Ethiopian Families to Benefit from Multi-million Project

ENA, November 20/2019 Half a million of Ethiopia’s most vulnerable families to be beneficiary from a new 451 million USD project in a move to boost their resilience to climate shocks.

A financing agreement for the Lowlands Livelihood Resilience Project was inked on Tuesday between Ethiopia and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, Italy.

The agreement was signed by Zenebu Tadesse, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Gilbert Houngbo, President of IFAD.

The funding includes a 90 million USD loan from IFAD and 350 million USD in co-financing from the International Development Association (80 percent loan and 20 percent grant) and 11 million USD from the beneficiaries themselves.

The project, primarily designed to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2, which is eradicating poverty and hunger, will install small-scale irrigation technology to reduce dependence on erratic rains.

Moreover, the project will help smallholder farmers to invest in research systems for faster adaptation to climate change, it was indicated.

Project activities will also strengthen rangeland and natural resources management, and improve the delivery of basic social services so that rural communities can withstand droughts and other climate shocks, and reduce asset losses.

Since 1980, IFAD has invested 755.5 million USD in 19 rural development programmes and projects worth 1.8 billion USD in Ethiopia. These have directly benefited around 11.5 million rural households.