Ethiopian farmers to get market boost through irrigation project

Farm under irrigation in Ethiopia

Ethiopian farmers will benefit from a multi-million irrigation scheme in a value chain improvement project.
 

The  CAD 19.26 million will directly and indirectly benefit more than 200,000 households engaged in livestock and irrigated agriculture, improve the skills of over 5,000 public service staff, and work with 2,100 value chain input and service suppliers at district, zone and federal levels.

The new research for development project named Livestock and Irrigation Value chains for Ethiopian Smallholders – LIVES was launched today by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), both members of the CGIAR Consortium.

It seeks to directly support of the Government of Ethiopia’s effort to transform smallholder agriculture to be more market-oriented.

“This project is unique in that it integrates livestock with irrigated agriculture development and is designed to support the commercialization of smallholder agriculture by testing and scaling lessons to other parts of Ethiopia,” LIVES project manager, Azage Tegegne emphasized .

The manager added that it will be an excellent opportunity for CGIAR centres to work hand in hand with Ethiopian research and development institutions.”

During the launch the Ethiopian State Minister of Agriculture Wondirad Mandefro welcomed the project as a direct contribution to both the Growth Transformation Plan (GTP) and the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) of the Ethiopian Government.

“We expect this investment to generate technologies, practices and results that can be implemented at larger scales and ultimately benefit millions of Ethiopian smallholder producers as well as the consumers of their products,” Canadian Head of Aid, Amy Baker

Canada which funds the project expect it to contribute to Ethiopia’s efforts to drive agricultural transformation, improve nutritional status and unlock sustainable economic growth through creation of  new and innovative partnerships that will drive agricultural growth.

The project will take place over six years in 31 districts of ten zones in Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples and Tigray regions, where 8% of the country’s human population resides to improve the incomes of smallholder farmers through value chains development in livestock (dairy, beef, sheep and goats, poultry and apiculture) and irrigated agriculture (fruits, vegetables and fodder).

"Projects that support local farmers can help a community in so many ways; not only by providing food and the most appropriate crops, but also by teaching long term skills that can have an impact for years to come," said Canada Minister of International Cooperation the Honourable Julian Fantino.

The project will focus on clusters of districts, developing and improving livestock production systems and technologies in animal breeding, feed resources, animal nutrition and management, sustainable forage seed systems, sanitation and animal health, and higher market competitiveness.

The launch was also attended by Canadian Ambassador to Ethiopia David Usher, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and several Ethiopian government institutes.

©Manuel Odeny

Mombasa: Tumaini orphanage children to benefit from UK scooter aid

Tumaini Children Home, which is a center for children whose parents have died of aids, is set to benefit from scooters from UK donations.

The move follows a scooter taken to the orphanage based in Mombasa which has some of its orphans suffering from aids, earlier this year by Micro Scooters UK which has seen the company planning to send 60 scooters by end of this year.

“Micro Scooters UK  is planning to ship 60 scooters at the end of the year ensuring each child at the orphanage has their very own to play with and will host Tumaini’s first-ever Christmas Party at which the scooters will be handed over,”  the company said in a statement.

Micro Scooters say they were touched by the children reaction to the scooter and that “the children have few, if any, toys and spend 365 days a year in the same location following the same routine.”

Launched under the Scooter aid initiative, the company seeks to get donations from school going children who have outgrown their scooters and estimates nearly 1 million sold in the country in five years.

“We are encouraging people to send any scooters no longer in use back including a letter to the children at the orphanage adding a personal touch to their donation, we will then safety checked and refurbished before being sent to the Tumaini Children’s Home in Kenya,” Anna Gibson and Philippa Gogarty  said in an online joint press statement.

If the scheme proves a success, Micro Scooters UK will roll it out to children’s homes in other third world countries.

The Tumaini Homes of Hope is a small UK based charity that supports work with orphaned and vulnerable children infected and affected by HIV AIDS with seven years of supporting orphanages and providing education and healthcare-based projects in coast province.

© Manuel Odeny, 2012

World Bank: Sub-Saharan Africa growth tied to Euro zone crisis

Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye, the Uganda WB country manager.

The World Bank’s forecast of 5% growth for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 risks being affected by the Euro zone, a senior bank official has said.

WB projections place the developing world, with Sub-Sahara Africa being the main player, at the centre of recovery from the world economic recession.

