Climate Change Adaptation at the Local Level: A Case Study of the Abraha Wa Atsebaha Village in Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

In the last two decades Ethiopia has been implementing a community based environmental rehabilitation program that focused on water and soil conservation with optimistic outcomes. This paper describes the experience of a successful local based and cost effective intervention that transformed a food-insecure, drought-prone Ethiopian village into a sustainable community in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. The result is a partnership between the local community, the government, micro-credit institutions and extension agents. The regional food security bureau calls it a food security demonstration project. Sharing this experience with the wider world is timely as “climate change adaptation” has become a buzz phrase. The experience of this “bright spot” as opposed to “hotspot” is important because it is a testimony that climate change adaptation policies should be considered part of the development process and be implemented at the local level. It is believed that when such holistic interventions are upscaled the problems associated with food security might be resolved sustainably.