Transformative Adaptation and Natural Resource Management Interventions in North Eastern Ethiopia

This study is motivated by the observation that adaptation to climate change is often presented as a technical problem that requires only engineering and technological solutions. What is missing from current adaptation research is a nuanced understanding of how the state, society and nature interact in adaptation decisions and implementations. Such an understanding is important to unpack the black box of transformative adaptation, which is understood here as adaptation that involves profound systemic changes, which is inclusive of local voices and is based on learning from experiences, experimentation and collaboration among actors. Accordingly, the main research question of this study is “In which way does adaptation with climate risks require action coordination among local communities and the state?” The state and local community actors were chosen because of absence of other active actors on resource management in the study areas. This study uses two case studies of state led interventions in watershed development and irrigation management as a proxy for adaptation practice. Hence, the findings are based on critical realist oriented empirical research work conducted on these interventions in four villages, in the Gubalafto and Kobo Districts of North Wollo Administrative Zone, in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The data collection methods included individual interviews and focus group discussions with local communities, expert interviews, analysis of official documents from different levels of government offices and field observations. The results of the study showed that for smallholder farmers, livelihood risks have multiple sources, having both material and discursive components. This study identified five risk settings, understood here as category of risk that is underlined by a variety of different factors, which were important for state and local community actors: naturalized risk setting, subsistence risk setting, market volatility risk setting, demographic risk setting and policy failure risk setting. It is important for adaptation interventions to understand the nature of these risk settings and the way their interaction produces livelihood risks. The research assessed the two case studies based on the aforementioned understanding of risk settings and risk perceptions among state and local community actors. The results showed that one could see adaptation action coordination between actors with power imbalance, in our case between the state and local communities, as a struggle between containment strategies of the state and counter-containment strategies of local communities. The state containment strategies included controlling mechanisms of the state to direct collaborative resource management arrangements towards its interest and prescriptions, whereas counter containment strategies included various methods by which local communities resisted the state’s containment strategies and pressured the state to consider their interests and experiences. The state hegemonic ideology dictates what is desirable in terms of both the outcome and process of adaptation. For example, in both case studies state actors at different levels take the government rural transformation program as a non-negotiable development agenda. Hence, state experts at different levels have religiously pushed technical recommendations from national guidelines for soil and water conservation and commercial irrigation agriculture, at times without questioning the local applicability of some of these recommendations. The state’s governmentality strategies bring the hegemonic ideologies to actual projects and programs, which allow them to plan, control and direct the actions of local communities. In both case study interventions, this included using constitutional and party related local organizations, extensive public consultation conferences, strict monitoring, feedback mechanisms, and local by-laws to punish non-compliance. Hence, containment strategies often combine ideological imposition, grouping people in different local organization and coercion in a coordinated manner. However, other actors, in this case local communities, are also not passive subjects of state’s containment strategies. Depending on the level of their social capital and political efficacy, they exert pressure on the state to either influence its action or resist it. Absenteeism during collaborative activities, vandalism on communal resources and outright opposition were some of the forms of resistance. Overall, the study showed that the strong-handed state control over the resource management interventions led to large coverages in program implementations. However, some contest the usefulness of the interventions for adaptation with climate risks as people questioned how conservation gains from resource management interventions could translate into livelihood benefits. In other cases the state intervention actually created more livelihood risks for some farmers. The study also revealed that existing state containment strategies dominate spaces of interactions for decision making towards instrumental use where by the state uses decision-making platforms and processes to direct decisions in its favour, as demonstrated by the way it uses its political influence on two of the dimensions of social learning, deliberation and learning processes. Hence, although the heavy state control on the collaborative process enhanced the coverage of the resource management interventions, it blocked the possibility of developing genuine social capital among local community members and hampered opportunities for learning from past and present experiences in resource management. Therefore, the study concludes that adaptation action coordination, and by extension transformative adaptation, in Ethiopian context would require reforms in power relations between the state and local communities to enable inclusion of citizens concerns in adaptation programs and projects and foster learning from experiences and experimentations

Training need assessment report on livestock feed and forage production and utilization

The capacity development need assessment initiative is part of the feed and forage innovation value chain of the Accelerating Impact of CGIAR Climate Research in Africa (AICCRA) project of Ethiopian. AICCRA is a three years (2021-2023) project that operates in six African countries including Ethiopia. The project is supported by a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank and will enhance research and capacity-building activities by CGIAR and its partners. AICCRA in Ethiopia aims to strengthen the capacity of targeted national partners and stakeholders of CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) East Africa to access and implement at scale validated climate-smart agriculture technologies, climate information services, and climate-informed digital ag-advisories to build the resilience of agri-food systems. The value chains considered for AICCRA project in Ethiopia include beans, wheat, small ruminant and livestock feed and forge options. The AICCRA project in Ethiopia has eight research activities. Livestock feed and forage options value chain contributes to four of the eight activities, which include capacity building to support implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technology packages; identification of climate- and gender and social inclusion-smartness of CSA packages; prioritization and awareness increase of best-bet CSA options and approaches for key value chains; and integration of climate-smart options and tailored CSI advisory systems for specific value chains. The current report on capacity need assessment is one of the three deliverables that the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Africa RISING research team promised to produce and submit for AICCRA-Ethiopia project in 2021

A Report on Climate Smart Feed and Forages Training Bale Zone, Oromia

Livestock production and productivity are very low in Ethiopia. Poor quality and inadequate quantity of feeds are major constraints in the Ethiopian highlands. The farming system in Bale zone, where AICCRA project has been operating, is dominated by production of wheat as a major food and cash crop. Most grazing lands changed to cultivated lands due to increasing human population. Wheat straw has been the major livestock feed in the area, which is low in palatability and nutritional value. As a result, livestock production and productivity have been declining from time to time. Therefore, the introduction of climate smart feed and forage innovations into the area becomes crucial. It will have an added value to supplement the available feed and forage and, in the long run, transform livestock production and productivity. To overcome the livestock feed and associated problems, the government seeks active engagements from NGOs, government lead projects, national and international research institutions, higher education institutions, and private sectors. To achieve this objective, capacitating experts, development agents and farmers is crucial. In line with this objective, AICCRA and TAAT projects have been jointly working and providing training on climate smart feed and forage innovations, organizing experience sharing visits and practicing a forage seed supply scheme in a revolving seed system approach. More than 400 households (>36% female), 18 DAs and 8 experts engaged in the recently organized theoretical and practical training program. The training was delivered from 10-22 July 2023 at each kebele level in two districts (Sinana and Goba). Representative farmers from eight kebeles managed to attend the training. This report covers the trainings delivered at kebele level, objectives of the training, mode of training delivery and the number of beneficiaries