Food security

• SEDA believes that the incapability of human being to feed himself is the most humiliating deprivation. And, it is also the most severe enemy that we should win together if we have to make meaning to solidarity.

The very persistent and disastrous draught that our society faced has been claiming the lives of millions of our fellow brothers and sisters. Food security has been, and will remain making the top of this country’s agenda. A couple of development partners have been working towards this burning issue and SEDA is no exception. The following three sub-components may indicate SEDA’s vision to see a food self-sufficient society.

Small Scale Irrigation Development

• SEDA believes that the water resources of our country are largely untapped and the future of our development is hiding in the hearts of the water bodies.

It is not more than 3 percent of the countries irrigable land that is being currently irrigated. This resulted in the paradox of having the people starved with the water bodies staying around the vicinities from the very birth of their ancestors. Rain fed agriculture has long been failing the hopes of our poor farmers. Irrigation activities should not necessarily assume large-scale sizes. In this case, SEDA’s experience shows that small-scale irrigation programs could effectively mobilize the labor and other resources of peasant farmers.

Small Scale Dairy Development

• SEDA believes that efforts for development should always consider the resource bases of a community and capitalize on traditional economic systems like livestock ranching.

The livestock resources of Ethiopian communities have been ignored in various policy documents as well as in the outreach efforts of development partners. However, the fact on the ground shows that livestock rearing has not only been an economic activity for millions of Ethiopians, but also a cross-generational lifestyle. It’s SEDA’s belief that dairy development efforts could effectively integrate the rural pastoralist (agro-pastoralist) to the urban market. So we can mitigate the challenges of the precarious rainfall, which usually fail our farmers.

Household Income Generation

• SEDA believes that people should be empowered to realize their potential and command their own means of livelihood survival.

Household income generation programs are extremely important in addressing the vast majority of unemployed and underemployed rural poor. Such efforts would capitalize on the local resources of the poor and eventually integrate the informal sector to the market. Women are usually the major actors of such programs. So, the whole process might finally work to add on their power on resources; and adjust the gender balance.