Project to Help Ethiopians Adapt to Climate Change Set Up
By Irene Gaitirira
Published December 15, 2019
Ethiopians who depend on rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism are set to benefit from a new US$451 million project to increase their resilience to floods, drought and desertification caused by climate change.
Ethiopia and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) of the United Nations have signed a US$451 million financing agreement to benefit an estimated half a million people in the low lands area of the horn of Africa country.
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The Lowlands Livelihood Resilience Project was signed by Zenebu Tadesse Woldetsadik, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to the United Nations Food and Agriculture agencies and Gilbert F Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in thew Italian capital, Rome, on December 9, 2019.
The project, that is designed to help in eradicating poverty and hunger, will install small-scale irrigation technology to reduce dependence on erratic rains. It will also help smallholder farmers to invest in research systems for faster adaptation to climate change.
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Project activities will also strengthen management of rangeland and natural resources and improve the delivery of basic social services so that rural communities can withstand effects of climate change, reduce losses of assets and help mitigate conflicts over scarce resources in fragile pastoral and agro-pastoral ecosystems, according to the partners.
The project also aims to improve nutrition by providing education on food handling and food preservation, and the production of more nutritious and diverse crops with access to bio-fortified seeds and technical assistance, including on post-harvest handling.
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