Main beneficiaries & outcomes
Main beneficiaries targeted by the project included an estimated 98,000 rural households within the 45 watersheds where the project’s components were implemented. These were located in six Regional States of Ethiopia: Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, SNNP, Beneshangul/Gumuz, and Gambela. The population beneficiated from improved soil retention, enhanced carbon sequestration, increased vegetation cover, improved water management, and increased farmer incomes. Moreover, thanks to the capacity-building activities carried out during the project, technical staff at the central (Ministry of Agriculture), regional (Woreda), and district (Kebele) levels beneficiated as well from training and improved working conditions.
The SLMP-1 was gender-sensitive, it focused on ensuring the equal and fair benefits to and participation of both women and men in the different activities implemented. Specifically, components 1 and 2 created opportunities for female-headed households. Women’s participation in watershed development was relatively higher than in other regular local development programs. In addition, unemployed habitants and youth also received assistance for the establishment of user groups to promote engagement in the protection and utilization of communal cropping areas.
Planning and implementation
The preparation of the project initiated in 2006, taking advantage of Ethiopia’s past experiences at implementing SLM approaches, as well as some of the lessons learned in other projects involving Natural Resource Management at different parts of the world.
During the first steps, the technical, operational, and institutional risks were identified, and adequate mitigating measures were proposed. Later, to secure the solutions’ effectiveness, a Project Implementation Manual was created. Implementation officially started in March 2009 within an overall conceptual and operational framework developed during the preparation process and ended in September 2013 as it was initially planned. A full time National Program Coordinator was appointed to oversee implementation. Yet, the Regional Coordination Units took charge of the day-to-day management of the measure’s implementation in their respective regions, including the preparation of annual work plans, progress reports, monitoring, supervision of progress, evaluation of program’s impacts, financial administration, and the procurement of goods and services.
Main works carried out during the implementation by component included:
- Watershed management (component 1): Physical and biological farmland treatments, gully rehabilitation and treatment, forestation activities, water harvesting, construction of irrigation canals, community ponds, potable water points, check-dams, and farmland terraces, high-value crops promotion, construction and maintenance of access road, land certification, among others.
- Rural Land Certification and Administration (component 2): Manual and computerized registration of individual farm landholding and rural communal land, issuing first level certificates for individual farmlands, rural communal land, and institution holdings, production of parcel and district index maps, issuing 2nd level certificates for land holdings, awareness raising events, training on land administration topics to district authorities and committee members, training on GIS to experts at all levels.
- Project Management (component 3): Contributed to ensure that the SLM project adhered to the government policy of full participation of end users in the project execution, sought to involve the population in the development of solutions, and ensured their consultation, particularly in the planning, implementation and operation stages.
Finance
The original cost of the SLMP-1 was estimated at US$37.8 million, comprising a US$20 million grant from the International Development Association, US$9 million grant funds from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and US$8.7 million counterpart funds from the Government of Ethiopia. However, the actual cost was reduced to US$29.16 due to non-disbursed balances at project closing, and a reduction in counterpart financing.
Costs by component in US million:
Component
|
Allocation
|
Watershed Management
|
22.2
|
Land Certification and Administration
|
3.93
|
Project Management
|
2.87
|
Total
|
US$29 million
|
During the project’s preparation process, a cost-benefit analysis was conducted for 25 years using a discount rate of 10% (with a 7% rate included for comparison). The Level of net erosion prevented (ton/ha/year), increased soil carbon from borrower report (ton per ha), a normalized difference vegetative index, and yield increases were used as indicators. Despite conservative estimates and only a portion of the benefits quantified, the results of the analysis showed that the project had significant returns.
Innovation
This solution was considered innovative, integrative, and inclusive, given that land degradation, climate risks, and productivity issues were addressed through efforts from a landscape approach, while also contributing to the general benefit of the agricultural sector. Moreover, the type of approaches and measures included within the project activities were at the time untested in Ethiopia, increasing its relevance and the overall interest of the World Bank for its implementation.
Performance evaluation
Long term maintenance and sustainability
The project monitoring and evaluation activities were under the charge of the regional coordination units, which also took the responsibility of supervising the overall implementation progress, evaluating program impacts, the financial administration, and procuring the necessary goods and services. However, the official Implementation Completion and Results Report indicates there was limited functionality and use of the monitoring and evaluation system due to the lack of sturdy baselines. These added to some difficulties encountered at the local levels for collecting and reporting on progress (low institutional capacity, insufficient technical know-how, persistent staff turnover, equipment and communication deficiencies, etc.) which affected the project's progress and the overall achievement of objectives.
In spite of these problems, each district and region annually presented an extensive list of targets for field activities, which served to report program progress in a relatively effective way. Still, as targets were changed each year, the value of obtained information during this process was limited. Nevertheless, intermediate targets and indicators were also established and measured, and specific outcome-based surveys were conducted to demonstrate the positive effects of the project.