- A sahelian country in the horn
of africa
- Land management and institutional support
- An overview of the program's activities
- Spin-off effects of the program
- References
By Thomas Kohler
In Eritrea, the University of Berne's Center for Development and Environment,
together with the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and
Eritrean partner institutions, runs a comprehensive program on sustainable
land use - the Sustainable Land Management Program (SLM).
1 A Sahelian country in the
Horn of Africa
With an area of approximately 120,000 sq km, Eritrea is nearly three
times the size of Switzerland, although it is one of the smallest states
in Africa. It is a young state - the country only became independent in
1993 after a 30-year war with Ethiopia, of which it was previously the
northernmost province.
Nature has not been kind to Eritrea, and it has all the characteristics
of a Sahelian country. This applies in particular to its rainfall, which
is low and varies widely from year to year, both with regard to quantity
and the time the rainy season starts. The majority of the country consists
of savanna, with its typical acacias, as well as steppe and desert, particularly
in the western lowlands near Sudan and in the east toward the Red Sea.
Only the central highlands, at altitudes between 1500 and 2500 meters,
which represent about a quarter of the country's area, have sufficient
rainfall to allow farming.
The plants cultivated are mainly drought-resistant local cereal varieties
such as barley, rye, wheat, millet, and tef. Tef is a type of cereal found
only in Eritrea and Ethiopia. In the dry lowland regions, by contrast,
nomadic livestock farming predominates. The country is an ancient cultural
area, and has been settled and farmed for many centuries. This long period
of use has resulted in advanced soil degradation in large parts of the
country, particularly through erosion. The main victim of soil degradation
and the low rainfall is small farming, which is the country's economic
bacKBone and the principal occupation of about 90% of the country's 3.5
million inhabitants.
In addition to the difficult ecological situation, the country also
currently has political difficulties, particularly the devastation caused
by the 30-year war and the effects of the later two-year border war with
Ethiopia. The financial resources swallowed up by the two-year war are
now lacking for the urgently needed establishment of infrastructure and
administration facilities that are indispensable for economic development.
2 Land management and institutional
support
Our program aims to make a contribution to sustainable land management
in this Sahel country in the following ways:
- by providing support for research and development concerning sustainable
land use, particularly in the fields of soil and water conservation;
- by providing support for specific local and regional development
initiatives; and
- by supporting Eritrean institutions active in the field of sustainable
land use and resource management.
A guiding principle of the program is to ensure its sustainability.
This is best assured through partnership with various Eritrean institutions.
These include various ministries (the Ministry of Agriculture and the
Ministry of Land, Water, and the Environment), the University of Asmara,
and Eritrean nongovernmental organizations. To support its activities,
the program is linked to a network that also includes Swiss and international
development organizations. In addition, the program tries to get the local
population involved in decisions directly affecting them, especially in
the area of specific local and regional development initiatives. Experience
so far shows that particularly in Eritrea, after its long struggle for
self-determination, the idea of development partnership is well accepted.
3 An overview of the
program's activities
Support for research and development on sustainable land
use
Soil conservation: research and the challenge of implementation
Work in this field is essentially based on the Afdeyu research station
in the Eritrean highlands. Measurements of soil erosion and of the effectiveness
of soil protection methods are carried out here. This is done by measuring
rainfall and water run-off. The appearance of the station, with clay buildings,
is modest, but it has vital strategic importance, since it is the only
place in the country where such measurements on soil erosion are being
carried out, which even in official Eritrean eyes is seen as one of the
country's primary problems. Thanks to a long series of measurements (the
station has been in operation since 1984), reliable conclusions can be
drawn regarding the extent of soil erosion and the effectiveness of protective
measures. A long-term approach is of the utmost importance, particularly
in a Sahelian country like Eritrea, because rainfall, and therefore soil
erosion and run-off, are subject to wide variation from year to year.
Short-term measurements can therefore lead to completely false conclusions
being drawn - and to the wrong decisions being taken in terms of policy
and practical implementation.
A serious start was made two years ago on preparing the final report
on the measurement results, and it is now almost completed. It is to be
presented in Eritrea this year for discussion along with the most important
partner organizations involved.
Main results on soil erosion and conservation
On the station's unterraced test fields, both surface run-off and
soil loss were high. More than 40% of the rainfall runs off the surface
and is therefore lost to plant production. On the terraced fields, these
values were reduced to a fraction. For example, surface run-off was
only a quarter to half of the figure for unterraced fields - i.e., 10-20%
of the precipitation. The soil loss was reduced from 49 t/ha to 3.5-11
t/ha. These values lie within a technically tolerable range.
