page_title: Bura Irrigation and Settlement Project (Kenya)
section_title: Collapse of BISP
hierarchical_section_title: Bura Irrigation and Settlement Project (Kenya) / Production / Collapse of BISP
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the villages in Bura Irrigation and Settlement Project. Only about 50% of the houses is still remaining. The picture was taken in 2008
context_page_description: In 1977 the Board of Governors of the World Bank approved Bura Irrigation and Settlement Project in Kenya. The project area is situated just South of the Equator in the Lower Tana Basin. It lies on the west bank of the Tana River and falls within the administrative area of Tana River County.
  The project was an ambitious attempt of the government of Kenya, the World Bank and a few other donors to develop a remote area, create employment for thousands of people with a reasonable income and earn foreign exchange. Bura project would develop about 6,700 net irrigated ha over a 5 ½ year period and settle on smallholdings about 5,150 landless poor families selected from all parts of Kenya. Physical and social infrastructure would be provided to support the settler and satellite population, expected to reach a total of 65,000 persons by 1985. The total cost of the project was estimated at 92 million dollars in 1977 prices.
  Actual construction started in 1978. During implementation the costs exploded from $17,500/= per family to $55,000/=, a new record for the World Bank. The largest cost increase was for the irrigation network.
context_section_description: After 1992 till 2004 production in Bura Irrigation and Settlement Project was negligible. The cumulative effect of a number of factors caused this failure. The main underlying reason was lack of funds to operate the project. Since 1989 the project did not receive enough funds for cultivating a full crop cycle. Together with poor pest control and lack of adequate irrigation water, this resulted in very low yields and crop failures. Two external factors made the situation worse. Firstly the insecurity in Somalia spilled over into Tana County and the Bura Project area was regularly attacked by well-armed roaming bandits. Secondly, due to high inflation and economic liberalization the prices for agricultural inputs skyrocketed. Thus, the cost for chemicals was Ksh 1,850 in 1987 and 12,000 per ha in 1992. The price for fertilizer went up from 260 to 1,000 per bag. At the same time the cotton price in 1992 remained Ksh 16/= kg, as it had been in 1987. For a full crop cycle the management needed Ksh 98 million and it had received only 10.4 million. Moreover, the figure of 98 million did not include expenditure for maintenance of the inlet and settling basin, the conveyance system, domestic water supply, maintenance of houses, roads and the sewerage system. At that time the conveyance system was considered to have silted up and to need a full rehabilitation. A few years later a study estimated that in total 500 000m³ silt would have to be removed.
  Since no agricultural production took place, by 1996 at least one third of the tenants had abandoned the project. The remaining population were mainly women and children as most adult men had left the project to find work elsewhere. In addition to remittances, households were surviving on odd jobs for government, National Youth Service and BISP staff, on charcoal burning and small scale trade. A few NGOs assisted and once in a while famine relief was distributed by both the government and NGOs. Research in 1996 showed that 90% of the Bura population was ‘at risk and vulnerable’. Most of the people remaining in Bura had no place to go and hoped that the project would be revived. This belief/dream was further dented when during the El Nino rains of 1997 a huge protection dyke at Nanighi was washed away. Subsequently the supply canal became part of the natural drainage system and repairs would be a costly affair.
caption: One of the ten villages in BISP. At the time of taking this picture in 2008, about 50% of the houses still existed.
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