Root Cause Analysis of Recurrent Irrigation System Destruction in Jowhar District, Middle Shabelle Region, Somalia

Abstract

Governments have historically considered irrigated agriculture as a way to stabilize rural communities, increase rural incomes, and meet the growing population's requirements for food and fiber. In Somalia, irrigation development started during the Italian colonization era of 1920s for the purpose of banana cultivation. The majority of these infrastructural investments were made in Middle Shabelle. The central government's fall in 1991 left the Somali government become weak financially and unable to finance the maintenance and operation of the irrigation infrastructure. The main objective of this research is to identify the root causes of recurrent irrigation system destruction after their rehabilitation in the Jowhar district of the Middle Shabelle Region, Somalia. Two sub-objectives of the study were to assess how insufficient institutional capacity and financing affected the failure of irrigation canals in the Jowhar District. In the study, 28 participants participated. A mixed-methods strategy was used to conduct the research, which included surveys, field observations, and interviews. The questionnaire is divided into three sections, each of which has a question about management, design, and financing. The final section investigates how inadequate institutional capability contributes to canals failure. This study examined the relationship between finance availability and institutional capacity with regard to canal failures and concluded that finance availability is positively correlated to the failure of irrigation canal and also low institutional capacity have moderately positive correlation with failures of irrigation canal.