Small ruminants are the main source of livelihood for the rural agropastoralists and are important assets in lowlands and highlands of Ethiopia. Transboundary animal diseases (TADs) are a significant cause of reduced production and productivity to the pastoral communities in Ethiopia. TADs like Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), Sheep and Goat Pox (SGP) and Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP) have contributed to a high level of sheep and goat mortality, especially in lambs and kids. The “Pursuing pastoralist resilience through improved animal health service delivery” project implemented by FAO between 2014 and 2020, was designed to support the Government of Ethiopia in strengthening the surveillance system for most TADs. The project had a primary focus to implement a progressive control programme for Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR). The evaluation found that the project has advanced PPR control and eradication and that the country has the capability to continue this momentum for improved animal health and welfare services for the greater ambition to eradicate PPR across the country by 2027. However, ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of future projects requires overcoming many difficulties. Challenges relating to government strategy, coordination, resources and more are assessed in this report.
This report is a synthesis of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Office of Evaluation (OED) on evaluations completed from 2019 to 2021 on FAO’s work in the Africa region. It documents FAO’s contribution to results, identifies gaps and emerging issues and lessons learned. The synthesis is organized around the themes of sustainable production and value chain development, food security and nutrition, climate change and natural resources, resilience to threats and crises, and gender equality and empowerment of women. The synthesis used the Programme Priority Areas of the Strategic Framework 2022–2031 to analyse FAO’s contribution to results, finding many positive examples in the Africa region. However, the sustainability of results is a challenge for the region, due to several factors, including capacity constraints of government partners and limitations of FAO project designs. Gaps and emerging issues include the need for guidance on ‘accelerators’ of results, addressing youth as a key priority and new approaches to partnerships with civil society and the private sector. Lessons learned include the importance of good project design, suitably capacitated decentralized offices, effective knowledge management and strategic and inclusive partnerships to achieve results.
Ethiopia is a low-income country and agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, accounting for for 34 percent of GDP and 70 percent of total employment share. Ethiopia remains one of the world’s poorest countries, despite the significant progress achieved in reducing poverty and hunger. The Government of Ethiopia through its Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) has consistently prioritized the transformation of agriculture from low-input, subsistence-oriented production systems to a fast-growing, intensive and commercially oriented sector to support the country’s aspirations to become a middle-income country by 2025. FAO’s Country Programme Framework (2016-2020), was formulated based on the GTP II. Over the evaluation period (2014-2019), FAO exceeded the resource mobilization targets. Overall, FAO’s programme displays several imbalances and disconnects, specifically between development activities and emergency response. The evaluation calls for FAO to adopt a more cohesive programmatic approach and continue to consolidate its fragmented programme. In the context of the Government’s plans for agricultural transformation, the evaluation also recommends that FAO support an economically sound value chain and market-based approach to agricultural development, while upholding normative values of inclusiveness and ecological sustainability.
The Resources, Partnerships, Impact – 2020 report elucidates who FAO is, what it has done, and how it has worked in collaboration with multiple stakeholders in 2019. Also, it highlights the way FAO has been adapting to changes in the development aid landscape, specifically by leveraging different kinds of funds and seeking innovative partnerships, in order to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs. The report takes a closer look at the challenges and strategies that guided FAO’s activities at the regional and global levels in 2019, while showcasing selected interventions that delivered critical results on the ground.
This book is basically associated with doctoral research. At present climate change become a serious environmental issues in the world. Farmer, pastoralists and marginalized people are more vulnerable to climate related problems because agriculture as well as livestock resources totally depended upon climate like temperature and rainfall. Livestock is a significant contributor to economic and social development in Ethiopia at the household as well as national level. Due to climate change induced hazards like recurring of drought leads the pastoralist’s livestock’s in to death and makes the pastoralist’s to be more vulnerable.
This open access volume critically reviews a diverse body of scholarship and practice that informs the conceptualization, curriculum, teaching and measurement of life skills in education settings around the world. It discusses life skills as they are implemented in schools and non-formal education, providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence of when, with whom, and how life skills do or do not impact young women’s and men’s lives in various contexts. Specifically, it examines the nature and importance of life skills, and how they are taught. It looks at the synergies and differences between life skills educational programmes and the way in which they promote social and emotional learning, vocational/employment education, and health and sexuality education. Finally, it explores how life skills may be better incorporated into education and how such education can address structures and relations of power to help youth achieve desired future outcomes, and goals set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Life skills education has gained considerable attention by education policymakers, researchers and educators as being the sine qua non for later achievements in life. It is nearly ubiquitous in global and national education policies, including the SDGs, because life skills are regarded as essential for a diverse set of purposes: reducing poverty, achieving gender equality, promoting economic growth, addressing climate change, fostering peace and global citizenship, and creating sustainable and healthy communities. Yet, to achieve these broad goals, questions persist as to which life skills are important, who needs to learn them, how they can be taught, and how they are best measured. This book addresses these questions.
