Inspiring resilience investments in the Horn of Africa
FAO promotes peace, agriculture-led growth and socio-economic transformation of vulnerable communities
17 April 2019, Accra – With multi-hazard drought disasters recurring and affecting vulnerable livelihoods in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD region), FAO and IGAD released a publication to share and encourage IGAD’s resilience good practices towards the efforts aimed at ending drought emergencies in the region.
Most of the population in the IGAD region rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and have limited capacity to cope with the impact of natural disasters that often result in crises. Subsequently, millions of women, men and children are food and nutrition insecure due to recurrent disasters and crises in the region.
In this context, governments and development partners joined hands for the IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI) in building the resilience of vulnerable communities to threats and crises in the agricultural sector to address the food and nutrition insecurity. Since its commencement in 2013, this initiative has left meaningful impacts and legacies to address drought disasters, which brought up the need for the documentation of success stories.
Practical, hand-on success stories and lessons learned
The booklet ‘Promoting effective resilience investments’ features IGAD regional resilience good practices on natural resource management, market access and trade, livelihood support, disaster risk management, conflict prevention, and institutional strengthening and coordination. The stories are compilation of experiences from the implementation of the six pillars of IDDRSI Phase 1 that took place from 2013 to 2018.
“This collated knowledge will be made available to all practitioners and policy makers to inform programme, policies and strategies to reduce vulnerability and risks for agricultural and pastoral communities in the region. This will be critical to shaping the implementation of IDDRSI Phase II and beyond by bringing these successful practices across the member states at the centre on investment discourse and ensuring institutional uptake and impact at scale in building resilience of vulnerable communities in the region.” stated Abebe Haile-Gabriel, the Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Africa.
The success stories envisions to institutionalize the experiences and share good practices among member states, ensuring systematic adoption of good practices in resilience building programmes and policies within and beyond the IGAD region.
Jean Senahoun of FAO added, “By working together and creating strong partnerships, we can build synergies between practitioners and organizations in building long-term resilience of agriculture-based livelihoods in the IGAD region. This will ultimately attain the aspirations of the African Union Malabo declaration and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).”
IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI)
With IDDRSI aiming to sustainably enhance disaster resilience of vulnerable communities, it provides a mechanism for coordinated and harmonized implementation of development partner funded actions at the national and regional levels. This initiative supports communities especially those in the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas in the Horn of Africa, where the 8 Member countries of IGAD (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda) are located. Having Phase I finish in 2018, Phase II will roll out over the next five years from 2019-2023, pursuing to advance the cause and purposes of IDDRSI to the next level and generate a clearer glimpse of its full potential.
About IGAD – Intergovernmental Authority for Development
The Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) is an intergovernmental body that comprises the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. Through increased cooperation, IGAD aims to achieve (i) food security and environmental protection, (ii) Promotion and maintenance of peace and security and humanitarian affairs, and (iii) economic cooperation and integration in the IGAD region.