The workshop organized by FAO and the Afar Regional Bureau of Pastoral, Agricultural and Rural Development, was accompanied by visits to intervention sites of FAO and others, and also visits to key regional stakeholders.
The Afar region is an area facing several considerable challenges. The environment is semi-arid/arid where water is a critical problem for socio-economic development activities. Low level of capacity is another key challenge. Afar culture of communal property ownership is sometimes negatively affecting some development interventions. Changing this attitude will still be a challenge. Another serious challenge is Prosopis, which is an alien species that is changing the natural ecological systems, especially rangelands.
The scope of the visit included discussions with implementing partners, as well as field visits to project sites such as:
o A cooperative production site of Animal feed (Multi-Nutrient Blocks, (MNB)) at Awash-7-Kilo -Robi woreda.
o Semera Regional Veterinary Laboratory, established with support from FAO.
o Semera University.
o Semera Rural Technology Development and Promotion Center.
o Various micro dams.
o Rural school
The FAO intervention sites visited are promising; especially the multi-nutrient block producing cooperatives are really changing their livelihoods. As MNB is not only needed for emergency situations, but also for normal livestock development activities as it improves livestock productivity (eg. It doubles milk production). The cooperative has also managed to get purchase request from Djibouti.
It has been a very useful and informative visit to the Afar Regional State as it helped the team to appreciate the extent of challenges in the pastoralist communities, the efforts made by FAO and other partners in addressing the challenges, and to understand possible future support areas in the region.
The overall aim of the workshop is to establish regionally agreed priority intervention areas for FAO to base its operation in the region.