Learning Brief: Diversifying Income Generative Activities

LEARNING BRIEF: ENHANCING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND DISASTER RESILIENCE October 2018

BEST PRACTICE: Diversifying Income Generative Activities

1. Summary

in Ethiopia with partners since the mid-1970s CAFOD, SCIAF and Trócaire (CST) are the Catholic and together in a joint country programme since development and humanitarian organisations 2009. CST works with national NGOs under its from England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Women’s Empowerment and Resilient Communities respectively. All three organisations have worked programmes.

CST has been implementing a three year DFID UK Aid Match (UKAM) funded resilience project entitled ‘Enhancing Climate Change and Adaptation and Disaster Resilience in Rural Communities of Northern Ethiopia’ since November 2015. The project focuses on the most pressing poverty concerns and longer term climate change challenges in Tigray.

The Northern regional state of Tigray exhibits one of the highest overall poverty rates (31.8%) and food poverty rates at 37.1%1.

Increasing temperature and declining rainfall has exacerbated Tigray’s vulnerability to drought, land degradation, overgrazing and deforestation, and water pollution. The calamities of increased climate variability and change have had adverse impacts on the local communities’ livelihoods. Environmental problems such as loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services are already taking place. Food insecurity, outbreaks of water borne and respiratory diseases associated with droughts indicate the exceptional vulnerability of the region to drought.

female headed households.

2.

Project Context and Background

This best practice case study showcases the learnings from an income generating activity project implemented by Relief society of Tigray (REST), and in Mariam Shewito, Laelai Legomti and Mai Teum Tabias.

Mariam Shewito, Laelai Legomti and Mai Teum are inhabited by increasing number of landless youth; and characterized by lack of access to farmlands, economic diversification; resource and capacity constraints and lack of strong communal institutions.

Three type of Income Generating Activities (IGA) - small ruminant rearing, beekeeping and poultrywere identified as a measure to ensure income security and thereby transform the livelihood of poor household and landless youth. These interventions have significantly enhanced income As such, the programme aims to increase production and food security whilst ensuring that women’s and productivity, diversify production and income empowerment is embedded in all project activities. opportunities, improve year round access to safe and clean water, improve sanitation and hygiene practices, and protect and rehabilitate natural resources.

The project is implemented through a consortium of three Ethiopian local non-governmental organizations, namely Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat- Adigrat Branch (ECC-SADCO Ad), Adigrat Dioceses Catholic Secretariat-Mekelle Branch (ECCSADCO, ADCS-M) and Relief Society of Tigray (REST) are implemented in sixteen ‘Tabias’ (sub-districts) in five ‘Weredas’ (districts), the projects aim to Image: Project implementation areas benefit 17,078 households, of which, 4430 are Source: Axum University female headed households with land, 2307 female headed landless households and 2755 male headed landless households. The programme will also have 45297 indirect beneficiaries of which 21653 are

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The following programme design and implementation approaches were employed to successfully realize the programme’s objectives.

• Consultative need assessment: In collaboration with government sectoral offices and community members, key challenges restraining sustainable livelihood, climate change adaptation and disaster resilience were mapped out. The outcomes of the assessment identified increasing number of landless youth; lack of access to farmlands, lack of economic diversification; resource and capacity constraints and lack of strong community institutions as the key barriers.

3.

Key Activities

Various activities have been undertaken in, Mariam Shewito, Laelai Legomti and Mai Teum tobuild project participant’s resilience and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change. The following key activities were implemented under the IGA programme; A.

Capacity Building

Capacity building trainings, technical skills and business skills were provided to the project beneficiaries to enhance their contribution to the project performance.

• Local solutions for local problems: The collaborative consultation also deliberated on programmatic interventions best suited to meet local demands, and the aforementioned challenges. Accordingly supporting IGA in small ruminants, beekeeping and poultry enterprise wasidentified, and validated by the direct program participants.

Moreover, the local administration provided land for project participants.

Trainings focused on poultry projection and management, small ruminant rearing and beekeeping were provided to project participants.

• Community based selection process: IGA participants were appointed by the community and local administration. A total of 1,001 HH (647 FHH) (were selected and grouped across the three IGA activities in the project sites.

Following the technical and managerial training, participants were provided with equipments required for their respective IGA. Over the course of the three years a total of 16462 chicks’, 1717 small ruminant and 340 modern bee hives with bee colonies were distributed to the project beneficiaries.

• Inclusivity: Gender mainstreaming in project design, execution and outcome was conducted to facilitate women’s empowerment.

The project also prioritized landless youth headed household as programme participants.

C.

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Participants were well trained on honey production in relatively harsh areas with limited watershed and variable rainfall.The trainings facilitated experience sharing amongst participants.

B.

Input Provision

Poultry Farming

650 farmers of which 475 are women are actively involved in poultry farming. Each project participant household received 25 vaccinated chicks (45 days old) on average alongside 83 quintal poultry feed.

The programme capitalized on pre-existing homegrown knowledge of poultry farming and production.

Consequently, farmers were able to adopt a

sustainable, less expensive and more accessible E. Beekeeping local ingredients for poultry feed preparation.

