Rainfed farming needs to be supported by appropriate water harvesting technologies to mitigate the moisture stress during critical crop growth stages during the main season and to increase opportunities for irrigated horticultural production. With this aim, a wider scale of water harvesting technology dissemination program was carried out in some areas of Ethiopia since 2002/03. This research was conducted with the aim of evaluating the implementation of the program and its impacts thus far, and to identify the major technical and socio-economic constraints to the wider utilization of on-farm level household ponds. Detailed analysis of the case of model farmers show that acceptable economic returns are possible from pond technologies given that farmers are able to follow appropriate cropping patterns and irrigation techniques to improve water use efficiency. It is recommended that the technologies should be disseminated in the region in a more farmer participatory approach.