Feed the Future in Ethiopia: Resilience in Pastoral Areas
Who we are
Resilience in Pastoral Areas (RIPA-North) is a five-year plus (February 2020 – August 2025) USAID funded Feed the Future program working to improve the resilience capacities of pastoralist households, markets, and governance institutions across 22 woredas in the Somali, Afar and Oromia regions of Ethiopia. An additional implementation woreda, Gode, has been included through the crisis modifier activities. RIPA North is implemented by Mercy Corps CARE International and seven local NGO partners. RIPA North uses a market systems development (MSD) approach blended with resilience-building principles to enhance food security and inclusive economic growth for over 129,000 households, 40% of whom are women and 5% are people living with disabilities.
Our vision
Ethiopia’s Afar, Oromia and Somali regions’ local economy, and food and nutritional systems that are resilient, inclusive and able to thrive in the face of unpredictable climate and conflict shocks.
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What we do
RIPA-North is an extension of Mercy Corps’ long years of resilience building work in the pastoral and agro pastoral areas of Ethiopia. Through partnerships with private and public sector partners, RIPA-North creates economic opportunities for households and communities who decide to remain in pastoralism despite climate shocks, while supporting people transitioning out of pastoralism (TOPs), particularly youth and women, to strengthen their business and employability skills. The program routinely assesses and anticipates climate-related and socio-economic shocks facing Ethiopian agro-pastoral and pastoral communities and the market systems that support them, and responds to consequent risks and threats to their livelihoods, including loss of livestock due to recurrent drought, flood, deteriorating conditions of the lowlands, conflict and diseases.
RIPA-North works through five broad components (below) which are strengthening the resilience of local systems:
- Improved disaster risk management (DRM) systems and capacity
- Diversified and sustainable economic opportunities for people transitioning out of pastoralism (TOPs) particularly youth and women
- Intensified and sustained pastoral and agro-pastoral production and marketing
- Improved and sustained nutrition and hygiene practices
- Crisis Modifier (Phase 1 & 2) – inbuilt supplemental funding resources to enable responses to anticipated or observed crises to protect development gains
How we work
RIPA adopts the following guiding principles while delivering on its goals:
Facilitation through strong private and public sector partnerships and collaboration
Most RIPA’s interventions are implemented through partnerships with over 2,000 partners, implementing activities towards resilience building in agriculture, economic opportunities, and crisis response.
Gender and inclusive programming
RIPA North emphasizes on streamlining of gender focused activities across components. Intentional integration as well as measurement of its impact are focus areas of the program’s key priorities. Youth and women are priority groups of program participants in many of the component interventions.
Inclusive market systems though pro-poor participation
RIPA’s interventions are designed to create access to market opportunities for pro-poor and marginalized population in Ethiopia, ensuring they are able to participate in market functions. For instance, we work with relevant government institutions to improve individual, especially women and children, household and community nutrition and hygiene practices and behaviors. We support small businesses towards sustainability and scale. Our financial inclusion work focuses on supporting financial institutions to improve their systems and operations to reach more people with need for financial services such as loans to start their own businesses or respond to shocks.
Sequencing, layering and integration of interventions
RIPA layers interventions across components to strengthen pastoral households’ resilience to shocks. For example, we combine work with communities and kebele-level [governance] institutions on participatory rangeland management to enhance the long-term health of natural resources, like pasture and water. This is complemented with market-led strategies that connect livestock producers to better inputs and services that help them improve productivity.
Shock responsiveness through disaster risk management and crisis modifiers
RIPA supports disaster risk management activities including development and dissemination of early warning information systems and tools for shock anticipation and awareness creation. We effectively integrate humanitarian market-based response with long-term development interventions. RIPA’s crisis response has been implemented in two phases in drought affected areas where some of RIPA’s partners are vendors for food stuff, feed and fodder.
Leveraging learning for adaptation and improvement
RIPA’s robust data management, as well as CLA systems, are proving to be effective platforms for generating learning and evidence and forming the basis for planning, decision making, and adaptive management. The series of evaluations conducted by internal and external parties have been used to adapt and plan further actions. Integration of components is one example of the continuous adaptation that RIPA takes seriously.
Our impact
By the end of our year 4 (September 2023), many of our interventions reached scale and high levels of impact for pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the lowlands of Ethiopia.
Households impacted
Our interventions have impacted the lives of 192,523 unduplicated households, 48% higher than our program target.
Institutions strengthened
We have established or strengthened 2,738 public and private sector partner institutions and businesses. 7,500+ MSMEs have been supported in the local economy through different support services including business service development (BDS), mentoring, digital loans, stimulus packages (start-up grants) etc.
Improved investment in disaster risks management
Our interventions have continued to strengthen government and community ownership and investments in Community Adaptation Action Plan (CAAP) and Participatory Rangeland Management (PRM) plans. A recent study found that 91% of sector offices (120 of 132) have integrated DRM and rangeland priorities into their annual woreda development plans, investing 20.4 million ETB benefiting more than 54,000 households in 2023.
The intervention also increased the access to and use of the seasonal climate information advisory. By this, the program reached more than 174,996 households with the climate information advisories and 75% of the households who received the climate information advisory took action as a result.
Meeting immediate needs
Our innovative and market-based portfolio of interventions under Crisis Modifier 2 responded to some of the challenges created by the most severe drought in Somali and Oromia regions in 40 years. To-date, our crisis modifier 2 intervention has reached 189,092 households in 36 woredas, helping them to meet immediate needs while protecting development gains.
Improved access to financial and productivity services for MSMEs
Through our component 2 interventions, creating diversified and sustainable economic opportunities for TOPS, over 7500 MSMEs are accessing new services (including training, mentoring, finance, digital platforms, and advisories) provided by Local Business Development Services (LBDS) providers, financial institutions, and other public and private entities, while over 11,600 households have accessed semi-formal services through Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLAs). These have resulted in the creation of 15,034 full time and part-time employment for participants, including women and youth.
Improved access to agro-inputs and services
Our interventions have facilitated access to new or improved inputs, as well as information or services for 115,943 livestock and crop producing farmers. A total of 723,636 USD value of purchase of inputs or services have been recorded to-date.
Improved access to nutrition services Our nutrition intervention driving Government and community ownership of nutrition services have facilitated improved access to nutrition services for 179,094 households.
Resources
Program overview
Learning briefs
Transforming last-mile animal health services to build resilience in Ethiopia (September 2023)
Inspiring Local Solutions, Empowering youth and women in Ethiopia’s Lowlands
Financial Services in the Lowlands of Ethiopia - The Impact of Multi-phase USAID Investments
Evidence briefs
How effective are the new ‘MSE Services’ catalyzed by RIPA-NORTH?
Assessments and Evaluations
Crisis Modifier 2 - Post Distribution Monitoring (PDM) Findings
Early Warning Messaging Post Monitoring Survey
Gender and Conflict Sensitive Approaches To Peacebuilding (GCAP)
Resilience and impact stories
