Located in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has an area of 1.1 million square kilometres and a population of about 11.5 million. It has an annual internal renewable surface water flow of about 122 billion cubic metres. However, the exact amount of water withdrawn for various purposes is still not known, so a better understanding of the country's water flows into the economy is needed.

Agriculture in Ethiopia is predominantly rainfed and is being acutely affected by climate change and is unable to meet the increasing demand for food for the ever-growing population, as well as the supply of raw materials for the expanding agro-processing industry. Ethiopia has an irrigation potential of about 11.1 million hectares of land, but only about 15-20 per cent of this is predominantly developed with surface irrigation systems. Irrigation performance, especially water productivity (WP), has not been assessed in the country, but some studies suggest that it is very low. The main challenge is that there is a lack of informed decision-making, planning and management of irrigation systems, and irrigation is managed with already established management practises, resulting in low water productivity, water wastage and land degradation/salinization as well as social conflicts.

Project milestones:

July 2022: WaPOR phase 2 inception workshop
February 2022: WaPOR introductory training