Reducing Village Vulnerability in West Hararghe - REVIVE West Hararghe
Project Description:
The REVIVE West Hararghe project proposes the following four components and activities: 1) Emergency Mitigation: training of community committees in disaster early warning and mitigation; design of community-based disaster mitigation projects and savings schemes; and policy learning and familiarization campaigns. 2) Health and Nutrition: installation of water and sanitation infrastructure with training for local management committees; and nutrition and hygiene training for community groups, especially women. 3) Agriculture Development: farmer training and technology dissemination for improved agricultural productivity and to decrease pre-and post-harvest food losses; and development of small-scale irrigation schemes.
4) Income Generation: promotion of off-farm income generation activities and training in marketable skills; community awareness campaigns and training in intra-household resource management.Communities in CARE's proposed operational area are vulnerable because: a) recurrent droughts have depleted household assets and their ability to withstand and recover from shocks; b) poor health and nutritional status, especially among women and children, have weakened productive capacity and resistance to diseases; c) traditional agriculture-based livelihood systems no longer provide adequately for household needs in most years; and d) alternative income sources render low returns. Each of these causes is addressed in REVIVE. Ultimately, REVIVE will reduce the vulnerability to food and nutritional insecurity of 6,000 households (or 30,000 people) in two woredas (districts) of West Hararghe. Four sub-objectives correspond to the components described above.
Objective 1: 3,500 households in targeted communities manage the debilitating effects of periodic acute shocks without depleting productive household or community assets.
Objective 2: 6,000 women of reproductive age and 18,000 children under two years improve their nutritional status. Objective 3: 3,000 households have increased agricultural production and productivity. Objective 4: 650 households increase and diversify their on- and off-farm income to meet their basic needs and build their asset base to safeguard against shocks.The interventions described in REVIVE will require both Title II cash and food resources and USAID Ethiopia Development Assistance funds. A total os US$1,055,480 has been requested as DA funding from USAID Ethiopia. Title II commodities (1,132MT) are being requested to generate US$1,065,000 in monetization proceeds and another 6,533 will be used to ameliorate food deficits in target communities and will be used primarily as FFW/EGS for well-targeted community projects. In addition, US$1,191,787 of Section 202(e) funding is requested to the complement DA and Monetization resources. Impact will be measured through reduction of: the percentage of stunted children under five years, the average number of food shortage months and improvement on a coping strategy index. Since 1984, CARE has implemented emergency and multi-sectoral development projects in Ethiopian communities. For the past six years, CARE has been implementing Title II activities in three rural sites along with Addis Ababa, with a focus on infrastructure development. New strategies for REVIVE include an emphasis on community empowerment and improved partnership arrangements with other local government institutions and community based organizations. The Community-based Risk Management component will serve to bridge the relief-development continuum by improving local capacity in disaster mitigation.
