Nairobi — Most African countries will not be able to lift their people out of absolute poverty in seven years' time as required by the Millennium Development Goals, a recent regional conference on agricultural water management in Ethiopia was told.

This is mainly because although nearly all African countries pledged to raise investments in agriculture to 10 per cent of their overall national incomes, only a few have done so.

The worst performers are in sub-Saharan Africa, where only Ethiopia, Madagascar, Niger and Namibia have devoted 10 per cent of their national budgets to their agricultural sectors as agreed by African heads of state under Nepad's Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP).

Under the programme, African countries aimed to raise annual agricultural growth to 6 per cent and identified the management of water for irrigation as one of the key pillars for farming to be improved.

During the Addis Ababa conference, Amadou Allahoury Diallo, a senior water specialist at Nepad, said the CAADP framework does not require African countries to spend more than they have already devoted to farming. "CAADP is about doing more with the cash already being spent in Africa to address food security," he said.

Seemingly, most African countries are not awake to the fact that attaining food security largely requires investing real cash in the development of water for farming and particularly targeting water needs in smallholder farming.

Instead, countries like Kenya are toying with "get-rich-quick" technologies like genetic engineering in the belief that it is a short-cut to attaining food security.

However, the participants reviewed many studies that pointed to the fact that providing water to smallholder farmers can go a long way in boosting their output. And it was clear that the water is there, but Africa is not utilising it to stimulate farming, particularly in high-value agriculture.

Most of the experts contended that Africa does not lack water, although it is not evenly distributed, and most of the countries have not developed efficient systems to manage it.

Even then, more critical problems have to do with poor land use, depletion of forest cover, pollution and general land degradation as well as over-abstraction of water in different areas, all which have tended to deplete the resource.

Ironically, little of the water Africa receives as rain is utilised for farming, apart from areas where NGOs and some governments have toyed with different methods of storing rainwater.

Most of the experiences narrated during the week-ong conference ended up replaying this scenario of misuse-cum-overuse. For instance, for the hilly country of Burundi, the most glaring problem is soil erosion and general land degradation, particularly in Ngozi district.

Ntiburumusi Ferdinard, a Burundian, said poor management of soil and water affects 70 per cent of the country, which consequently affects the livelihoods of 90 per cent of the population engaged in agriculture various ways.

Ethiopia, on the other hand, has an abundant water supply, but the country is barely able to feed itself, partly because investments in water-for-farming schemes do not meet the needs of millions of its rural farmers.

And just like Kenya and several other countries where forest destruction is the order rather than exception, Ethiopia -- according to Agricultural and Water Minister, Abera Deresa -- has reduced its forest cover from 40 per cent to less than 3 per cent over the past few decades.

Forest destruction and water scarcity go hand-in-hand.

Investment in irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa is wanting. According to Badre Lanedri, a World Bank representative at the conference, only 7.1 million hectares of the land suitable for irrigation is actually developed in these countries.

This is only 18 per cent of the 39.4 million hectares that is suitable for irrigation. Most irrigation schemes are in Sudan, South Africa and Madagascar.

Other countries are yet to tailor their legal regimes to encourage investments in irrigation.

This shows that as sub-Saharan Africa continues to complain of recurrent droughts, it is not using 82 per cent of the land that is suitable for irrigation.

"Interestingly, there is a strong relationship between higher irrigation and lowering of poverty levels," said Lanedri.

In Tanzania, for example, the difficulties created by lack of finances are compounded by lengthy procedures of allowing people to abstract water from rivers and lakes.

Presenting the case of the 17,168 sq km Rufiji basin, Kossa Rajabu of Tanzania said it takes upto three years to approve an application for water rights.

However, the participants also reviewed positive cases where governments have established schemes to manage rain and river water for smallholder farming.

For instance, Mwangi Hai of Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture narrated the case of an ongoing initiative to develop water resources for agriculture that started three years ago.

Mainly targeting the arid and semi-arid districts, the project is meant to establish a series of water ponds of 1,000 cubic metres each. It is also meant to equip farmers with simple irrigation equipment with the government using it as a way to teach them appropriate farming techniques.

Mr Hai said that, over the past two years, upto 145 ponds of between 1,136 and 8,667 cubic metres' capacity have been built largely by hand, thus creating a rainwater storage capacity of 548,700 cubic metres.

He said the initiative is now grounded in the "social pillar" of Kenya's new economic blueprint -- Vision 2030.

He said the project will go a long way in reducing Kenya's relief-food budget, that runs between $40 million and $65 million per year, to feed three million people.

Nevertheless, though commendable, the ministry's effort has so far scratched the surface.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Kenya can harvest as much as 365,633 cubic metres of rainwater, but it harvests only 2,735 cubic metres while it has developed a mere 20 per cent of its irrigation potential.

Ethiopia too, has tried to improve on traditional water management schemes -- some which were constructed more than 200 years ago.

One such scheme is in Ankober Woreda in Amhara Regional State, 180 km northeast of Addis Ababa. The Woreda terraces were built of stone and earth and are said to date back to the ancient Abyssinian kingdom before the birth of King Menelick II.

To maintain the old terraces, the country's Bureau of Agriculture has offered farmers training in techniques to improve soil fertility while forests are maintained on the steep slopes to hold the soil together.

As a result, farmers are getting good harvests of teff, maize, sorghum, wheat, barley beans and peas while livestock is thriving in the lowlands.

Nevertheless, the success stories of water and soil management in the sub-Saharan region are few and far apart.

Many of the governments in the region complain of lack of finances to install significant water harvesting and irrigation schemes.