At the Financing for Development Conference (FfD3), Mr. Sertse Sebuh addressed world leaders about the many benefits that the landscape approach has granted Ethiopia.
Among the many world leaders present in the meetings for the Financing for Development Conference (FfD3) was Mr. Sertse Sebuh, Unit Coordinator of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Program. In the following address given at the LPFN organized side event, Mr. Sebuh provided an ardent endorsement of Ethiopia’s turn towards support for integrated landscape initiatives.
Mr. Sertse Sebuh (left) of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy speaking to Ethiopia’s experience with integrated land management.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all I would like to extend my warm greetings to all of you and welcome you to Ethiopia, for those of you who came from other countries, to attend the third international conference of financing for development. I am also very much pleased to give this keynote address at this side event of the Financing for Development international conference on the Ethiopian experience developing an integrated land use investment program as a way to realize achievement of the sustainable development goals post 2015.
The historical background of planning the development of watersheds/landscapes in Ethiopia starts in the 1980’s. The purpose at that time was for implementing natural resource conservation and development programs. Large-scale efforts remained mostly unsatisfactory due to a lack of effective community participation, a limited sense of responsibility over assets created and unmanageable planning units. A planning unit for developing a large watershed was often comprised of 30 – 40 thousand hectares. Recalling the trends in the country, by the mid 1980s, some 27 million ha, or almost 50%, of the highland area was considered to be significantly eroded. Of this, 14 million hectares were seriously eroded with over 2 million hectares being beyond reclamation. Within Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia is considered to be one of the countries that are most seriously affected by land degradation. Soil erosion is the most visible sign of land degradation, however, a variety of other degradation processes are at work and the soil erosion problems cannot be tackled without recognizing, and addressing, these underlying degradation processes.
“Soil erosion problems cannot be tackled without recognizing, and addressing underlying degradation processes.”
The collective experiences comprising different approaches in the country, combined with the need to have a common, standard and more effective approach to the country as a whole, gave birth to the key land management model or planning unit called ”watershed development” or “landscape management” with its own guidelines of planning and implementation in Ethiopia. This is also in line with the experience of other countries with significant areas of complex, mountainous and fragile ecosystems.
In general, landscape/watershed management approaches present opportunities for sustainable development by enhancing sizable opportunities for synergy between multiple social, economic, and environmental objectives in the landscapes/watersheds.
The development objective of the Ethiopian Strategic Investment framework is to improve the livelihoods and economic well-being of the country’s farmers, herders and forest resource users.
In Ethiopia, land degradation has been a contributing factor to the decline in agricultural productivity. Overall the annual costs of land degradation are estimated to be at least 2-3% of agricultural GDP. Ethiopia’s land resources are critical to the economic and social development of the country. Thus, there is an urgent need to reverse the currentlevels of land degradation through promoting and scaling up successful Sustainable Land Management technologies and approaches through landscape models. However, this will require overcoming a number of major gaps, bottlenecks and barriers that have hindered the successful scaling up and mainstreaming of SLM within Ethiopia, in particular: skills, knowledge, technological, economic and financial barriers.
Besides the model of the investment, a watershed/landscape based approach, the Ethiopian Strategic Investment framework has been formulated with the goal of serving as a national level strategic planning framework. This is designed to guide the prioritization, planning and implementation, by both the public and private sector, of current and future investments in SLM with the aim of addressing the interlinked problems of poverty, vulnerability and land degradation at the rural community level.
The overall development objective of the Ethiopian Strategic Investment framework is to improve the livelihoods and economic well-being of the country’s farmers, herders and forest resource users by scaling up Sustainable Land Management practices with proven potential to restore, sustain and enhance the productivity of Ethiopia’s land resources. Meanwhile, the overall environmental objective of the ESIF is to rebuild Ethiopia’s natural capital assets by overcoming the causes of land degradation and mitigating the negative impacts on the structure and functional integrity of the country’s ecosystem resources.
The growth and Transformation Plan – phase one (GTP-1) of the country was aligned with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals while the Growth and Transformation Plan – phase two (GTP 2) of the country was also designed in line with post 2015 sustainable development goals and targets. During GTP 1, agriculture and rural development, as part of an economic sectors plan, was focused on inadequate moisture areas in order to ensure sustainable agriculture growth, and appropriate natural resources conservation practices that were done with vigor in the context of the scaling up strategy. In the past five years, in all areas which require physical soil and water conservation works, these initiatives were fully implemented through proactive and organized community participation. Forestry development, protection and utilization were also done with increased effectiveness by the participation of communities in the watersheds territory. The success and level achievements of the natural resource management sector, during phase one of the growth and transformation plan, was based on watershed/landscapes based investment having multi year and yearly targets and development plans.
