Rural areas in developing countries are facing ever-increasing pressure from climate change, political and health crises, and the continuing degradation of soil and water resources. Irrigated agriculture is therefore a crucial issue in terms of food security and socio-economic development. The COSTEA programme was therefore set up in 2013 with €1.2 million from AFD for an initial 5-year phase to meet the growing demand from southern countries for reinvestment in irrigation. AFEID is in charge of project management.

Coordinated by Sami Bouarfa, COSTEA is a multi-stakeholder platform for irrigated agriculture that helps to improve irrigation policies and projects in the countries where AFD operates. The aim is to create sustainable irrigated systems that take into account the imperatives of productivity and all the dimensions of socio-economic and environmental sustainability. On a voluntary basis, it brings together an international community of experts in the sector (researchers, consultancy firms, institutional players and civil society). As far as possible, AFD’s local contracting authorities are also involved, as are the players who interact with them: the administration, universities/research institutes, sectors, professional organisations, NGOs and irrigators’ associations. For example, links were quickly established with the CILSS “Sahel Initiative” project (the Burkina Faso committee supporting the WB). Phase 1 resulted in a collective work, published by Quæ.

The second phase of COSTEA was more ambitious, with a €5m grant managed by Afeid.

COSTEA was structured around 7 major projects with field activities, called Structuring Actions, and 5 groups of experts, called Collaborative Actions. These 12 actions covered a wide range of themes described on the COSTEA website.

Phase 2 of COSTEA was evaluated by an external firm (Baastel), which concluded that its strategies and procedures were efficient and relevant. The evaluation recommended further development of COSTEA. Phase 3 of COSTEA is currently being prepared for the period 2024-2027.