Case story 1:
CMDRR informed Web community diverted food aid for community development initiative
Web community is one of the pastoral community targeted in ECHO funded Drought Risk Reduction
Project. Action for Development – AFD is a local NGO that facilitates the CMDRR guided Drought Risk
Reduction project among Web communities. This case story gives accounts of one of the successful
initiatives of Web community.
The ECHO funded Drought Risk Reduction project focuses on mobilizing the community to reinforce
drought mitigation and reduction measures. The community CMDRR committee leads the planning,
organization, implementation and coordination of disaster risk reduction interventions.
In the entire process Web community has learned how it can cope with recurrent drought and achieve
their locally agreed development objectives.
Web community has, for quite a long period of time, suffered from lack of road and this has seriously
affected the social and economic link with Dubluk town – an important economic centre by local
standard. Transporting goods from Dubluk to Web was not easy; the existing semblance of a road had
gulleys, got flooded/muddy and overgrown with bushes, making web inaccessible. The community could
not access a hospital located just 115 kilometers from Web; livestock traders were not willing to come
to the villages in Web, etc.
During the 2009 PDRA revision, construction and maintenance of the road that connects Web to Dubluk
town was one of the major issues in the discussion and the activity was included in the community
development plan. However due to shortage of resources it was not implemented. Again in 2010 the
community prioritized access to road as a major problem, but resources were still a challenge to realize
the construction. However, this time the community decided not to wait for external agency response,
rather decided to find out possible solutions and this was a turning point for community resource
mobilization.
In an effort to solve the challenges of having a rural road that serves both the rainy and dry season, as
risk aware community the CMDRR committee came with a new idea – diverting government allocated
food aid resource for the construction of the road. "In the past three years we have managed to
establish quite significant drought mitigation and vulnerability measures. Households are now having
adequate milk and food, and the collective community action strengthened our capacity to cope with
drought. Therefore at this time as we are not in need of any food aid, we have to sell the wheat
delivered to us by the government and with the money, we have to build the bad road that detached us
from Dubluk and Yabello."
The community agreed to present this idea to the Woreda administration and also have decided to
share the idea with the neighboring Higo and Dubluk Pastoral communities and mobilize additional
resource.
After some time the local administration approved the idea and Web community managed to mobilize
the neighboring Higo and Dubluk communities for the road construction by raising their awareness on
the importance of self initiatives and explaining the negative and damaging effects of dependence on
external aid.
The CMDRR committee sold the wheat and realized 72,000.00 Birr; this money and community
contribution from Higo and Dubluk pastoral association including volunteer community labor was
enough to clear new 18 kilometers of road and repair and improve 28 kilometers of the existing road.
The community is proud that they have accomplished one major activity in their development plan. “We
shall follow up with the government to grade and murram the road to good standard as we embark on
other pressing developmental and contingency plans to reduce the effect of the current drought”.
Figure 1 Even the Cordaid team enjoy the ride on the cleared road section
Figure 2 Well aligned and completed road section in useWho said communities’ don’t have surveying skills?
Case story 2:
Well facilitated CMDRR process taps into Web community’s expertise and capacities.
With funding from ECHO, Catholic Organization for Relief and Development aid (CORDAID), in
partnership with a local NGO, Action for Development (AfD) has been piloting Community Managed
Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) in Web community of Southern Ethiopia. Mr. Abara works for AfD and
is very enthusiastic of his new responsibilities of facilitating the Web community to reduce their risks
associated with the frequently re-occurring drought. He emphasizes that understanding and building on
the vast experience of community systems and structures makes facilitation enjoyable and opens up
vast untapped latent capacities in the communities. Just being a keen listener and an observer makes
you realize your limited comprehension of the community as they narrate in greater details their
resources, how they relate to each other and manage to survive hazard events.
Abara expounds how the traditional Gadha system of the Boran community is a classical indigenous
institution that addresses the social and political aspiration of individual community members and subclans within the larger Boranas. However, in promoting economic development and improvement of
household livelihood, he explains that the community clearly understands that individuals make up the
society and that the Gadha system recognizes and underscores communal ownership, accountability
and sustainable utilization of limited resources in a hazard prone eco-system.
As a pastoral community, livestock, natural resources and people are the main pillars anchoring Web
community’s livelihood. Drought is often identified as the main hazard and threat to these pillars. To
mitigate the drought, the community has mastered livestock production systems and their traditional
Water and pasture preservation and development approach endeavors to sustainably utilize these
natural resources. To reduce the adverse impact of any drought, elaborate community institutions
oversee use/management of water (headed by aba-erega) and pasture (headed by jaarsa dedha) and
exist community support systems (Busa/gonofa) to help individual community members to bounce
back.
