For decades rural households and local communities in the Ethiopian highlands have suffered from increasing food insecurity. High population growth, deforestation and unsuitable agriculture production techniques have resulted in massive land degradation with losses of fertile soil. Today, many rural families can barely make their living from agriculture.

The Ethiopian Government has developed the multi-donor funded Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Programme. It aims at reduced land degradation and increased agriculture productivity in Ethiopian highlands, leading to higher incomes and food security. The national programme is aligned with the Ethiopian “Growth and Transformation Plan” and “Strategic Investment Framework for SLM”.

The Ministry of Agriculture is the implementation partner for SLM.  GTZ collaborates closely with  CIM, DED, GTZ, InWENT, KfW, and the donor community. The trilateral cooperation between the Governments of Ethiopia, Israel (MASHAV) and Germany on climate change adaptation through promoting small scale irrigation is a unique cooperation effort integrated into SLM.

The Natural Resource Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture at the federal level and the ministry’s administrative structure at the regional and local levels implement the SLM programme..Communities plan and implement the measures on the ground, supported by an elected community watershed team and a kebele watershed team of SLM experts.

The core of the SLM program is watershed development which consists of watershed rehabilitation and development of agriculture production. The objective is to enlarge the area under sustainable land management practices through a variety of soil and water conservation measures. Measures for agriculture development aim at sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and comprise for example the cultivation of new varieties or the use of improved seeds.

To support the nationwide up-scaling of best SLM practices, watershed development is supported through knowledge management with the objective to develop, improve, scale-up and disseminate best SLM approaches. Another supportive process for watershed development is policy advice to improve conditions to scale up and effectively implement successful innovative approaches for SLM.

The objective of the GTZ contribution is that that institutions, mediators and producers in the agricultural sector contribute towards sustainable and productive land utilization. This is achieved through strengthening capacity in the partner system at the individual, organizational, network and cooperation, and policy levels where needed.

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• Adapting to Climate Change by Improving Water Management in Ethiopia
  Ethiopian-Israeli-German project (May 2011)
  en-adapting-to-climate-change-ethiopia-2011.pdf, 0.73 MB (English)