Nairobi – The Government of Norway has delivered a major boost to efforts to protect vulnerable communities in Ethiopia from the impacts of climate change, with a donation of over $ 1.5 million to the Ethiopian Environment Ministry.
The money will allow existing projects, which encourage local communities to fight food insecurity and environmental degradation linked to climate change, to be upscaled and duplicated in other parts of the country.
The grant is a vote of confidence in the policy of addressing climate change mitigation at the local level, a policy spearheaded by a joint project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with funds provided by the Government of Denmark.
The project, CC DARE (Climate Change and Development-Adapting by Reducing Vulnerability) has championed community-based climate change mitigation in eleven countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia. Between July 2010 and July 2011, CC DARE channeled over $ 300,000 into nine projects in Ethiopia, helping an estimated one million people.
Projects included diversifying income sources for farmers though activities such as beekeeping, fruit cultivation, and fish farming. There was a particular emphasis on conservation of water resources through rainwater harvesting, and research was conducted into expanding the hardiness of indigenous cattle species to cope with a changed climate.
“These CC DARE projects daringly help tackle climate change in spite of, but generously because of, our vulnerability in Ethiopia,” said Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Director General of the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority.
The additional $ 1.5 million, courtesy of the Government of Norway, will allow these existing projects in Ethiopia to continue once CC DARE’s operations reach their culmination later this year. The funds will also allow the successful projects to be replicated elsewhere in the country.
Notes:
With targeted short-term activities, the CC DARE project has demonstrated that integrating adaptation into national development policies can strengthen and enhance the resilience of countries and communities against the impacts of climate change while also contributing to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The CC DARE programme has provided countries in sub Saharan Africa with concrete climate change adaptation actions that will continue to sustainably provide them with resilient livelihoods under a changing climate. The programme has spurred impacts in multiple fronts including catalytic, Strategic, Policy and innovative. The merits of the approach is evident in the engagement of local communities, using local materials, keeping the implementation process simple and thus, making adaptation actions more efficient, more effective, more affordable, more equitable, and more environmentally sustainable. The CC DARE approach has demonstrated that, it is possible to achieve consolidated solutions for national priorities on adaptation to climate change that serve communities.
Source: UNEP.
