Ethiopia: Working for better pastoralists livelihood
Characterized by erratic rainfall and high mean temperatures, Ethiopia's dry land accounts for 60 per cent of the country's landmass. These areas have most effectively supported the pastoral livelihood system. Pastoralism converts periodic rainfall and patchy vegetation into nutritional and economic value through the sale and consumption of livestock and other related products.
This requires reliable access and efficient utilization of scarce natural resources across vast terrains to support livestock herds. As Ethiopia has showing a rapid progress by about 11 per cent annual growth rate since 2004, the pastoral regions have come under increasing pressure from a range of anthropogenic factors. Population expansion, resource base diminishing and climate change are the factors affecting per capital livestock holdings. Due to these elements, the productivity of those animals is decreasing and pastoralism has been compromised.
At the same time, these challenges are tied with opportunities that can have positive, significant and those transitioning out of pastoralism. As part of its Growth and Transformation Plan, the Government of Ethiopia has renewed strategies to maximize land and resource productivity and demonstrated commitment to natural resource management at the watershed level, even.
In this regard, the U.S government developed a new five year Pastoralist Resilience Improvement and Market Expansion (PRIME) programme to promote adaptation to climate change, food security and livestock market development in pastoralist areas of Ethiopia. PRIME will support improved Natural Resource Management (NRM) in the pastoral areas at a landscape level. The programme proposes a multistakeholder engagement approach to NRM.
PRIME will also bring together government, traditional institutions, and community representatives across districts and zones to devise an appropriate system for effective management of pasture areas and water points which are critical inputs in the livestock production system.
The programme valued at 52 million USD was recently launched in the presence of State Minister of Agriculture, federal and regional government officials, private sector representative, local and international implementing partners in Addis ababa.
Taking advantage if the occasion, Pastoralist and Livestock Programmes Economic Growth and Transformation Office Coordinator, Dubale Admasu told journalists that the project would help build nearly a decade of experience and capacity in drought-stricken and pastoralist areas of Afar, Oromia and Somali region in order to benefit more than 250,000 households. The project is unique, because, its focus is changing the trend of crisis management to risk management, he said.
Ministry of Agriculture State Minister, Sileshi Getachew on his part indicated that opportunities in Ethiopia to realize the objective of ending drought emergencies initiative have not yet been well exploited. For instance, commitment of government, the presence of enabling environment, trade and economic potential, and strong constitutional experience are among them to be cited.
He also said that Country-led Plans and in Partnership (CPP) provides a lot integrated holistic approach ranging from humanitarian to long term development. It recommends the scaling up of the best practices in disaster risk reduction while ensuring economic growth in drought prone areas.
In addition, this problem has been compromising the integration of strategies on disasters reduction with growth of economic livelihood opportunities in livestock and non livestock sub-sector. Alternative livelihood center development interventions to achieve the goals in aspiration CPP become Growth and Transformation (GTP), as well. Targets on livestock economy would require a joint commitment of government, development partners and the public at large including livestock owners private sectors, buyers and sellers, and all those in the system. Above all, creation of market access to the livestock sector would help increase the resilience capacity of the users to shocks and productivity enhancement from the same is crucial, he noted.
USAID Mission Director Dennis Weller asserted: “PRIME is designed with multiple and complementary interventions to build resilience to recurring crises, improve the livelihoods of pastoralists and the well-being of their families and communities, and develop the potential of the livestock market to contribute robustly to the achievement of Ethiopia's Growth and Transformation Plan.”
He also pointed out that the ultimate goal is to transition away, in time, from reliance on humanitarian and emergency assistance by investing in more cost-effective and sustainable development activities. This approach can provide long- term management of the effects of crises, recurring more frequently with climate change, and which often provokes conflict.
He also indicated that in 2011, the drought occurred in the Horn of Africa region affected many countries including the pastoralist areas of Ethiopia. Under the leadership of the government of Ethiopia, USAID and development partners, responded to save lives. Our former USAID pastoral livelihoods projects led by Save the Children and Mercy Corps implemented a series of emergency interventions using a scheme called 'crisis modifier' approach. Designed to protect assets, so that, people do not fall back into poverty during times of climatic shocks or other emergencies.
“Through this crisis modifier approach, USAID and implementing partners conducted commercial de-stocking, animal feed interventions, animal health care, and water interventions and the likes. We learned a lot. For example, we have found that commercial de-stocking, helping families sell livestock ahead of a drought has benefit to cost ratio of 40 : 1 rather than waiting until after a drought plagues a region. Fodder interventions, basically ensuring that the right animals get the right food at the right time preserves these livelihood assets,” Weller said.
In addition, while drought-stricken areas receive lots of media coverage and attention during a crisis, the significant economic potential of these areas is largely overlooked. For example, evidence shows the potential areas have high livestock potential and over 90 per cent of Ethiopian livestock and meat exports are sourced from these areas in addition to the informal livestock trade.
Moreover, the government of Ethiopia has set an ambitious Growth and Transformation Plan targets to triple revenue from meat and livestock exports to reach one billion USD. USAID, through the recently launched livestock market development project as well as the PRIME project is working to open up the untapped opportunities in this sector and ultimately, to help improve pastoralist incomes and enhance their livelihoods, he said.
Somali State Chamber of Commerce President, Dr. Mohammed Abdulghani said that Ethiopia is located very close to the high income countries of the middle East and North Africa as well as the EU countries. This approach would enable to translate costly aspects into reduced transport fares. The meat from the livestock has been produced following traditional way. And this makes it more organic and found at a relatively cheap labor and gives Ethiopia an additional advantage too. It is, however, unfortunate that the competitive advantages that could have been gained from these particular factors are eroded by other weakness.
According to him, the country's export market heavily relies in commodities emerging from small holders and low input traditional systems. The majority of these commodities are exported in raw forms since the status of agroprocessing and manufacturing industry in the country is in its infancy.
So that, to bring change overcoming the aforementioned challenges Mercy Corps will lead implementation of the programme along with international and Ethiopian partners: CARE, Kimetrica, SOS Sahel, Pastoralists Conxcern, Haramaya University, the Afar Integrated Sustainable Development Association, and the Aged and Children pastoralist Association.