In collaboration with official bodies and development programs, the
next step is to develop measures based on these research results and
adapted to the agricultural needs of small-scale farmers. This is a
long-term task of extreme importance (the small-scale farming population
represents the great majority of the population), and our program will
be devoting itself to this in the coming years in order to meet its
responsibilities as a partner engaged in sustainable development.
The main issues involve training and education for future cadres,
further training of technicians, and raising awareness among decision-makers
in the fields of politics and development, as well as supervising specific
measures.
Drip irrigation - a technology for a Sahelian country?
Our program has also recently become involved in promoting drip irrigation.
The background to this is the fact that water is an extremely scarce resource
in Eritrea. It should not be forgotten that Eritrea has only a single
river that carries water all year round - and, in addition, that it lies
on the border with Ethiopia. During the last 40 years, the food deficit
varied between 30% and 90%. Efficient water management is therefore all
the more important.
Drip irrigation is one method of making water use more efficient and
giving the country more secure supplies.
It uses targeted delivery of water to cultivated plants through a pipe
and hose system that supplies water drop-by-drop to the root area of a
cultivated plant all day long. This can achieve very large savings in
water use. Unfortunately, however, the systems available on the market
have so far been much too expensive for small-scale farming conditions.
Cheaper systems have been developed in recent years, and have been successfully
introduced in small and very small farms in India and Bangladesh.
Following an inquiry by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation,
we decided to investigate with the help of Indian experts, together with
an Eritrean and Swiss team, whether the technical, economic, and socio-cultural
conditions in Eritrea are suitable for introducing the type of low-cost
drip irrigation system developed in India. The inquiry produced a positive
picture (see further information on drip irrigation). At the same time,
the system is being tested by various selected institutions, such as agricultural
colleges, universities, and missionary stations, as well as innovative
individuals, so that initial experience with it can be collected.
The introduction of drip irrigation might make it possible to combine
two development goals that are often regarded as mutually incompatible:
resource protection (in this case water, through economical usage) and
increased agricultural production (in this case through irrigation). We
are therefore eagerly awaiting the results of the test phase, which will
determine how we proceed afterward.
Support for local and regional development initiatives
Establishing community profiles
Field activities are guided by community profiles (see references at
the end of this article). These are development reports that we produce
in individual villages or communities. They are written on request by
the local and regional authorities. The community profiles have three
aims:
- The primary aim is to document the development status of the selected
community, and above all in joint discussions with the inhabitants and
authorities to identify the needs and major focal points for development.
Where financial resources allow, our program carries out the activities
needed itself, together with local partners. When this is not possible,
additional partners are sought for co-financing.
- Second, the aim is to record the development status of the community
using a series of central indices (population size, land use, land ownership,
infrastructure provisions, development priorities) as benchmarks for
long-term observation of development trends in rural Eritrea. Long-term
studies of this type, based on 10-year observation cycles, for example,
have proved their value in providing a basis for decision-making in
development work - particularly in view of the constant personnel changes
and variations in programs that are seen in the field of development
cooperation. Moreover, reliable statistical data are still largely lacking
in Eritrea at the community level.
- Third, the results are intended to find their way into course work
at the university and in technical colleges in Eritrea - there are as
yet no textbooks on the topic of environment and society in rural Eritrea,
and almost no teaching materials are available. This is a widespread
shortcoming in Africa, and our program hopes to be able to remedy it.
Specific project work requires close collaboration with reliable
local partners
All these activities require close collaboration with official bodies,
companies, and the local population - a task that would be impossible
from a base in Switzerland, and in which a reliable local partner is needed.
Many development programs maintain a local coordination office for this
purpose, staffed by foreign experts. Our program has taken a different
route, with coordination of specific development activities being transferred
directly to a local Eritrean association. This is Vision Eritrea, a nongovernmental
organization that has gathered considerable experience in implementing
rural development projects in recent years - particularly in the health
care system and in constructing wells.
In close collaboration with our program, Vision Eritrea planned the
field work for the community profiles of Adi Behnuna and Deki Lefay (in
the southern highlands). Vision Eritrea also coordinated repair work on
the wells in Afdeyu, and the building of a hospital clinic (Deki Lefay)
and a school (Adi Behnuna). Our experience with Vision Eritrea has so
far been very good, and we will be continuing our partnership with this
agency.
Capacity building in the field of sustainable land use
and resource management
The University of Asmara - Eritrea's central educational institute
An important partner for our program is the College of Agriculture and
Aquatic Sciences (CAAS) at the University of Asmara. Our collaboration
with the CAAS started even before the beginning of the project, with the
college taking the initiative to involve the Afdeyu field station systematically
in its study courses - first for the purpose of guided study trips on
soil and water conservation, and second for student research projects.