Traditional classification guides development and use of water and pasture resource. Pasture zones
transcend international borders (Ethiopian/Kenya) and are classified as Chari (bushland), wayama (red
soil) Malbe (rocky grassland) golbo (lowlands) badan (forest), dire (ridges-plateau) while underground
water resource are classified as Tulaa (deep wells) and adadi (shallow wells). The Boran community
Prayer line “……Tulaan salan Nagaa…..” makes cognizance of nine Tulaas, and Web is one of such
tulaa. Each Tulaa consists of series of approximately 21 traditional wells to represent each of the
Borana clans as is the case in Web. Baab, Sadetti, Arbores, Dambiich Qalla, Doraantich,Ell Yabii, Buuk,
Halakhe Waraaba and Galaantich are just a few of these traditional wells found in Web.
“Our wells in Web have adequate water to support our livestock and attract livestock from far and wide.
Our traditional systems teach us to share and support each other in time of need, but why should
congestion limit our optimum use of available water resource?” asks Godana Jillo, who is supervising the
ongoing improvement of Dambiich well. “The narrow canyon-like access that steeply descends over a
100m stretch towards the livestock watering-trough located 20 meter below ground level, has killed and
exhausted our weak animals. Delays make the thirsty sheep and goats nervous and jump to their deaths
in desperate attempt to reach the only trough.” He is proud of the improvements on Galaantich well
undertaken in 2010 under the ECHO funded drought risk reduction program II and wants to replicate the
same success. Works involved widening the access path and reducing its steep descends, constructing 3
troughs and a concrete collection chamber (known as fachana). The effective depth to the aquifer was
also reduced from 6men height to 4men height. Tadi Maliso, who is also supervising the ongoing
improvement works at Dambiich well, adds: “Before the improvements on Galaantich, a labor force of
60 men (20 per shift) would start drawing water manually from 5:30 AM till 4:00 PM (11 hrs). That has
now reduced to only 10 men and watering time reduced from 9 AM to 12:00) noon (3hrs)! We have
more people doing other productive activities and less workload especially during drought when access
to food is limited. Previously we could only water 20 cows at a time, now we can accommodate 100
cows at a go. The frequent frustration and muddy site as a result of often breached mud trough is no
longer the case. Our well’s sites are cleaner, hygienic and safe for the women to fetch water.”
The improved Galaantich well serves over 2000 cattle (excluding shoats, camel, and domestic water use)
per watering day compared to previous 600 cattle. Nearby wells have been decongested allowing
improvement works on other wells to proceed as is the case in Dambiich well. Opportunity to assign a
specific well to only one consumer category (domestic) is not far fetched now.
During the visit, the overall supervisor engaged by the AfD was only recording the list of attendants for
purpose of attendance and payments while the community took charge on determining outputs, based
on their unit of measurements. “We will require in total eight trips** to widen the access, reduce the
effective height from 9men height to 7men height, collect hardcore and complete the masonry works.
Unfortunately we can only afford six trips** and we will compromise and plan to achieve effective
height of 7.5 men.” Godan jillo explains confidently using community methods of measurement. This
was quite interesting and further allowed the community to make decisions and developed their own
monitoring mechanisms and indicators.
Progress of work was on schedule with both men and women actively involved. At the start women
represented 70% of the labor force and reduced to 50-50 when excavation works struck hard material at
lower depths. Further inquiry reveled that the women intend to use some of the wage earned to
purchase clothes for themselves and their children and supplement household food purchases.
The community looks focused and determined to replicate the previous success on Dambiich well. The
facilitator (Mr Abara) is confident that they will deliver again. He further adds that, “To nurture
emerging community organization, there is a marked difference when a facilitator specifies task and
assigns to communities for execution while keeping the budget a secret. In such circumstances, you take
the decision making from community and lose the community drive, opportunities for them to reflect,
set their own monitoring indicators and learn. They will remain confused and always wait for your next
instructions.” He advices that much progress is made if budgets are declared and decision making
gradually left to the community. The community confirmed that once they were informed of the budget
ceiling of 220,000 birr, they realized that budget was not adequate to replicate similar success as in
Dambiich well and they mobilized additional 20,000 birr. Involving the community to plan, to mobilize
resources and to implement definitely increased sense of ownership, ingested the need for cash to
improve household food security.
Figure2. Entry to Gallaantich well, protected, wide and gently descends
after completion
Figure4: Expanded width to Galaantich can allow more oncoming "traffic"
Figure 3: Completed Gallaantich well: Even the child can now ascend the
gentle climb and bring addition volumes of water for household
Figure5. Sherrif wonders how the community could have dug to THIS depth more than 300 years ago
Figure 4:Figure 5. Completed trough being filled with water as herd owners control
the dust and removes any animal droppings as per community developed
“operational and maintenance manual”
Figure:7 A herd owner busy undertaking cleaning task during his watering turn
Figure 6.The transfer station -locally known as “fachaan” filled in readiness
for manual lifting to distribution chamber overhead
Figure9: Distribution chamber receiving water from the transfer station
Figure7: Animals drink with ease and less congestion after improvement
on Galaantich well. The calves are given priority to drink as per the tradition
Figure11: Ongoing works on Dambich well: women make a human conveyor
belt to remove excavated soil
Figure 8 Dambiich well: Men excavate to widen and reduce the descending
gradient to accommodate more animals
Figure 9 Dambiich well: Transfer station-“fachaan”-taking shape. The well mouth is visible