Environmental policy and administrative management

Project site lies within two Kebabis of Embatkala and Gindae Sub-region of Northern Red Sea Administrative Region, which is about 30 and 45 Km respectively east from Asmara city, the capital of the Country. The main environmental problems in project area is land degradation due to 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 principal source of energy of the residents is firewood. Livelihood of the population depends on rain-fed agriculture, rearing of livestock and petty trading. The community of the project area embraces internal migrants of nomadic people from Sheib and surroundings during the hottest season of the year as the project area is cooler. During this period, natural resources of fire wood is highly demanded and consumed for household consumptions. This project, Rehabilitation of Degraded Catchments in two Kebabis of Ghindae 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 forest dependent poorer communities of both Embatkala and Ghindae kebabis. This is a two year project (December 2012 to November 2014) targeting a total population of 3,129 (15,233 households). The project mainly focuses in awareness raising, delineation of protected area of 96.8 ha, soil and water conservation works including construction of 93.4 Km of terraces and 4,500 m3 check-dams, planting of drought resistant 97,400 tree species and training of trainers (TOT) to selected 40 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. 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 1,662,353.33 or (USD110,823.55) with a contribution of GEF SGP Nakfa 675,000.00, community and government ministries contribution of Nakfa 540,908.89 and from others contribution Nakfa 446,444.44. The contribution from the community, local government and branch ministries includes labor, technical backstopping, and administrative support. In ensuring gender equitable participation, NUEW NRS 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/Northern Red Sea 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 utiliz

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