The project ‘Adaptation to increase resilience to climate change in Ethiopian agriculture: empowering farmers to adopt the right water management technologies for their farms’ was launched during a workshop held at the University of Gothenburg on 24 and 25 July 2014, with EfD researchers based in Ethiopia, Sweden, the US and Switzerland taking part. The project is funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and will run over three years, coming to an end in 2017.
The objective of the project is to improve the resilience of small-scale farmers to a changing climate by enabling them to adopt appropriate water management technologies. Researchers will analyse profitability and efficacy of combinations of numerous water and soil management technologies as well as identify key barriers for optimal adaptation by building on and analyzing existing panel data from the Blue Nile Basin.
Outcomes will include policy briefs, seminar presentations and publications in peer reviewed journals. Findings will feed into ongoing governmental programs, and include dissemination and capacity building through post doc, PhD and MSc students as well as training of farmers and extension agents; efforts supported by the EfD network.
The principal researcher is Dr Alemu Mekonnen, Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Addis Ababa University (AAU) and Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Economics Policy Forum for Ethiopia (EEPFE) based at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). Researchers as well as students at EEPFE/EDRI and AAU (Water and Land Resource Centre (WLRC) Ethiopia and Department of Economics) will carry out analytical work. The collaborative research group established for the project includes senior researchers from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley; Department of Economics, University of Geneva and Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg.
By Susanna Olai