Farmer associations’ perceived appropriateness and practicability of role playing games for maintenance of Chókwè irrigation scheme in Mozambique

Abstract

Over the years, there has been a debate on the application of participatory tools in real life. Participatory tools such as role playing games have been developed and tested in different countries where, they have been discovered to influence people 's behaviour towards solving their problems.This study was a part of European Union and African Union cooperative research aimed to increase food production in irrigated farming systems in Africa (EAU4Food) project in Mozambique. The aim was to assess the perceived appropriateness and practicability of role playing game among farmers f association for maintaining the Chokwe irrigation scheme. A formative evaluation research was undertaken. Four farmers associations were purposively selected. The main solutions to the problems were to increase in maintenance capacity of the managers in terms of equipment and financial resources, a better transparency in the planning of annual maintenance, a strengthening of the mobilising capacity of water user associations and a better management of cattle in the scheme. The role playing game was appropriate in the cleaning of canals and actors of interaction on most associations. The players perceived it practicable and they were happy to participate. Hence, they expressed interest in organising more game sessions. More times farmers play the game, their perceived appropriateness of the game in solving the problems, increases. It is then recommended that the role playing game should be used with other Farmer Associations regardless of type of farmers. The solutions provided by the farmers should be evaluated to assess their effectiveness.