Setting up

The Ethiopian government reiterated its commitment to work with PARM on ARM in Horizon 2, focusing on sustainability and progressive ownership and building on the successful achievements of PARM operations in Horizon 1 (2014-2019).

On 7 May 2020, a virtual consultation was held between members of the Steering Committee of the Ethiopian Agricultural Extension Mandate Zonation and the PARM Secretariat.

Following the consultation, the Government nominated a Focal Point for a smooth implementation of the PARM Country process. PARM also appointed a Country Liaison Officer and a Country Lead Learning Facilitator to represent and facilitate the implementation of the PARM learning cycles and related activities in Ethiopia.

Risk Assessment

The PARM Horizon 2 activities in Ethiopia is built on the risk assessment studies implemented in 2015-2016 as part of the activities of PARM Horizon 1.  The study was conducted by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of the University of Greenwich in collaboration with local experts.

Findings of the study was disseminated in a National Stakeholder Workshop held in Addis Ababa on the 16-17 December 2015 where stakeholders identified priority risks and the potential ARM tools. Comments from stakeholders were integrated into the final report, which was later published in December 2016 after the official validation from the Government partners.

Design of Programme/Project

Over the summer of 2021, in the context of PARM Horizon 2, PARM has mobilized technical resources including  international and national experts to carry out the project design process in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the Extension Directorate.

PARM has finalized the design of capacity development (CD) program entitled Facility on Capacity Development for Agricultural Risk Management (CD4ARM) with a high level political ownership and appropriation. While developing the investment program, PARM initiated a resource mobilization drive to advocate and mobilize resource to invest in the facility

Learning

During Horizon 1, PARM’s experience in Ethiopia included a three-day capacity development activity jointly organized in May-June 2018 in collaboration with Hawassa University and the MoA.  The learning activity provided support on ARM training needs to the extension service in Ethiopia and possible opportunity for integration of ARM into undergraduate and graduate courses in the universities.

As PARM and the Ministry of Agriculture continued their collaboration, during Horizon 2, two blended (physical and virtual) learning cycles have successfully been implemented.

The first learning cycle consisted of six sessions spread over 10 days in May 2021, targeting 12 potential ARM resource persons in Afar, Amhara and Oromia regions. These sessions were followed by the organization of the Regional Learning Events in the same regions.

Over 100 trainees from the three regions with different academic and professional backgrounds benefited from contextualized training on the concepts and fundamentals of agricultural risk management.

The second learning cycle was held in July 2021, over a two-week span with 4 sessions. It targeted the learning of facilitators and the regional resource persons and provided them with more in-depth training on the key steps of the ARM cycle, especially on how to conduct agriculture risk assessments. The end goal of the learning cycles, as also agreed with the Ministry of Agriculture, was to collect information through a participatory approach to design the investment plan in the country.

Sharing

On 28 October 2021, PARM has organized a co-vision and co-creation workshop, to gather recommendations and lessons learned from over 40 key partners working on ARM in Ethiopia to inform the project design process and integrate them into the project design report.

This was followed the next day, by an in-depth technical workshop with the MoA and other key players in ARM in the country to discuss the most recent project components proposed, to validate the key elements and direction of the project to be included, ensuring high ownership by the national partners.

Based on their comments, the design team drafted an Aide-Mémoire which recapitulated the key elements of the mission and the project and was signed by the State Minister in charge of Agriculture and Horticulture.