Motivation
In most of Asia, irrigation plays a key role in food production, employment generation, and agricultural and economic growth. Increasing water scarcity in Asia has raised concerns about how agriculture will share this valuable resource with rapidly growing industries and urban centers. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) supported IFPRI research in Indonesia and Vietnam because irrigation development is essential to both agricultural and overall economic growth in both countries, but water needs in industrial urban areas threaten the future of irrigated production. Together with staff from the Water and Agricultural Ministries, IFPRI researchers assessed the contribution of irrigation to agricultural growth and identified ways to ensure continued irrigated productivity growth. The team worked with water engineering and basin agencies in the two countries to develop integrated economic-hydrologic river basin models that support ongoing policy reform, including the development of a water-rights system and river-basin management.
Outcomes
Basin and water agencies in the Brantas (Indonesia) and Dong Nai (Vietnam) river basins have used the customized basin modeling tools to examine, for the first time, the economic impacts of water pricing, water-rights trading, and input and output support pricing on the irrigated agriculture sector in these basins
- Research results informed the debate that led to both Indonesia and Vietnam making major reforms to their water institutions (for example, through the Indonesian Water Law and Vietnam water-licensing legislation).
- The exchange of Vietnamese and Indonesian research contributed to ADB’s efforts on river basin twinning, a strategy that brings together basin agencies in different countries that have similar challenges so that they can share knowledge and best practices.
- The modeling tools developed as part of the project continue to be used in Vietnam’s water agencies and other developing countries.
