Technical Assistance to the National Programme for Sustainable Small-Scale Irrigated Agriculture (PASSIP) Phases I-III: Strengthening of Public and Private Irrigation Service Providers

The programme “Technical Assistance to the National Programme for Sustainable Small-Scale Irrigated Agriculture” was launched in 2008, to support the rural population in Mali in using the irrigation’s economic potential to reach a self-sustaining agriculture”.

Targeting public and private service providers countrywide, the project/component is reviewing and harmonizing the subsector’s vocational education and training strategy, upgrading and adjusting curricula, elaborating training modules and ensuring good practices. These activities are flanked by specific capacity development and strengthening measures at all administrative levels concerned.

This will be achieved by:

  • Advise training centres in the preparation of 9 new curricula in the field of small-scale irrigated agriculture (various themes, including adaptation to climate change) and the accreditation of their modules at the national level. 
  • Advise training centres in the development of the implementation of large-scale advisory approaches, including Farmer Business Schools (FBS) and Farmer Field Schools (FFS): preparation of training manuals, training of instructors, and integration of FFS and FBS models.
  • Support training centres in the didactical and methodological improvements of their training offer.
  • Institutional strengthening of the training centres: financial autonomy, communication and visibility strategies, management and organisational skills.
  • Facilitation of networking and experience sharing between training centres and other vocational training service providers.
  • DNGR/DRGR (National and Regional Agencies for Rural Engineering) capacity building for the monitoring and evaluation of the national small-scale irrigated agriculture training plan.
  • Training centres capacity building in the monitoring and evaluation of the training courses and their impact.
  • Knowledge management and information sharing at the national level.
  • Monitoring and evaluation of indicators and action areas.