Post-Crisis Rural Recovery and Development Programme

Post-crisis Rural Recovery and Development Programme

The regions of Debub and Gash Barka lie close to the Ethiopian border and were especially hard hit during the wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Conflict and the three-year drought from 2000 to 2002 have left more than 90 per cent of the population in poverty and without adequate means of securing food. In addition, population pressure and unsuitable agricultural practices have caused extreme environmental degradation, which in turn has affected agricultural productivity.

The programme improves the incomes, food security and nutrition of the most disadvantaged communities in the area. It provides much-needed sustainable natural resource management to help raise agricultural productivity while safeguarding the environment, and it also ensures that degraded rangelands and watersheds are rehabilitated.

The targeted households are the area’s poorest and most food-insecure, including households headed by women and those made up of internally displaced persons and returnees. Building on local community tradition of lending support to vulnerable members, the programme encourages a participatory approach to natural resource management and strengthens grass-roots capacity to plan and implement development activities. The target group is expected to participate fully in irrigation development and will eventually be responsible for operating the system, following the model already successfully established by the Eastern Lowlands Wadi Development Project.

Programme objectives include:

• Livestock and agriculture development, through promotion of forage production, improved animal husbandry practices, distribution of livestock (dairy cattle, goats, sheep and beekeeping packages) to vulnerable and very poor families, construction of livestock watering points, and support to rainfed and irrigated farming
• technical support for pastoralists and dryland farmers
• rehabilitation of rangeland and degraded watersheds
• support for development of a leasehold policy on land and water conservation in the highlands
• policy support in the area of natural resource management and promotion of participatory land use planning
• natural resource protection investment

Source: IFAD