G
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has asked world leaders attending the UN Food Systems Summit in Rome, Italy, to improve wages for farmers.

Project to Help Ethiopians Adapt to Climate Change Set Up

By Irene Gaitirira
Published December 15, 2019

We’ve seen drought and hunger before: in Somalia in 2011 and 2012, in Niger in 2005, in Ethiopia in the 1980s.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.

RELATED: Canada Addresses Food Insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa

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 US$451 million project is designed to help in eradicating poverty and hunger in Ethiopia's low lands.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.

RELATED:African Women Honoured for making Exceptional Impact in their Countries

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.

RELATED: Impending Hunger Catastrophe Should Be Africa’s Last!