EIAR-CALM Project held an Awareness Creation and Consultation Workshop
Natural resource degradation is a serious problem in Ethiopia threatening agricultural development and rural livelihoods. The major natural resource degradation problems of the country include severe soil erosion, soil fertility decline, soil acidity and salinity, and deforestation, all of which result in recurrent drought, and hence in decline of agricultural productivity. Therefore, the project called as EIAR Climate Action through Landscape Management Project (EIAR-CALM), with the financial support of the World Bank, will immensely contribute to enhancing the wider implementation of watershed-based climate-smart natural resource management technologies at scale, thereby improving the livelihoods of the Ethiopian community. Based on this, the project held an awareness creation and consultation workshop on 14 December 2020 at EIAR, HQs Hiruy hall.
Dr Temesgen Desalegne, Natural Resource Management Research Directorate Director provides an introduction speech and gave a reason that the delay of this consultation workshop was COVID-19.
Dr Chilot Yirga, Administration and Capacity Building Director of EIAR delivered a welcoming speech and explain about natural resources that are the basis of everything. He assumed that the project will do well and once started, will continue fast. Dr Chilot gave emphasis on project finance in his speech. He said that the money we use should be based on the project costs; with our project experience so far our financial performance is very low. In this project, we work with the Ministry of Agriculture, because we agreed to work with them. Indeed, our financial and physical performance should be appropriate.
Dr Feto Esimo, Director General of EIAR, officially opened the workshop and delivers an opening speech. According to his speech, the project is a five-year project and EIAR researchers have the knowledge; therefore, we need to be able to work effectively. We must be able to rehabilitate the degraded lands and return their fertility especially in the highlands; it is eroded and degraded land. We have to use science to do rehabilitate in different places.
Dr Daniel Bekele, EIAR-CALM Project Coordinator, provided a presentation on the overview of EIAR-CALM and the progress made until now. He added that the major objective of the project; which is to improve water and land productivity and sustainability based on climate-smart agricultural practices and thereby livelihood of the model watershed community. Based on Dr Daniel speech, the project also covers RARI’s, ATVET’s, and BoAs activity. At the end of the presentation, the participants had a discussion and provide input for further project implementation.
