West Africa's fast urbanization escalates the need for affordable, nutritious food, particularly fruits and vegetables, essential for a healthy diet. However, the production of these crops relies on compromised water resources in West Africa, one of the world's most vulnerable regions to climate change effects. The present study intends to understand how farmers are mitigating the impacts of climate variability to provide year-round vegetables for populations in urban and peri-urban areas in three West African countries. A survey was carried out using a semi-structured questionnaire between September 2021 and November 2022 to assess the diversity of water sources and the typology of irrigation systems as well as water conservation cultural practices in vegetable farming. In total, 1,119 vegetable growers spread across Benin (428), Mali (317) and Burkina Faso (374) were interviewed. The results indicated that three types of irrigation systems were mainly used across the three countries including the use of watering cans (30 to 42%), flexible pipes (22 to 35%), and gravity irrigation (17 to 25%). The number of waterings per week ranged from 1 to 21 and from 1 to 14 during the off-season and the rainy season, respectively. The main sources of water used for irrigation in vegetable production were boreholes in Benin (60%), wells in Mali (63%), and watercourses in Burkina Faso (40%). Fuel (52 to 70%) was the main energy source used for irrigation by farmers across all the countries. In Benin and Mali however, a larger number of farmers (24 to 25%) were using manpower as source of energy for irrigation, whereas in Burkina Faso, the liquefied petroleum gas was also cited as a source of energy for irrigation. The issues of optimized water management in West Africa to mitigate the impacts of climate variability on vegetable production in urban and peri-urban areas are discussed.