FOOD SECURITY & DISASTER RISK REDUCTION DEPARTMENT (FSDRRD)

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The ECC-SDCO Food Security & Emergency unit was established at the end of the year 2002 with the unreserved support of Caritas Germany to assist the Ethiopian Catholic Church in the formulation of a nationwide food security concept and shall in due course also coordinate the overall food security approach by supporting the diocesan offices in the area of capacity building, project design and implementation towards integrated food security. The project location lies within the jurisdiction of the 13 Diocesan Churches distributed all over the country which actually includes quite a number of Zonal and Wereda administrative of all Regional States of the country.

Moreover, the emergency part has been added after realizing the higher demand for it and the closer relation of the emergency undertakings with the food security intervention latter on.

The current major intervention areas of Food security & DRR include: ensuring household food security, integrated watershed management, household Income generation& diversification, introduction and dissemination of new agricultural technologies, soil & water conservation, household income generation/diversification, apiculture, livestock health, livestock fodder development, promotion of small scale irrigation, introduction of improved varieties of cereals /vegetables, farmers training, provision of affordable credit & saving services to poor farmers with a top priority given to women headed households.

From the past experiences so far, new and progressive lessons have been earned. The Coordination, facilitation, representation, and capacity building roles have been growing from time to time by the experiences obtained from the routine works and collaborative consultations with the long standing donor agency, Caritas Germany, Diocesan Catholic Secretariats and other partners. Due to these, the capacity of the Department is growing technically, in staff number, and networking as well as in communication scope so far. Accordingly, the Department reached at the level of working on huge projects like humanitarian responses such as (EA18/2011) , Disaster Recovery and Rehabilitation(DRR)-EA/27) financed by the Caritas Internationalis MOs, Diredawa Community managed disaster risk reduction(CMDRR) project financed by Cordaid, EU-Food facility project, EU-Instrument for Stability project and EU -SHARE/SAFE project financed by the EU implemented in Wolayta zone.

For the realization of the project objectives a huge amount of fund was obtained, and is being managed wisely by the FSDRRD due to the higher efforts made so far by the Department through the capacity support provided from Caritas Germany. This indicates that the department is fulfilling its primary responsibilities and serving the Institution and the needy community as well.

The preceding programs were vital to create the basic capacity needs to initiate and formulate the ECC–SDCO /FSDRR policy. This forms the basis for mobilizing the Dioceses in the desired pattern of longer term integrated food security direction and also in capacitating Food security and DRR Department to emerge as a potential coordination and facilitation platforms to enable the Church to engage in food security and livelihood programs.