August 21, 2013

Regional stakeholder dialogue assesses Nile BDC research on natural resources management

Posted by Ewen Le Borgne under CPWF, Crop-Livestock, CRP5, East Africa, Ethiopia, Event, IWMI, Livestock-Water, NBDC, Nile, Nile 5, NRM | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

On 23 and 24 July, the Nile BDC organised a regional stakeholder dialogue in Bahir Dar to share emerging findings on land and water management with partners from Ethiopia’s regions and explore how to institutionalize a regional platform for NRM. It built on the messages emerging from the recent NBDC science meeting.

Participants discuss key issues to take forward (Credit: ILRI/Meron Mulatu)

Participants discuss key issues to take forward (Credit: ILRI/Meron Mulatu)

About 55 participants from the regions in Ethiopia where NBDC is active (Amhara and Oromia) and from other regions (Tigray and SNNPR) as well as from federal and international institutions discussed:

  • An overview of NBDC activities in the three pilot sites – Jeldu, Fogera, Diga (presentation by Simon Langan)
  • Major learning from the pilot interventions: tools and practices
  • NBDC messages and their contribution for policy and institutions at the regional level
  • Experiences from other projects:
  • Major challenges in rainwater management in the Abay basin: By Abay Basin experts in collaboration with the Bureau of Agriculture and the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI)
  • Institutionalization of a regional NRM platform: Ownership and way forward

Read more about the regional stakeholders’ dialogue on the NBDC wiki,

See presentations and notes from the meeting

More presentations from the: Nile BDC

See pictures from the event

Advertisement
 

May 9, 2012

Rainwater management in the Nile Basin – grassroots implementation and sustainability are key

Posted by Zerihun Sewunet under Africa, East Africa, Ethiopia, Film and Video, ILRI, Interview, NBDC, Nile, Photo | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 
Fantahun Mengistu-NileBDC stakeholder workshop

Fantahun Mengistu, Director of ARARI

In October 2011, project partners and team members in the Nile Basin Development Challenge  met in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia to reflect on project progress and directions.

We asked Fantahun Mengistu, Director of the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI) to share some of the key points and take home messages from the meeting.

In the interview below, he notes that, although Ethiopia has a good national policy framework in place, there are some gaps in implementation at grassroots level: including proper integration between water and agriculture, more emphasis is given to blue than to green water, and fully understanding the farmers and the farmer circumstances – “we need to know very well the farmer.”

Sustainability is a key issue, it needs increased participation of communities, more emphasis on showing short term benefits to farmers, increased attention to integrated hydrological planning at basin and landscape level – we need to ensure that people getting upstream benefits does not mean that people downstream will suffer.

Watch the interview:

See photos from the workshop here.