A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.
Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.
We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.
This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.
Oxfam's work—whether helping Guatemalan women organize to fight gender violence, funding irrigation projects in Ethiopia, or standing with people in Darfur—is about building the resilience of local communities over the long haul. We cannot prevent shocks, but we can help our sisters and brothers access some of the same resources we have to cushion us when times are lean.
We cannot rush from crisis to crisis with short-term fixes. What more evidence do we need than what is happening in East Africa now? This is not the region's first famine, but imagine the headline: Africa's last famine.
It did not have to be this way.
About 190 miles east of Yabello in the Liben District of the Guji Zone, a group of people have managed to escape this horrible fate through a project that helped them create a new means of earning a living while maintaining their pastoralist way of life. A small-scale irrigation initiative, supported by Oxfam America and its partners, has allowed the dream of some of the people of Melka Guba and to become a reality: They are now growing enough food to ensure their families can eat.
Here, in late August, things look much different from the surrounding areas. Smiles brighten the faces of men, women and children, and healthy cattle graze on the dried corn stalks and leaves strewn across the fields from the recent harvest.
In response to a 2008 drought that hit this region hard, Oxfam America worked with a local partner and the regional government on an emergency and recovery project that helped link disaster relief to longer-term development. The first phase focused on saving lives and livelihoods. This was followed by steps that helped villagers analyze their situation and reorganize themselves with a goal of building their assets and strengthening their means of making a living. That is when the people of Melka Guba decided to diversify their livelihoods: In the face of a changing climate they determined to try farming with the help of the new small-scale irrigation network along the nearby Dawa River.
In spite of the fact that this herding community had little prior experience with irrigation, the 64 hectares of irrigated land have now become a life line for more than 201 households in the area.
Mero Abdo, a 30-year-old mother of three, said, “I thank the day I joined this irrigation project. We see how others are suffering everywhere, but my children go to sleep full. I feel really happy I can even help others who are not part of the irrigation community and are having a problem feeding their children.”
Revered by her community, Abdo is a strong woman and one of the first 101 women selected to participate in the irrigation project.
“I was excited from the beginning since I used to hear about irrigation on the radio and I knew it would change our lives,” she said. Abdo not only serves as a member of the irrigation management committee as well as its treasurer, but she is one of the few women to take on all farming activity on her own.
For most of the participants, this third harvest was their best yet. Abdo managed to produce 14 quintals of corn on a quarter hectare of land (about .6 acres), more than from either of the previous two harvests.
“I used the line-sowing technique this year and produced more,” she said. “I plan to use seven quintals to feed my family and sell the rest to pay for my children’s school, buy cattle, or start a small trading business.”
Abdub Bora, a 40-year-old farmer and father of eight, proudly showed us his traditional storage silo filled to the brim with corn from his last harvest.
“This time I produced 15 quintals of corn on my quarter hectare of land,” said Bora. He told us he is planning to use eight quintals and sell the remaining seven quintals to meet the other needs of his family. “I have eight children and four are still in school. I will use the money to buy books and use some of it in case my family gets sick,” added Bora.
Bora’s wife lives in Melka Guba, about 10.5 miles from the irrigation site, where their children can attend school.
“We don’t mind the separation. The main thing is to have enough to eat and allow our children to finish school,” said Bora. “My wife brings me food I can easily cook here and she even comes and works with me during the busiest farming season.”
The reach of this irrigation project spans further than the community itself. Thanks to the river-fed harvest, the households participating in this project are one of the few sources of corn seed in the Liben District.
When the project started, each of the 201 households were allotted a quarter hectare of irrigable land in accordance with government regulations. But not everyone was convinced the irrigation would work and some abandoned their plots. To avoid wasting water, the irrigation management committee offered those plots to neighboring farmers who would be capable of using them.
Hussein Gufar, a 44-year-old father of six, was one of the lucky ones who received one of the adjacent parcels. During the most recent harvest, he produced 25 quintals of corn on a half hectare of land (about 1.2 acres).
“We said this could change our fate,” said Gufar, who is a member of a task force that ensures the daily operation of the irrigation system. “We were not sure at first but now we have more confidence and plan to work even harder.” A pile of corn sacks in the middle of his field is proof of his commitment and hard work.
Beyond the families the project has helped, it has also blessed the community’s most valuable asset—the cattle, which now feed on the stalks and leaves left after the harvest.
“We are not only able to feed our animals but we sell the rest of the maize residue to the surrounding community for additional income,” added Gufar. The price of that fodder has increased four times in one year which reflects the desperate situation most of the surrounding community is in.
