretary of the HIPPO Foundation as well as the co-moderator of ARID-L for KIT. While www.hipponet.nl was still hosted by freehosting is was entirely free, but it is currently hosted by LaDot and costs about US$ 40/year, which is cheap for a combined domain name registration and hosting service. 2. To create HTML files for the ARID-L web site, Microsoft Frontpage 2000 (version 4) was used, but freewhare or sharewhare HTML-editors could have been used, too. 3. To simplify web site construction, both style sheets and shared borders were used. Shared borders can be made in most HTML-editors, including Frontpage. Typically, both top and bottom shared borders are used. In this case a simple navigation bar was placed in the bottom border, and a more elaborate one in the top border. 4. A style sheet was used to control the overall layout of all the pages of a web site. It was made with TopStyle Lite, which is a freely-distributable version of TopStyle (www.bradsoft.com/topstyle). It is possible to change the way the site looks, by simply modifying the style sheet. 5. To transfer files between the KIT co-moderators computer and the remote LaDot server, a Windows based file transfer client application connected via a modem and telephone lines, called WS_FTP LE (Windows 95/NT version 4.6 from Ipswitch, Inc. http://www.ipswitch.com) was used. With WS_FTP LE, users can create, change, and remove directories and view, execute, rename, or delete files. The Limited Edition version, WS_FTP LE is not shareware, but is available free of charge to non-commerical home users, students and faculty of educational institutions, and to U.S. federal, state, and local government employees. find useful information on the Internet both Web ferret (see 6. To http://www.zdnet.com/ferret/index.html) and Google (www.google.com) search engines were used. Google was also installed on the search page of the web site. 7. Any web site with more than 20 pages requires a search engine. A free version of Picosearch (see http://www.picosearch.com ) was used. It is language independent as it shows all search words as found in full-context (concordance). It also provides multilingual displays and user search statistics. 8. A free, Internet-based counter ( http://sm6.sitemeter.com/) was installed on the home page and the page daccueil. It displays the number of visitors on these two pages (so not on the 100-odd other ones) and provides some information on their whereabouts. 9. A tracking service could be useful for getting information on updated whats new pages. Unfortunately, there are no whats new pages dealing specifically with small-scale irrigation. 10. A useful method for finding information is described in the Web site section of Annex 6. 11. One or two freeware or shareware graphics programmes were used to make sure that images on the web site are small. Typical sizes are 100 x 100 pixels with an image size of 3 kB. Images are generally cropped and provided with a black outline.
30
Fig. 5: a typical ARID-L web page
Problmatique de trois systmes irrigus en Afrique

Rsum - Abstract irrigation schemes / management / surface irrigation / irrigated rice / farmers associations / tenure primtres irrigus / gestion / irrigation de surface / riz irrigu / association d'agriculteurs / systme foncier to abstract
MAE / DGCID*, Direction du dveloppement et de la coopration technique, 20 rue Monsieur, 75007 Paris
Problmatique de trois systmes irrigus en Afrique Rsum - Les enjeux et perspectives de l'irrigation en Afrique de l'Ouest et Madagascar sont analyss, en utilisant 4 tudes de cas: la valle du fleuve Sngal (rive gauche), la SAED, le bassin hydroagricole du fleuve Niger; et la rgion du Lac Alaotra. Trois grands thmes de proccupation sont passs en revue: la conservation des ressources naturelles et les possibilits d'extension; la maintenance des infrastructures et primtres d'irrigation amnags; et la comptitivit, la scurit foncire et la diffrenciation des exploitations. Il est recommend de: (1) renforcer le pouvoir rglementaire de l'tat dans le domaine de la gestion des eaux; (2) poursuivre la restructuration des institutions spcialises; (3) renforcer la capacit de gestion des organisations professionnelles; (4) amliorer le statut foncier des exploitants; (5) amliorer les conditions de maintenance des amnagements; et (6) poursuivre une nouvelle politique d'quipement. Problems of three irrigation schemes in Africa Abstract - The problems and prospects of irrigation in West Africa and Madagascar are analysed, using 4 case studies: the Senegal valley (left bank), the SAED, the Niger river, and the Lac Alaotra region. The main problems are reviewed, including those related to the conservation of natural resources and the possibilities for scheme extension, the maintenance of infrastructure and irrigation schemes, and the competitivity, tenure security and equity. It is recommeded to: (1) reinforce the reglementary powers of the state with regard to water resource management; (2) pursue the restructuration of special institutions dealing with irrigation development, credit, and management; (3) reinforce the management capacity of central and farmer organizations; (4) improve tenure security; (5) improve the organization of maintenance of irrigation infrastructure; and (6) pursue a new policy of attribution.
au rsum
*tires part ARID, 2001
31
Annex 6: People involved in establishing ARID-L

name Laurent Campaor Allahoury A. Diallo Reto Florin Franois Gadelle Arumugam Kandiah Nancoman Keita Margo Kooijman Philippe Mang Audrey Nepveu de Villemarceau Wolfgang Prante Mose Sonou Hans van Hartevelt Nico van Leeuwen Sjon van t Hof Hans Wolters Dr. Hamma Yacouba organization EIER ANPIP/ARID FAO World Bank (<2001) IPTRID (<2002) ARID (<2000) KIT (>2001) EIER-ETSHER/ARID IPTRID FAO FAO-RAF KIT FAO KIT FAO (<2002) EIER/ARID e-mail (most recently known address)
Laurent.Moussa.Compaore@eier.org ANPIP@intnet.ne Reto.Florin@fao.org F.Gadelle@wanadoo.fr Arumugam.Kandiah@fao.org M.Kooijman@kit.nl Philippe.Mange@eier.org Audrey.NepveudeVillemarceau@fao.org Wolfgang.Prante@fao.org Moise.Sonou@field.fao.org H.v.Hartevelt@kit.nl Nico.vanLeeuwen@fao.org HIPPOMP@net.hcc.nl or Sjon.v.t.Hof@kit.nl Hans.Wolter@fao.org Hamma.Yacouba@eier.org
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Supporting Irrigation Networking in West and Central Africa: The Establishment of ARID-L

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Document: Van t Hof, S. (2001) Supporting irrigation networking in West and Central Africa: the establishment of ARID-L.

Sjon van t Hof

Information Services Amsterdam, 31 December 2001

ARID-L: le rseau sur la petite irrigation de l'ARID,

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