Conservation of soil and water resources to strengthen drought resilience and increase food security in arid

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The majority (83%) of Ethiopia's approximately 96 million inhabitants live in rural areas and work in agriculture. This means that they are highly dependent on natural conditions and possible climatic changes. Increasingly frequent and long-lasting droughts followed by exceptional rainfall events, combined with increasing pressure on land use from a rapidly growing population, lead to degradation of the vegetation cover, overgrazing, increased erosion and loss of soil. The proposed FC measure, which is intended to contribute to strengthening drought resilience and increasing food security and is to be financed from the funds of the BMZ special initiative One World, No Hunger (SEWOH), focuses on the arid and semi-arid areas in the lowlands of Ethiopia that are most severely affected by these developments. The traditional system of semi-nomadic livestock farming that prevails there and is adapted to the harsh climatic conditions is coming under pressure as a result of the increasingly frequent droughts. The traditional access to important water and land resources is becoming increasingly difficult for pastoralists, and every drought exacerbates the situation in this fragile ecosystem and weakens the livelihoods of the population living there, who are becoming more vulnerable to food, feed and water shortages (core problem). In addition to the overgrowth of large pastures by invasive plant species and the increasing settlement and population pressure from the plateau, the main reason for this is state-controlled investment projects in rural areas and their need for land and water. This leads to increasing overuse and degradation of the available soils, which is exacerbated by the more frequent and longer periods of drought. To counteract such developments, sustainable approaches to the broad-based promotion of soil protection and rehabilitation of degraded soils are being implemented in selected partner countries as part of the SEWOH special initiative (program objective). By preserving and using existing water and soil resources more productively and developing new ones, the measure presented here aims to enable the population to sustainably manage their natural livelihoods even under changing climatic conditions and thereby sustainably improve their nutritional situation (FC module objective). The measure proposed here includes the rehabilitation and new construction of irrigation systems and the construction of systems that enable the productive use of temporarily available water quantities. It addresses one of the two components of the project Strengthening the drought resilience of the pastoral and agropastoral population in the Afar region (BMZ No. 2012 975 71; EKF funds) (component 1). Component 2, which will continue to be implemented as part of the above-mentioned EKF project, focuses on the rehabilitation of pastureland using large-scale soil cultivation and conservation measures in conjunction with improved pasture use. The two measures complement each other and are coordinated and implemented within a control structure. The target group of these measures are the pastoralists living in the Afar region who are particularly affected by climate change and extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. The sponsor of the FC measure is the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, which is responsible for implementing the measure in close cooperation with the regional agriculture and water authorities. The project will work closely with local user groups, NGOs and traditional authorities to ensure sustainable management of resources and investments on the basis of traditional usage rights and rules of conduct.