Activities in Pakistan

Background

Agriculture among economic sectors plays key role in developing Pakistan's economy. It contributes about 25% in Gross National Product (GNP). About 70% of population in rural areas is engaged in agriculture. On the other hand, the poverty in rural setup is higher than in urban areas as 40% of the rural population is classified as poor. It is indispensable to accelerate the agricultural development for improvement of livelihood of underprivileged and correction of economic discrepancy amongst the two areas.

Punjab province is highly dependent on irrigation for agriculture. It is since one hundred years that irrigation system was established and the canals and watercourses for the irrigations systems have been decaying, which impedes the efficiency of allocation of water.

The Project started in March 2009 in an attempt to strengthen improvement of the management and maintenance of the irrigation system; increase of water use efficiency and on-farm productivity. The Project applying the results of former JICA supports and Japan's 60 years' experience for the water users' association named "Land Improvement District" (LID) through the collaboration with JICA's Yen Loan Project "Punjab Irrigation System Improvement Project" (PISIP).

Objective

The project aims to establish the model of appropriate irrigation management system through verification activities in the pilot areas, which contributes to the improvement of the management and maintenance of the irrigation system and increase of water use efficiency and on-farm productivity.

Project Summary

Project Highlights

The project is included in JICA programme approach in Irrigation Sector in Punjab. As mentioned above, the project is going to develop a model of appropriate irrigation management and water saving technologies in one selected distributary-based area in each project pilot area. At the same time, the model established in the project will expand into the other areas in project pilot area through the fund of the JICA Yen Loan Project "SIAP".