To what extent corruption and free-riding behavior affect technical and water use efficiency of small-scale irrigated farms

Abstract

This paper examines irrigation management within the Tunisian Water Users Association (WUA) in Nad-hour, a public irrigated area in central Tunisia. How well 14 WUAs operated was evaluated based on surveys and related interviews. The methodology of this study consisted of two main steps: (i) an estimation of the technical efficiency scores of 90 smallholder farmers and the sub-vector of WUE (Water Use Efficiency) using a nonparametric DEA model, and (ii) a regression of a Tobit model to test the hypothesis regarding explanatory variables of differentiated technical efficiency scores. The investigation showed an average technical efficiency of 70.8% and WUE of 64.8%. It highlighted the water turn, state of infrastructure, water supply shortage, corruption and free-riding behaviors as factors tightly correlated with a farm’s productivi-ty. This suggests that there is potential to improve production efficiency by implementing targeted programs and rules for inefficient farmers. The findings of this study show that it is important to fight corruption in the water sector by increased government oversight, reformed regulations that stimulate performance, and increased accountability towards citizens through greater participation in decision making.