This paper describes and characterises different irrigation technologies and conducts a comparative analysis of their productivities, in terms of crop yield, water use and financial returns. The study was conducted in the Upper East Region of Ghana and southern Burkina Faso. Apart from technologies that depend on reservoirs, all other technologies surveyed in the paper are farmer driven and require no government support. This ongoing type of endogenous irrigation development provides a strong backing that the way forward in sub-Saharan Africa is for governments to create policies that facilitate poor farmers becoming irrigation entrepreneurs. Such policies should aim to enhance the reliability of markets (both input and output) as the driving force, and facilitate people"s access to land and water.