Starting from this basis, collaboration continually expanded.
Last year our program enabled an assistant at the CAAS to receive a
fellowship grant to study for a Master of Science degree in soil science
at the University of Aberdeen. The candidate completed his M.Sc. within
a year, with honors. He returned to Eritrea despite the war, and has since
been working in teaching and research at the CAAS, helping reduce the
college's dependence on foreign lecturers. After this positive experience,
we decided to provide support for a diploma study in Wageningen (the Netherlands)
on the topic of land management, as well as another diploma course at
the University of Pretoria, although in the latter case the University
of Asmara is paying for most of the costs.
New perspectives for collaboration are beginning to emerge at the Geographical
Institute at the University of Asmara. There is a definite need for support.
For example, 10 professors and lecturers share the use of one old PC.
It is obvious that the effectiveness of research and training is bound
to suffer in these conditions. The Institute's management will soon be
presenting its proposals regarding further collaboration. The focus is
to be on setting up a small core group on the topic of "sustainable land
management."
Mapmaking and training with the Water Resources Department
Maps are crucially important as decision-making aids for sustainable
land use and planning. Our program is already in the second year of carrying
out training and further education courses for geographic information
systems (GIS), in which the potential and limitations of modern spatial
information technologies are presented and discussed. These courses are
being held on the initiative of the Water Resources Department at the
Ministry of Land, Water, and Environment, which is also responsible for
the organization and for providing premises and equipment (computers for
the participants).
The courses are extremely popular in Eritrea, going beyond ministerial
boundaries. In the last course, held in October 2000, technicians from
eight different ministries took part. This means that in addition to the
actual training, the course has important networking effects, with the
participants exchanging experience and often maintaining contact afterward.
During the training courses, the Sustainable Land Management Program has
also produced a set of digital maps of the whole of Eritrea. The fundamental
data they contain provide support for planning work in sustainable land
management. However, they can also be used much more widely.
For example, the maps are being used as the basis for building the telecommunications
network in Eritrea (the cellular phones project). The city of Asmara is
also using the maps, as well as a satellite image provided by our program,
as the basis for its land register plan. This plan is crucially important,
as it will provide binding solutions to previously unsolved land ownership
issues dating from the socialist period - an important contribution to
sustainable land use in the suburban area, where horticulture makes an
important contribution to the population's food security.
Thomas Kohler is scientific collaborator at the Center for Development
and Environment, University of Berne.
4 Spin-off effects of the program
The expertise acquired in the course of the program led to additional
inquiries during 2000 - real spin-off effects of our involvement in Eritrea.
Although these do serve the purposes of development in general, they are
not directly in accordance with the SLM's mandate, and an additional charge
was therefore made to the clients concerned.
Examples of these spin-offs include producing a half-tone map of the
border area between Eritrea and Ethiopia for the UN peace mission (commissioned
by the UN); preparing detailed maps for mine clearance work in war zones
(commissioned by the Halo Trust, the organization entrusted with mine
clearance by the UN), and producing a vector map of the entire border
area for the United Nations Mission for Eritrea and Ethiopia - the UN
peacekeeping force (the map was commissioned by the Swiss Department of
External Affairs). All of these spin-offs produce synergistic effects,
with the SLM in turn benefiting from the intermediate products prepared.
In addition to spin-off effects, the SLM has also recently been providing
contact services for institutions and programs hoping to become active
on development issues in Eritrea. These have included providing contacts
for SUN 21, for example - an international conference on renewable energies,
organized by the Basle Chamber of Commerce, which is hoping to become
involved in Eritrea in the field of solar energy. The result of these
contact services is that, as its first specific project, SUN 21 is now
planning to provide support for water heating at a district hospital.
5 References
Ghebru Bissrat and Thomas Kohler. Soil and Water Conservation
Management in Eritrea: Current Status and Trends. Proceedings
of the AEAS/University of Berne Collaborative Workshop
held in Asmara, February 17th-20th, 1998. Wabern-Berne:
Association of Eritreans in Agricultural Science (AEAS),
1999. ISBN 3-9061 51-36-0.
Lukas Frey, Shirin Sotoudeh, and Brigitta Stillhardt.
A Baseline Study for Sustainable Development of the
Deki Lefay Community, Eritrea. Berne: University of
Bern Center for Development and Environment, 1998. For further information see the Center for Development and Environment at the University of Berne.
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