Beni-Amer cattle owners in the western part of the Horn of Africa are not only masters in cattle breeding, they are also knowledge sovereign, in terms of owning productive genes of cattle and the cognitive knowledge base crucial to sustainable development. The strong bonds between the Beni-Amer, their animals, and their environment constitute the basis of their ways of knowing, and much of their knowledge system is built on experience and embedded in their cultural practices. In this book, the first to study Beni-Amer practices, Zeremariam Fre argues for the importance of their knowledge, challenging the preconceptions that regard it as untrustworthy when compared to scientific knowledge from more developed regions. Empirical evidence suggests that there is much one could learn from the other, since elements of pastoralist technology, such as those related to animal production and husbandry, make a direct contribution to our knowledge of livestock production. It is this potential for hybridisation, as well as the resilience of the herders, at the core of the indigenous knowledge system. Fre also argues that indigenous knowledge can be viewed as a stand-alone science, and that a community’s rights over ownership should be defended by government officials, development planners and policy makers, making the case for a celebration of the knowledge sovereignty of pastoralist communities Praise for Knowledge Sovereignty Among African Cattle Herders ‘This book greatly contributes to the limited literature on theoretical discourses and practices on indigenous knowledge of livestock herding communities in the Horn of Africa. It discusses knowledge heritage and sovereignty through the presentation of valid empirical evidence, and its subsequent relevance in nurturing sustainability of knowledge systems to enhance lives of pastoralists in Africa and beyond.’ Samuel Tefera PhD, Assistant Professor and Asian Desk Coordinator at the Centre for African and Oriental Studies, Associate Dean for Research and Technology Transfer, College of Social Sciences, Addis Ababa University ‘The author has worked with our Beni-Amer pastoral communities in Eastern Sudan and Western Eritrea for over 30 years and this book is the first of its kind in documenting our practices, knowledge systems, heritage and way of life.’ Mustafa Faid and Mohamed Ali, Leaders of the of the Pastoral and Environmental Association Kassala State (PEAKS) ‘A riveting and rare book! Zeremarian Fre guides you along the sandy [dusty] tracks and grassy pastures that the Beni-Amer and their herds have been softly tracing over time all through the Horn of Africa. One of the virtues of the book is that it illustrates vividly and in clear language how their continuous self-built endogenous knowledge on agro-pastoral life is not only at the core of their survival and the survival of their herds, but more importantly a powerful weapon in facing and resisting multiple aggressions . . . Ground-breaking and a huge achievement.’ Yves Cabannes, Emeritus Professor of Development Planning,, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL ‘The book underlines the importance of enriching and utilizing the unrecognized, yet valuable scientific knowledge and practices that are deeply rooted in pastoral traditional expertise about their own environment and breeding practices. It is an important publication that reflects Dr Fre’s expertise and long term research in the region and thus, it is a significant addition to the African library.’ Hala Alkarib, Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) ‘This fascinating book not only gives a unique insight into the knowledge and practice of pastoralists in the Horn of Africa from the author’s first-hand experience, it also provides an incisive critique of the multiple dimensions of knowledge, paying tribute to the sovereignty of indigenous knowledge. It has a timely relevance for global sustainability that will appeal to a wider readership.’ Nicole Kenton, International Development Consultant, former long serving senior staff member of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) ‘The book covers several intertwined issues relevant to contemporary development policy and practice. It goes beyond the rural-urban and peasant–nomadic livelihoods dichotomy by shedding more light on the inter-linkages within the multiple livelihood systems within the Horn of Africa and globally. A rich evidence-based resource for academics, development partners and social movements for promoting and designing state policies that embrace pastoralist aspirations.’ Bereket Tsegay MA, PhD candidate, Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa (PENHA) ‘Dr Zeremariam Fre has done a wonderful job of placing at the centre of this book the Beni-Amer pastoralists, the world they inhabit and the knowledge they use to navigate and thrive in it. The lessons contained in this book go beyond pastoralism; it is a must read for anyone serious about understanding the importance of located knowledge in the innovation and development process.’ Yusuf Dirie, PENHA Research Fellow and PhD researcher at the University of Sussex
International guidelines and standards for the design, implementation and assessment of livestock interventions to assist people affected by humanitarian crises, LEGS expands the commitment in the Sphere handbook towards supporting livelihood assets, presenting clear and practical options for supporting livestock during and following disasters.
Once again, the Horn of Africa has been in the headlines. And once again the news has been bad: drought, famine, conflict, hunger, suffering and death. The finger of blame has been pointed in numerous directions: to the changing climate, to environmental degradation, to overpopulation, to geopolitics and conflict, to aid agency failures, and more. But it is not all disaster and catastrophe. Many successful development efforts at ‘the margins’ often remain hidden, informal, sometimes illegal; and rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. If we shift our gaze from the capital cities to the regional centres and their hinterlands, then a very different perspective emerges. These are the places where pastoralists live. They have for centuries struggled with drought, conflict and famine. They are resourceful, entrepreneurial and innovative peoples. Yet they have been ignored and marginalised by the states that control their territory and the development agencies who are supposed to help them. This book argues that, while we should not ignore the profound difficulties of creating secure livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa, there is much to be learned from development successes, large and small. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars with an interest in development studies and human geography, with a particular emphasis on Africa. It will also appeal to development policy-makers and practitioners.
Pastoralism has shaped livelihoods and landscapes on the African continent for millennia. Mobile livestock husbandry has generally been portrayed as an economic strategy that successfully met the challenges of low biomass productivity and environmental variability in arid and semi-arid environments. This volume focuses on the emergence, diversity, and inherent dynamics of pastoralism in Africa based on research during a twelve-year period on the southwest and northeast regions. Unraveling the complex prehistory, history, and contemporary political ecology of African pastoralism, results in insight into the ingenuity and flexibility of historical and contemporary herders.
