Irrigation Infrastructure 2009-2014

This study evaluates irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation in Armenia. The study separately examines the impacts of tertiary canals and other large infrastructure such as main canals and pumping stations. The study also explores complementarities these types of infrastructure have with each other as well as with other activities included in the Armenia compact.

Although a random assignment design is considered the most rigorous evaluation approach and may have been feasible in this context, randomly selecting which tertiary canals would be rehabilitated was not done. Communities had to first apply to be considered for inclusion, and then canals were selected based on other factors, particularly engineering considerations and projected economic rates of return. Instead, the study uses a comparison group design. Under this approach, tertiary canals for which rehabilitation is planned will be matched to other canals sharing similar geography, pre-rehabilitation conditions, and where similar crops are grown. Examining how outcomes change for farmers in the comparison group, whose canals were not rehabilitated, will inform us about how those outcomes would have changed in the absence of the rehabilitation efforts.

Random assignment was also not possible for evaluating the large infrastructure projects. Moreover, there are too few pumping stations, gravity schemes, main canals, and drainage systems to evaluate any of those types of infrastructure separately. Thus, the evaluation uses a matched comparison group design to see whether there are impacts on communities in which any of these types of infrastructure were rehabilitated compared to those in which none was.