Environmental policy and administrative management

The National Union of Eritrea Women (NUEW) of Maekel Region is one of the six autonomous branches of NUEW. Its organizational structure stretches down to kebabi and village levels. This opportunity has made the NUEW/ Maekel to implement diverse projects and meet its objectives and visions at regional level efficiently. NUEW/ Maekel has since 1993 been implementing development projects of food security, water and Soil and water Conservation (SWC) measures funded by Eritrean Women in Diaspora and the government. This project, Rehabilitation of Degraded Catchments in one sub-region of 3 kebabies or counties is envisaged to address degradation problem by engaging local actors in environmental conservation through building their capacities to act and create livelihood options for forest dependent poorer communities in three Kebabies of Embeyto, Addihawsha and Lamza. This is a two years project (December 2012 to November 2014) targeting a total population of 7541 or 2044 households. The project mainly focuses in awareness raising, delineation of protected area of 100 ha, soil and water conservation works including construction of 400 Km of terraces and 350 m3 check-dams, planting of drought resistant 200,000 tree species and training of trainers (TOT) to selected 60 women on improved traditional stove, which the techniques and methods of constructing the improved traditional stove will eventually be widely transferred by the trainers to every household in the communities. Hence, the impacts of the project are eco-friendly that will sustain after the project life. Moreover, at the beginning of project phase, 30 project officers from 6 regions and NUEW HQ will be enhanced their capacity on project cycle management. In implementing the project, development committees both at the regional and Sub-regional levels are formed. Both committees are composed of members from respective regional/sub-regional administration, branch/sub-branch ministry of Agriculture, members of the NUEW and members of the target communities. At the project level, each community forms a project implementing committee that undertakes the actual planned activities, where women are strongly represented. Members of committees and SGP personnel and representatives from the branch ministries of Agriculture & Land, water and environment are represented in project monitoring and evaluation process and follow result based monitoring as per the detail plan presented in the body of this document. The knowledge gained from the project is also carefully documented and communicated to concerned organizations and offices. The project needs a total of Nakfa 3,626,914.00 or (USD 241,794.26) with a contribution from GEF SGP Nakfa 750,000.00, community & government ministries contribution Nakfa 1,766,914.00 and from other NGOs Nakfa 1,110,000.00. The contribution from the community, local government and branch ministries include labor, equipment, technical backstopping, and administrative support. In ensuring gender equitable participation, NUEW/Maekel works with stakeholders targeting women and creating equal space for their participation in all project related activities. Furthermore, women will participate in all learning events that enhance their capacity and technical knowledge to bring about paradigm shift in rural setting of gender equality. In order to ensure sustainability, NUEW employs community full participation and business model in implementing and managing conservation project through capacity building supports (trainings, workshops, and play modeling role). The project will be implemented as pilot scheme whereby groups will be envisioned and established with the mandate of conserving biodiversity whilst generating their livelihoods out of it. The groups will be registered by the NUEW/Maekel Region that clearly provides the generic organizational structure, policy, mandate and operation system that can be adapted to specific situation of the area. The groups organized will manage by their own local people once the necessary capacity building support has been made to them. After the project, certainly, they stand by themselves in taking the mandate of conserving their natural resources for their own sustainable livelihoods, which the groups will eventually help them to form CBO in the future. The groups will have a clear guide on the mechanism of sharing the benefits they can gain from conserving their biodiversity once they rehabilitated. The groups will have a byelaw for using grasses, woods and other resources from the projected area closure. The livelihood supports availed to them by the project will also be a revolving one through which all members access the fund based on their own regulation. In addition to the internal organizational setting and guidelines of the groups, the local government agencies (like kebabi administration, branch ministry of agriculture and branch ministry of land, water and environment offices) closely support and monitor them in case of disagreements and conflict of interests in using resources. The profitability of business itself is a key binding element for the groups to sustain as CBOs once the benefits are understood and systematically utilized by members.

Eritrea