With particular focus on female headed households and landless youth, the beekeeping and production program involved 78 households (23FHH). Project participants were organized into cooperatives to enhance production, efficiency and input provision.

D.

Small Ruminant farming

273 farmers (149 FHH) are engaged in small ruminant farming. Small ruminant framing was extremely beneficial to project participants due to its minimized cost, suitability to small land holdings and its triple purpose of providing meat, milk and fibre. On average each household had received 6 small ruminants during the input provision activity of the project.

Apiary Sites

4.

Impact and Achievements

A. Increased Income, diversification and food security

income

Availing various types of IGA to rural communities

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whose livelihood has been constrained due to climate changes, enhances households’ ability to sustain their income, and diversify their income risk mitigation methods.

efficient productivity will allow them to diversify their engagements depending on local needs.

Hence, being more resilient to income and food insecurity.

Project participants such as Ms. Alganesh state how C. Women’s Empowerment they would like to capitalize on their achievements The project has built and strengthened women’s thus far. economic empowerment. By diversifying their income generating activities, participants were able to acquire valuable assets such goat, sheep, chicken and bee colony that can be marketed and traded.

Mrs. Hareg G/hiwot, a 36-year-old beneficiary, veteran’s wife and a mother of 5 describes her experience below;

“My family was suffering from chronic food insecurity prior to being part of this program. When I started this program I was trained in poultry farming. I started off with producing eggs and moved to producing broilers chicken. I have sold over 150 chickens so far and I have a plan to grow my business to include dairy farming” Increased income has also enabled participants to ensure their household’s food security, and meet their other amenities.

The types of IGA activity they’re engaged in has also responds to and improved households’ dietary needs, who now have access to honey, meat and dairy products.

B. Capacity Building

‘Before this project I was providing for my family by selling traditional beer, ‘Sewa’. Even with my husbands pension I was never able to meet my family’s basic needs. As part of the selected benficary of this program I was able to undertake small ruminant rearing and management training and a received 6 sheep’s. In a few months, my sheep’s grew to 11. I am now able to provide for my family, send my children to school and repay my loan.”

D. Environmental Rehabilitation

Participants have gained new transferable knowledges and skills that will enable them to maintain their means of income diversification.

Trainings in bee-colony splitting, wax making, vaccination, market and trading skills and utilization of available resource in their environment for

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IGA program activities are carried out through a zero grazing system, and the reuse of poultry and small ruminant manure which consequentially increases soil fertility and helps combat soil erosion. Moreover, better utilization and management of watershed increases soil and water conservation.

5. Challenges During the project implementation phase the following challenges were encountered by participants of the project and implementing partners • ‘Tragedy of the common’ among cooperatives: Low level of awareness among cooperative members and self-interest over common resources which created disputes among the members, shortage of bee colonies in the project area, high absconding rate of bees and inappropriate spray of chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides have highly reduced honey production.

• Local adaptation of feeding: Enabling farmers to adopt an environmental friendly and cost effective form of feeding has proven to be advantages both for the farmer and soil fertility preservation. Zero grazing system of small ruminants was applied to conserve animal feed such as hay, crop, and straw.

Furthermore, the use and re-use of manure increased the demand of manure allowing farmers to either sell their produce, or use it for household consumption.

• Corporative collaboration: Establishing a strong corporative is essential in determining the success of the bee-hive project. Proper regulation and by-laws should be put in place in order to establish a common understanding among beneficiaries and to ensure a collaborative effort toward a common goal. Although there were some beekeeping cooperatives from the program that are serving as a ‘best example’, a stronger corporative is much needed.

• Shortage of Inputs: participants reported that there was shortage of supply of chicken, chicken diseases incidence, limited market access for purchase of small ruminant which hindered timely completion of the project activity.

7. Sustainability

6. Learning

Community based program design: allowed The project has seen promising outcome that be community members to identify approaches that further enhanced and developed. Some of the key would complement their existing way of life. It also builds upon existing local knowledge and skills to learning taken from the project are as follows; climate change adaptation and disaster resilience.

This approach ensures economically available and • Focusing on female headed household: socially acceptable approach that attributes to the During the project period, a number of female sustainability of the project. headed household have proven to act as rolemodels in their community by sharing skills and • Building community capacity: through experiences with members of the community, knowledge and skills enhancement trainings and encouraging organically formed income are also key to facilitating the sustainability generating activity. Moreover, the women also of the project. played a leadership role in Rural Saving And Credit Cooperatives (RuSACOOs).

• High market demand for products under the income generating enterprise motivates

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beneficiaries and potential IGA farmers to continue producing and meet customer demand whilst generating income to support themselves and their families.

8. Scalability Knowledge and experience sharing: as project beneficiaries continue to benefit from this project, close neighbours and family member would observe and learning the skills and knowledge necessary to venture on their own IGA activities.

9. Recommendation • Similar to poultry production and small ruminant rearing, beekeeping activity should be encouraged to be adopted at a household level so as to tackle the tragedy of the common problem (working as cooperative).

• Supporting accelerated training of private vaccinators will be instrumental in preventing poultry diseases outbreak.

Trócaire. (2014). ‘Feeling the heat: How climate change is driving extreme weather to the developing world’. Ireland: Trócaire i

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