Last year, 2011, Sub-Saharan Africa had one of the world’s fastest growth rates at 4.7% average, almost back to the region’s performance before the economic crisis time.

Next year the growth is still projected to increase to 5.3%.

This forecast is placed at the risk of persistent risk of financial recession for developed countries especially after Cyprus asked for help from EU which “brings a lot of uncertainty in the air since developing countries are not isolated from the world” Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye, the Uganda WB country manager said.

He added that the Euro zone crisis will constrain growth in the developing countries as Euro governments will need to increase taxes and level on public investment to streamline their budget. This will affect the trade infrastructure and reduce foreign aid.

Ndiaye who was speaking to journalists at WB offices in Kampala said the effect will be felt through low remittance by African immigrants back home due to contracting job market and a reduced number of tourists visiting Africa as high income earners will be faced with new taxes.

But the forecast is set to hold steady if the prices of African commodities in the world market grow and investment flows into in new resources and infrastructure like oil drilling, refineries, roads, and ICT.  

Ndiaye points out that Africa can get finance from bilateral development partners to borrow and invest in infrastructure which will set to increase sub-regional trade which reduces their dependency on Euro zone countries and should place more importance on regional integration like EAC.

According to government’s record Kenya is projecting her growth at 5.0% in the 2012/13 financial year on the back of a SH1.459 trillion budget which highly relies on infrastructure development to spur growth.

“The energy, infrastructure and ICT sector leads on government’s expenditure at 24% allocation on account of on-going road and energy projects as the sector is able to sustain development” a PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, analysis points out.

But PwC says this can be challenged by a road maintenance backlog, lack of adequate local construction capacity and delayed uptake of donor funds.

Equally, the country’s budget which relies on 15.4% foreign funding (Sh225.5 billion) from external grants and loan for revenues will be constrained by the Euro zone crisis.

This reliance of sub-Sahara to external grants is what Ndiaye says can be rectified by regional integration and trade.

“Sub regional trade away from Euro-zone can be increased with EAC investing in infrastructure especially in oil exploration and speed up convergence in fiscal policies and the monitory union” he says.

©Manuel Odeny, 29 June 2012 from Reuters Training in Kampala, Uganda

VP: Part of German aid to ease patrolist-farmers clashes

The VP and German Chancelor Angela Merkel during her one day official visit to Kenya yesterday.

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has said that part of aid promised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel will go along way to ease skirmishes between pastoralists and farmers in Ukambani region.

Ms Merkel on African tour was in a one day visit in Kenya and promised over Ksh 100 million to mitigate against drought and help Somalia Daadab famine refugees.

“The aid will not only help famine victims in the country but also ease clashes between Somalia herders escaping famine and farmers in the Ukambani area” the Vice President said.

Somalia pastoralists escaping drought with their cattle have clashed with farmers over grazing land and water holes raising tension in Ukambani.

 Mr. Kalonzo was speaking in Yattaa constituency where he joined hundred other mourners in the burial of Joseph Kariuki who passed away earlier this month.

“Mr. Kariuki lived in harmony with the community as a teacher in several high schools in the region, a deacon of United Church and a farmer making his death to be untimely demise” Kalonzo said consoling the bereaved family and other constituents.

Mr. Kariuki the principal of NYS Huduma Academy passed away from a heart attack and left behind a widow, four children and two grand children.

Former Gatundu North MP Kariuki Mwiruri and area MP Charles Kilonzo also attended the funeral services.

Kagame scorns UN report as DRC burns.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda's President

I read with interest several articles about DRC on this weeks issue of The EastAfrican. The UN leaked report implicating Rwanda and Uganda shows how DRC’s wealth has attracted plunder from the world stage to the detriment of the country.

Of course Rwanda was ingurgitated enough to threaten a withdrawal of its 3,500 army aiding in peacekeeping effort in Sudan. UN in a diplomatic twist (after realizing Rwanda’s potential in peace of the region) has pushed the publishing the report, with Rwanda’s reaction, on 1st October.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon flew unexpectedly in Rwanda last week for talk, showing the seriousness of the repercussions.

I wasn’t shocked on Rwanda’s reaction on the leaked report. Prolific writers and journalists covering DRC have got the same backlash on their work. Dutch journalist Ludo de Witte’s The Assassination of Lumumba (first published in Dutch, 1999) is a good example. The fuss it caused in Belgium, DRC former colony, made the Belgium parliament to accept its country involvement in Lumumba’s death.

