Context
Ethiopia’s 17 million smallholder farmers cultivate over 95 per cent of the land and produce 90 per cent of the country’s food. However, population growth and limited land availability, led to fragmented plots and expansion into forest and marginal areas, reducing yields and accelerating land degradation, biodiversity loss, and vulnerability to climate risks. At the same time, national goals to raise crop production, expand forests cover and conserve biodiversity create competing demands. In the absence of coherent land use planning and cross – sectoral coordination, these trade-offs go unmanaged, putting both rural livelihoods and national development objectives at risk.
Objective
Institutions and stakeholders in Ethiopia’s land governance system are better able to address spatial challenges
Approach
In collaboration with different land administration institutions, the project follows three approaches to reach its objective:
- It supports land governance reform by facilitating dialogue and providing targeted policy as well as legal advice to establish an inclusive and equitable legal framework
- It improves land administration by advising on institutional development, and the rollout of fit for purpose systems for fair, data-driven and decentralised service delivery.
-It advances integrated planning by bringing stakeholders together, to address crucial land challenges and co-develop lasting solutions, combining land use planning, and land consolidation to manage competing demands and improve critical landscapes