Environmental policy and administrative management

Project site lies within Debarwa Subregion of Debub Administrative Region, 30 Km South of the capital, Asmara. The topography of the project site is uneven dominated with gentle hilly landscape. The major causes of the problem in Debarwa Sub-region and its environs are human induced activities of deforestation to expand agricultural land, selling of forest products to subsidize household income and limited efforts to regenerate/plant trees while cutting for many other purposes. The main source of energy of the residents in Debarwa sub-region and its environs is firewood. Livelihood of the community depends on rain-fed agriculture and herding of cattle, and small ruminants of sheep and goats. This project, Rehabilitation of Degraded Catchments in two Kebabis of Debarwa sub-region is envisaged to address degradation problem by engaging local actors in environmental conservation through building their capacities to act and create livelihood options for poorer rural communities in two Kebabis of Adebzage and Mereb zoba 01. Generally the project targets all communities in the selected villages. The project intervenes in awareness raising, delineation of protected area of 37 ha; provision of 187 different hand tools to practice soil and water conservation activities, planting of drought resistant & economic value tree species. Moreover, two women s groups from poor households trained on how to start a business & beekeeping and provided them start up loan fund. This is a two year project of December 2012 to November 2014, targeting households of 1,859 or 8,130 people. Direct beneficiaries of the project are 800 people, mainly women who head households. Total budget of the project is Nakfa 1,586,096.60 or USD 105,739.77 with a contribution from GEF-SGP Nakfa 750,000.00. Contribution from local government, Branch Ministry of Agriculture, Branch Ministry of Land, Water and Environment, the NUEW/Anseba and community is Nakfa 836,096.60. These contributions are in the form of labor, working equipment, technical backstopping, administrative support and provision of seedlings. In implementing the project, development committees both at the Regional and Sub-regional levels are formed. Both committees are composed of members from regional/sub-regional administration, branch/sub-branch ministry of Agriculture, members of the NUEW and members of the target community. At the project level, the project implementing committee undertakes the actual planned activities, where women are strongly represented. Members of Regional/sub-regional committees, the NUEW/Debub and SGP personnel are represented in project monitoring and evaluation process and follow result based monitoring as per the detail plan. The knowledge gained from the project is also carefully documented and communicated to concerned organizations and offices. The sustainability of the project is seriously taken into account by focusing on building the capacity of stakeholders and creating benefit sharing mechanism. Fully involvement and participation of all stakeholders is also insured at all level of project cycle. Moreover, the community on ground takes lead in the protected area conservation by forming its own environmental vanguards in the form of two groups each lead by its own implementing committee.

Eritrea