ADDIS ABABA – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched Partnership for Lowlands Resilience Activities (PLRA) to improve resilience coordination.
The USAID in collaboration with the Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands (MILLs) launched Partnership for Lowlands Resilience Activities (PLRA) to improve coordination, collaboration and communication among the government and its stakeholders in four states.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, the MILLs State Minister Endrias Geta (PhD) said that the government and its partners have been working on increasing the resilience of pastoral communities. Lack of strong coordination among development partners, government institutions, and community institutions engaged in resilience building initiatives at different levels was challenging the effort.
The Champion for Food Security (C4FS) activity of the Global Policy LINK program would be providing technical and facilitation assistance to build a sustainable support to strengthen capacity of all stakeholders to work better together and ensure effective coordination of resilience investments. Furthermore, it mainly focuses on capacity building, skill development and evidence informed policy making process activities, he said.
The lowlands livelihoods resilience activity is one of the supports of the USAID to address the coordination role of the MILLs and stakeholders at various levels in Somali, Afar, Oromia and Southern Ethiopia states. It would focus on policy strengthening focusing on pastoral residence areas.
USAID Deputy Mission Director Timothy Stein for his part said that the PLRA project assists MILLs to improve coordination, collaboration and communication among stakeholders. The project would be implemented in four states such as Afar, Somali, Oromia (Pastoral areas) and South Ethiopia (South Omo Zone) states. It would contribute to enhance the livelihoods resilience at scale in lowland and pastoral areas.
At this stage, some three million USD allocated to the run the project in the stated four states, it was learnt.
BY TSEGAYE TILAHUN
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 11 JANUARY 2024
