The Rural Prosperity Initiative (RPI) is a four year project which will increase the net incomes of poor farm families in six countries by developing simple, maintainable low-cost water control technologies that can be purchased by the rural poor. It will also develop sustainable supply chains to manufacture and distribute the technologies and value chains to maximize the value of the agricultural outputs produced by the small farms.

The RPI will create sustainable increases in the incomes of 40,000 rural smallholder families by at least $200 annually through a combination of technology sales and value chain development. The project aims to increase the incomes of another 60,000 families by $100 annually through technology sales alone.

The RPI was launched in January 2007 with financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. RPI programs are currently being implemented by IDE and its partners in Ethiopia, Zambia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam.