Lead country
Ethiopia
Participating countries
Ethiopia
Project status
Under implementation
Implementing period
From April 21, 2017 to April 21, 2022
Project ID: 5478
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Technical team
- Climate Change Adaptation Programme
Technical area(s)
- Cross-sectoral climate resilient livelihoods
- Climate information and early warning systems (CI & EWS)
Landscape(s)
- Human altered areas
Sub-landscape(s)
- Rural areas
Transformed sector(s)
- Agriculture
UNDP role(s)
- Capacity development / Technical assistance
- Convening / Partnerships / Knowledge Sharing
- Innovative approaches
Strategy
- Capacity building
- Law regulation
- Technology innovation
Sub-strategy
- Technical capacity building
- Awareness raising
- Institutional capacity building
- Laws/ Policy/ Plan formulation
- Development planning
- Integrated water resource management
- Rainwater harvesting
Social inclusion
- Women
Gender equality
- Women decision making
- Women farmers
- Livelihoods for women
Gender result effectiveness scale
- Gender responsive
Pathway(s)
- People pathway
- Systems pathway
- Sci-tech pathway
Risk reduction target(s)
- Improve resilience
SDG target(s)
- 13.3 Improve learning, capacity on climate change measures
- 13.b Build capacity for climate change planning, management
- 13.2 Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.
Conventions and protocols
N/A
Private sector(s)
N/A
Hot topic
- Poverty reduction
- Food and agricultural commodities strategy
About this project
Description
Ethiopia is a landlocked country with a population of about 101,500,000 people, of which about 80% of whom live in rural areas. The Ethiopian economy has grown rapidly in the last decade primarily as a result of increased agricultural production. The agricultural sector accounts for more than 80% of total employment and 45% of the country's GDP. Farming is undertaken mainly by small-scale rural farmers whose activities are often unsustainable. This is because farmers are forced to cultivate land and graze livestock on steep slopes with fragile soils in order to meet daily food needs. The watersheds in such mountainous land are further mismanaged through overharvesting of trees for fuel wood. As a result of these factors – as well as intense and infrequent rains – topsoil erosion and land degradation are widespread across the Ethiopian highlands.Climate change in Ethiopia – which includes rising temperatures, more intense rain events, greater variability of mean annual rainfall and a greater frequency of droughts and floods – has greatly intensified the degradation of farmland and watersheds in Ethiopia. All of these climate change effects contribute to a negative cycle of: 1) reduced soil organic matter (with concomitant reductions in nutrient availability and water infiltrability); 2) greater runoff of rainwater; 3) increased rates of soil erosion; and 4) reduced agricultural productivity. Average national temperatures have increased by 1.3°C between 1960 and 2006, and rainfall during the short rainfall season is increasingly variable on both a spatial and temporal scale. Furthermore, climate models show that the intensity and frequency of droughts and floods are likely to increase markedly over the next 50 years.Local communities in the Ethiopian highlands are increasingly vulnerable to the above climate change effects. Their agricultural productivity is being greatly impeded in particular by increased rainfall variability, droughts, floods, soil erosion and by limited availability of surface and groundwater for irrigation and drinking needs. Stream flows are decreasing, groundwater levels are declining, mountain springs are drying up and their lakes are increasingly being silted up. Certain crops that were being grown in the past are no longer able to be farmed. Predicted future climate change will further exacerbate their vulnerability to climate change.To increase the climate resilience of local communities in the Ethiopian highlands, the proposed LDCF project will: 1) integrate climate change risk adaptation measures into federal, regional and Woreda-level development planning, budgeting and execution; 2) improve the availability of climate information products; 3) undertake climate-smart integrated watershed management for improved rainwater harvesting and retention; 4) introduce climate-smart agricultural practices; and 5) diversify livelihoods. This will be achieved through three complementary components that focus, respectively, on capacity development, provision of climate risk information and investments in climate-smart land management. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MEFCC) will implement the project over a five-year period across four regions and in eight Woredas.
Objectives
The objective of the proposed LDCF project is to mainstream climate risk considerations into federal, regional and Woreda-level planning processes so that local communities across the Ethiopian highlands are more resilient to climate change. .
USD $6,377,000
Grant amount
USD $10,450,000
Leveraged amount (co-financing)
1
Source(s) of fund
Sources of fund
- Least Developed Countries Fund ($6,377,000)
Implementing partner(s)
- Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MEFCC)
Project metrics
Related resources
Geospatial information
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Project reports and documentation