The success of the natural resource management sector was based on watershed/landscapes-based investment.
During GTP 2, the expected success of the social, economic and environmental benefits of landscape management based interventions will be directly correlated with goals and targets like;
- Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture, with…
- Target 2.4 indicating: by 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality.
- Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, with…
- Target 6.1 stating: by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all, and;
- Target 6.6 showing: by 2020 protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.
- Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, and;
- Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably by managing forests, combating desertification, and halting and reversing land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Above all, Goal 17 of the Sustainable Development goals emphasized the positions of all countries in the partnership for the sustainable development.
The government believes that remarkable achievements and growth cannot be realized without the involvement and leadership of the statesmen and stateswomen serving the country all levels.
This is to share with you why the Ethiopian government promotes landscape/watershed management as an effective means of implementing sustainable development goals, on the basis of the multiple benefits realized so far and the standardized techniques and approaches of investment we have at hand. Moreover, the realized packages and scale of community participation, the documented best practices (as a result of the investment and the established norms), and the monitoring and evaluation systems in place is why the government promotes landscape-based investment in sustainable land management activities.
In Ethiopia, there are many landscape-based initiatives in the works. Featured here are terraces and water catchments that are being built to slow erosion and collect run off.
This is why the government of Ethiopia has started planning to support the integrated landscape investments from its policy and strategy framework perspectives, which was already coined in ESIF and GTP of the country. On the other hand, although in the nascent stages, landscape management also supports the design and coordination of public-private partnerships.
Linked to all of these points, the modalities of the government support for landscape-based development and management relies on its policy and strategy-level commitment, including coordination and leadership setups. In Ethiopia:
- Landscape-based investment has a standard guideline of planning and implementation, the Community Based Participatory Watershed Development, that can be updated as needed per the national requirements;
- As stated in ESIF, sustainable land management activities are a programmatic approach for the country with designed ways of up-scaling expansion to apply to the whole country;
- The integrated landscape management plan of the country also promotes alignment of development partners’ development agenda in the country;
- The Ministry of Agriculture, through its different level structures, has specific coordination platforms in the forms of steering and technical committees;
- Recently, Ministry of Agriculture has developed a guideline and standards of results based on a process for monitoring and evaluating sustainable land management activities invested on watershed-based approaches;
- Similarly, with the scope of scaling-up of best practices and promoting knowledge management components, the Ministry has established standards of identifying, screening and documenting best practices.
The Ethiopian experience, in which landscape-based investment is coined as a way to realize the Sustainable Development Goals
The government believes that such remarkable achievements and growth cannot be realized without the vanguard involvement and committed leadership of the statesmen and stateswomen serving the country at all hierarchies. The government also recognizes and appreciates the communities, the professionals and the development partners who have made valuable contributions to the successful implementation of the SLM practices and to the excellent results obtained so far.
At this moment, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the support of the development partners, involvement and participation of the community and the leadership and coordination of different level government structures for all of the success stories in adopting the landscape-based approach in Ethiopia.
Looping back to Goal 17 of the post-2015 agenda…the objective calls for a need to “strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.” I would like to call for the support of development partners and the requirement for additional financing to invest on more landscapes in the country. These investments are needed to reduce the root causes and effects of land degradation on the national economy and rural livelihoods. The leadership of the country and the beneficiary communities will exert their maximum efforts to realize more with these inputs of funding.
It is my great pleasure to be here and share you the Ethiopian experience starting from policy and strategy frame work commitment in which the importance and values of landscape-based investment is coined as a way to realize the achievements of sustainable development goals post 2015.
Finally, I would like to appreciate and recognize; Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative, EcoAgriculture Partners, World Agroforestry Centre, Millennium Institute, and other co-hosts for organizing this side event.
Thank you.
Read more
From the blog: Financing for Development Must Include Finance for Integrated Landscape Initiatives
Mr. Sertse Sebuh is the Coordinator of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Program. He was the keynote speaker for the LPFN side event, How to Invest in Integrated Landscape Management to Achieve the SDGs
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