In 1984, a famine began to strike Ethiopia with
apocalyptic force. Westerners watched in horror as the images of death filled
their TV screens: the rows of fly-haunted corpses, the skeletal orphans
crouched in pain, the villagers desperately scrambling for bags of grain
dropped from the sky. What started out as a trickle of aid turned into a
billion-dollar flood. For more than four decades,
nearly half of Ethiopians have experienced some degree of food insecurity and
malnutrition. Approximately five million are chronically food insecure, i.e.,
unable at some time in any year to secure an adequate supply of food for
survival. Ethiopia, a nation known as the water
tower of North-East Africa is the epicentre of famines. Surface water resources
in Ethiopia flow in 12 major river basins. It is estimated that an average of
122.19 billion cubic metres of water is annually discharged from the Abay
(Nile), Tekeze, Shebelle, Baro and Omo-Gibe river basins with an estimated 3.5
million ha of irrigable land. Hence, the long-term objective is to establish a
nation that can ensure its citizenry human security and development
The DRSs are endowed with fertile soil,
abundant water resources, natural forests, and a wide variety of mineral
resources. Nevertheless, constraints against the effective utilisation of
resources to improve the livelihoods of people are numerous. The proposed UNJP
actions to show case the rapid use of the resource endowments the DRSs have and
turn them into opportunities that would ensure livelihood security in 18
months. These focus on capacity of the Federal Agencies and the DRSs to guide
regional development and economic governance and technical capacity in partnership
with the private sector. Wereda capacity for environmentally sustainable
livelihoods and improved delivery of (quantity and quality) social services
entails enhancement of quality
education and expansion of quality of
health services and integrated Sustainable Livelihood Services.
This include food security, natural resources
conservation and development, climate change adaptation, irrigation
infrastructure development, animal resources development, agricultural research
and extension; and cooperative development, development of public private
partnership, entrepreneurship and employment creation. In the pastoralist
areas, existing best practices will be replicated and improved upon.
See paper here
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