Arba Minch University (AMU), the German Development Bank (KfW), and Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) Sustainable Land Management (SLM-V) Project hosted a successful second round training for manpower involving in data collection, on October 20, 2025, at Main Campus. The landmark initiative is a KfW-funded and being implemented by MoA across 10 woredas, of which seven of them are from Gamo Zone, in South Ethiopia Region, in the Lake Chamo watershed. Click here to see more photos.
Dr. Fassil Eshetu, the KfW Project Coordinator at AMU, said, our primary responsibility is to provide the scientific evidence of the project's impact while an independent organization will conduct the official monitoring and evaluation of the project. To involve highly skilled manpower for data collection from AMU, and focal persons and development agents from 10 woredas, AMU has given the second round training in order to scale up their skills and knowledge about the scientific baseline information, he highlighted. The second phase training is aimed to identify and select experimental controlling areas to compare with the project baselines, he added.
AMU as Research University is assigned to collect scientific information which can be used for monitoring and evaluation in the project and the data is used as best source of information for other independent evaluators, Dr. Fassil said. This project is a unique one because the donors, AMU, the government and local people are all involved; the Ministry of Agriculture is the one executing, he remarked. He also explained that it is AMU who is preparing the key performance indicators (KPIs) based on baseline in ecosystem service and how the ecosystem is improved year to year.
Dr. Mesfin Tilahun, the Project Advisor, said, this training is for local experts who are part of the research program and working at woreda level. Our today’s mission is to engage woreda focal persons and development agents (DAs) in identifying and selecting experimental controlling areas, where we will collect intensive data on both biophysical and household level in the coming few weeks, he highlighted.
31 trainees including focal persons and development agents from selected micro-watersheds from 10 project woredas, and university researchers participated in the training.
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