Venue: Conference Hall, CDPR

Date: 21st July 2017, Friday

Time: 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) hosted its twelfth Lahore Policy Exchange talk on “Making Irrigation Work for Farmers?”. The irrigation of the Indus River and its four tributaries is the bedrock of Pakistan’s agriculture. But does the current irrigation system allocate water to the full benefit of farmers? Recent research shows that current measures of irrigated water allocation do not adequately capture its efficiency, thus underestimating how much farmers are losing due to inefficient irrigation. This has major implications for Pakistan’s stagnating agricultural productivity. Two speakers will discuss research on this topic and the policy implications at the event: Agha Ali Akram (Visiting Fellow at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) and Suleman Ghani (former Secretary of Irrigation Punjab). The discussion was moderated by Ijaz Nabi, Chairman of the Board at CDPR. Policy exchange dialogue took place at the end, when the question and answer session took place amongst the audience and the presenters.