In his opening remarks the Executive Secretary of
IGAD, engineer Mahboub Maalim, acknowledged the leadership of the Bank
in embarking on the drought resilience program and supporting the shift
from emergencies to long-term building of resilience in the region. He
also expressed appreciation of the Bank’s responsiveness in providing
support to the countries and reinforcing the capacity for the IGAD
Secretariat to meet its obligations in the region. Lamin Barrow, the
Bank’s Resident Representative in Ethiopia, expressed his expectation
that other development partners in Africa will join the Bank in
well-coordinated and efficient aid delivery. He reiterated the
importance to ensure efficiency and complementarity in all operations
implemented by various partners, working together for the same
objectives particularly given the relatively scarce financial resources.
He assured the IGAD member country delegates of the Bank’s continued
support to ensure the countries achieve the national and regional
objectives of the Drought Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods
program.
For his part, Abdirahman Beileh, Acting Director of
Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department, reminded the meeting of the
urgency of the actions required, such as the need for adequate planning
for food, animal feed and water management, particularly through
investing in the necessary infrastructures along with conflict
resolution and rebuilding of governance institutions. He reminded the
delegates of the responsibilities and accountability to the vulnerable
communities.
The Ethiopia Government Representative underscored the
importance of the program for Ethiopia and noted that the main challenge
is effective implementation. He gave examples of Ethiopia’s
achievements in successfully demonstrating that drought does not have to
result in famine. He assured the participants of his country’s
commitment to play its full role in the program.
The Bank team made a presentation on the overview of
the DRSLP, outlining the challenges being faced such as the recurrent
droughts that decimate and reduce the economic value of assets such as
land and livestock, social and human assets and the purchasing power of
already vulnerable households. The team also discussed the Bank’s vision
to assist countries to effectively address the impacts of the recurrent
drought. Following a presentation of the Phase I program components,
sources of financing and roles of various actors, there was a better
understanding of the program, its expected outputs, outcomes and the
targeted beneficiaries.
There was an obvious interest of countries to engage in the second phase of the program. The workshop provided an opportunity to discuss financing options from the Bank, such as the performance based allocations, regional operations window, the Fragile States Facility and the Global Environment Facility. The country delegations were encouraged to formally express their interest in participating in the program and include it among the national priorities to enable the Bank provide the required support in a timely manner. The country representatives in the meeting took the floor and all expressed appreciation of the Bank taking the lead in an historic program of building drought resilience and indicated keen interest of their countries to be part of the second phase
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