The UN backed report on Illegal Exploration of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth from the DRC published from 2001-2003 received the same backlash.

The allure of DRC’s vast mineral resources has brought to it’s doorstep the world stage like hounds picking on it carcass amid plundering, war inhumanities and smuggling.

The 1988-2003 conflict drew a score of African countries; Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Namibia, Chad and all the way to the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone.

I tried looking at 50 years of independence on the land of rhumba and found interesting the world stage in DRC:

The colonial Belgium under Leopold II set the stage for the scramble and partition of Africa. With shrewd ambition and insatiable greed for wealth, Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley in 1878 to unleash terror to 400 African chiefs to curve the ‘Congo Free State.’ Joseph Conrad’s account in Heart of Darkness about colonial DRC said ‘the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience’ made Leopold the richest man in Europe.

But the wind of independence blowing over Africa reached the country on 30th June 1960 bringing more world figure in -ism schism of the cold war.

Patrice Lumumba, the pm, leading a shaky coalition with Belgium unwillingness to concede power brought chaos. Moise Tshombe with Belgium support declared Katanga, the mineral hub, an independent state on 11th July 1960. UN and USA stepped in but when Lumumba wasn’t impressed by their service called in Russia and Czech personnel at the nadir of cold war.

This culminated into assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgium and CIA. The revolt in Kisangani (Lumumba’s stronghold) in 1964 was supported by China, Algeria, Cuba and Egypt, forcing the CIA ti aid Mobutu to power in 1965.

As the western ‘friendly tyrant’ Mobutu lead a kleptomaniac regime, but enjoyed $9Billion aid, US contribute $860Million of this. It is from the start on 1988 that DRC was engulfed in humanitarian crisis in four stages according to the report; 1993-1996; July 1996-July 1998; August 1998-January 2000 and the fina; transition of January 2001-June 2003.

In 1988 DRC was rotting over corruption, weak central government and huge debt. Mobutu was ‘dinasaur’ against the second democratic wind of change which tirned the world against him.

But not France which sided with him against ‘Anglo-phone ‘ encroachment in central Africa. In 1994 Franco-African summit Mobutu got a warm, French president Jacques Chirac gave amoment of silence in memory of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana whom France supported against RPF.

The then current Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu was not invited.

The first stage started with Mobutu, in need of regional powerbroker, to meddle in Rwanda and Burundi’s conflict despite DRC hosting over 1.5 million Rwandan refugees like Interahamwe, Mayi Mayi and Banyamulenge.

Rwanda and Uganda resentful at cross border raid in Kivu and Eastern conge respectively chose to support Laurent-Desire Kabila. Angola too supported Katanga rebels to hit back on Mobutu’s support to Jonas Savimbi and Unita.

Interestingly, Kabila was dismissed by Argentinean revolutionary Ernesto ’Che’ Guevara and 120 Cuban fighters in 1965 as lucking any revolutionary seriousness. Algerian Ben Bella, china’s Zhou En-Lai blessed the expedition while Egypt’s Abdel Nasser had his reservation. Ernesto wrote the 1965 expedition in Dar es Salaam embassy in the book The African Dreams: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in Congo.

On 17th May 1997 Kabila become the president of DRC while Mobutu died four months later in morocco. Uganda’s Yoweri Museni remarked, as quoted by Times journalist Martin Meredith in State of Africa, capturing the all incident thus:

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda. So its really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think ho could have stayed, just like that….”

The third stage (August 1998-January 2000) flared when Laurent Kabila dismissed Rwanda a country, as his advisers said to be so small to be found in the map.

With aims to control their borders, president’s otiose ambition for being regional kingmakers and unbridled greed for diamond, petroleum, gold , timber, Colton and other minerals, several countries joined the fray at this stage. DRC was a proxy with contracts used to buy loyalty.

Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda financed rebels because Kabila could not control the cross border raids. Zimbabwe and Angola aided Kabila with help from Namibia and Chad. The acme of this stage was in 2000 when Rwanda and Uganda turned against each other in three occasions to control Kisangani, the diamond hub!!

The last stage (January 2001-June 2003) saw the withdrawal of foreign armies after the July 2002 peace treaty by Joseph Kabila. There is no respite as rebels were and are still supported as a proxy war in rivalry in the region.

Published on the Thursday September 30th Issue of The Daily Nation and Syndicated online at: NewsFlavor