Irrigation as a service: Expanding water access for smallholder and women farmers
Irrigation as a service (IaaS) is a transformational approach that reduces irrigation access barriers by offering flexible, low‑cost access to equipment and water.
- irrigation
- smallholders
- women
- gender
By Hagar ElDidi, Elizabeth Basauri Bryan, and Claudia RinglerMarch 20, 2026
Key takeaways
•Irrigation as a service (IaaS) is a transformational approach that reduces irrigation access barriers by offering flexible, low‑cost access to equipment and water.
•Women farmers gain easier irrigation access, reduced labor demands, and new income opportunities.
•IaaS boosts dry‑season production, food security and nutrition, and job creation across the value chain.
In Tamale, northern Ghana, on a hot day in March, a group of around 40 women are irrigating small vegetable plots leased from the village chief for the dry season.
In the past, this meant spending the entire day carrying heavy buckets of water back and forth from a small reservoir more than 500 meters away.
Today, however, these women are benefiting from a service that has transformed their daily lives and livelihoods, making irrigation more accessible and affordable. Across the plots, some are using hoses to water the crops, while others are still carrying buckets—only now over the short distance to a nearby water tank. This is possible thanks to a local farmer who purchased a solar-powered irrigation pump on credit, who now provides them with irrigation water delivery on demand, extending a pipe from the reservoir and pumping water directly into a large polyethylene tank near their fields, servicing the whole cultivated area of 3-4 acres.
With time and effort freed up, the women are now eager to farm, cultivating profitable market crops like cowpea, okra, and pepper. They no longer have to collect and sell firewood and charcoal to earn an income—more arduous and less profitable work than farming. One woman humorously acted out how strenuous carrying a load of charcoal was, while the rest laughed.
This scene in Tamale is just one example of irrigation as a service (IaaS), a potentially transformative business model emerging across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. As we observe World Water Day (March 22)—with the theme, “Where water flows, equality grows”—IaaS offers a model for how to leverage small-scale irrigation technology to benefit smallholders, especially women farmers facing a range of socioeconomic obstacles.