World Bank has provided $500 million in grant to Ethiopia to increase sustainable land management practices and productivity.
The grant will be used to finance the implementation of climate action through landscape management program, a program aimed at increasing adoption of sustainable land management practices and expanding access to secure land tenure in non-rangeland rural areas of the country.
Ethiopia’s Minister of Finance Ahmed Shide and World Bank Country Director to Ethiopia Ms. Carolyn Turkfor on Saturday signed the grant agreement in Addis Ababa.
The program is a 5-year secoral budget support program with a result-based approach and envisioned to increase adoption of sustainable land management practices and expand access to secure land tenure in non-rangeland rural areas of the country.
During the signing ceremony, Finance Minister Ahmed Shide stated that even if Ethiopia’s diverse production landscapes could provide a range of services to poor rural people, the landscapes are unable to reduce poverty or bring prosperity as required.
The grant is very important to scale up the achievements done in prior programs, increase sustainable land management practices and expand access to secure land tenure and contribute to increase to productivity and resilience in the agriculture sector, he noted.
World Bank Country Director Carolyn Turk said on her part the project is expected to benefit rural households living on degraded land and estimated to support around 5,000 localities of Ethiopia’s highlands.
Almost 50 percent of Ethiopia’s highlands are currently defined as degraded and declining in productivity. It is costing the country about 2 to 3 percent of its annual agricultural GDP, she added.
According to Turk, investing in land resources is vital to build resilient and equitable economic growth as well as to protect all of the works done so far.
CALM will also provide a mechanism to incentivize the roll-out of institutional reforms for participatory watershed management and land administration, it was learned.
MG/as/APA