Study title

Community-managed reservoirs have the potential to transform livelihoods and improve food security for rural farmers in semi-arid Burkina Faso by providing year-round agricultural water access. Despite construction of over 1000 reservoirs in Burkina Faso over the last century, there is a lack of understanding of how reservoir water resources and their benefits are distributed among farmers, and the challenges and solutions for making resource access fair and sustainable for positive development outcomes. This dataset presents findings from 197 structured interviews with reservoir irrigators, pastoralists, fishers, and non-users conducted at two case study sites in Centre-Est Burkina Faso. Participants were asked who benefits (or not) from reservoir water resources, the benefits associated with access to these resources, and perceived challenges and solutions to achieving more sustainable and equitable resource management. Of the 111 questionnaire respondents at Bidiga, and 72 respondents from Ladwenda, 78 % and 90 % respectively use reservoir resources. Results show that there are no female non-users among the respondents at Ladwenda, while at Bidiga 58 % of female respondents were reservoir users compared to 87 % of male respondents. At both sites, reservoir resource users and non-users were fairly evenly represented across age groups with the exception of respondents in the 50-78 yr old group at Ladwenda, who are all users. Reservoir users include farmers from all seven ethnic groups represented in this survey. Responses indicate stark divisions in resource access split along gender, age and income lines. Current or anticipated future threats to water resources create high uncertainty for farmers who rely on reservoir resources for food or income. There will be trade-offs between long and short term solutions (e.g. protecting slopes from erosion versus dredging) to reservoir resource management challenges, and social solutions are the immediate priority for...