The irrigation effort is not without challenges and does not address all of the community’s needs. Community members are aware they will have to work together to reap the maximum benefit of this investment. Some of the concerns they have expressed include the high cost of transportation, which limits farmers to growing only longer-lasting produce, such as onions; the rising cost of generator fuel; and minimal support from the government in terms of providing training and helping connect farmers with markets.
“We are now only producing onions and tomatoes for home consumption. If we could reach the right market and access reasonable transportation, we could earn more money and increase our income,” said Gufar.
During the last harvest, the irrigation participants contributed 10,700 birr ($629) of which 10,000 ($588) was used for generator fuel and to pay for the seeds some had borrowed.
Many efforts are underway to improve the quality of life in the area. Among other things, this project fostered the construction of a three-room school that is managed by the pastoralist commission. In addition, a health post is also being planned for the site.
Melka Guba farmers are eager to start the next planting season. To use the irrigation system efficiently, all their plots need to be ready for sowing at the same time—so water isn’t wasted. Farmers are now working on that coordination.
And along with the irrigation has come something else: peace of mind. Project participants can now have access to food all year round. They will no longer suffer the harsh consequences of drought nor be dependent on others to feed their families.
]]>Puddles swallow trucks to their underbellies. And everywhere, green sweeps the hillsides: delicate shoots of teff, so vibrant it looks lit from within, mix with fields of corn, the stalks thickening by the day and inching skywards.
But here in this village of about 1,100 households in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, they’re holding their breath. Will the rain stay steady? Will it fall in enough abundance to fatten the grains and produce a bountiful harvest on which so many here depend?
At night, in my hotel room in Abi Adi, I listen as the rain pelts the metal roofs and pours into the courtyards and muddy streets below. I think about all the uncertainties farmers in Adi Ha face, and then I think about the south and what happens when those uncertainties become life-threatening. There, where southern Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and south-central Somalia meet, a severe drought and food crisis has snared almost 12 million people, farmers and herders both. The UN has already declared famine in two parts of Somalia. And some areas of the region are the driest they have been in six decades.
Though the rain in Tigray brings hope, nothing is certain. Not when the weather has become increasingly erratic. And not when the vast majority of farmers rely on rain to feed their fields. Countless families here—like those now struggling in the south—have known the ravages of drought.
But in Adi Ha, and a growing number of communities in Tigray, farmers now have a means of managing some of that unpredictability: weather insurance for their crops.
Initiated in 2007 by Oxfam America and a host of partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray and Swiss Re, a new program has found a way for even the poorest farmers to afford insurance. Instead of cash, these farmers can pay for their premiums with labor, a resource they have in abundance. If insufficient rain falls during a critical period of the growing cycle, and their teff, wheat, or barley suffers, farmers will receive a payout—an infusion of cash that can help them cover their losses and weather the rough times.
“This insurance is very good,” said Selas Samson Biru, who paid 200 birr ($11.75) this year to cover half a hectare of teff—a tiny grain that is a staple of the Ethiopian diet. “The insurance is good because it’s saving our assets in a bad year.”
As she spoke, a heavy sky pressed down on the fields of Adi Ha. Nearby, farmers coaxed their oxen through rocky fields, hurrying to plow and plant. It felt like rain. But Biru was worried still. She expected her corn would be OK, but the teff?
“We have some doubt,” she said.
Readings at a small rain gauge across the river from one of Biru’s fields showed that, on the Ethiopian calendar for July, rain had fallen on only seven days until a thorough dousing on July 24, when 50 millimeters (2 inches) soaked the fields. Before then, the heaviest rain measured just 30 millimeters (1.2 inches).
With the green that rain has brought to Adi Ha, it’s hard to fathom just how dry the south is. And in fact Biru, far from any access to the Internet or TV, said she had not heard about the drought and suffering there.
“We are sorry about that news,” she said, worry creasing her brow. “We feel that type of drought might come to us.” And then she brightened.
“Have they bought insurance?” Biru asked. “This is one of the most important things that needs to be scaled up.”
That’s in the works. Through a new partnership, Oxfam America and the World Food Programme, together with Swiss Re, are helping to bring this insurance model—and a package of other resource-management techniques including savings, credit, and disaster risk reduction strategies—deeper into Ethiopia and across three new countries.
It won’t come in time to help families in the south, but the disaster there may finally spur some serious international interest in finding long-term solutions—like weather insurance—to the devastation drought brings.
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