Rethinking rural livelihoods in the Southern Ethiopian Rift Valley: Fostering prosperity, sustainability and resilience

Details

 PROJECT SUMMARY

Project name

Rethinking rural livelihoods in the Southern Ethiopian Rift Valley: Fostering prosperity, sustainability
and resilience

AMU project code

EXT/VLIR/VPRP/05/2015

Project short-name (acronym) 

AMU-IUC Academic theme-based sub-project two

Project phase

II

Partner(s)/ country(ies)

KU Leuven/Belgium-VLIR-UOS

AMU coordinating office(s)

AMU-IUC Project Support Unit

Project type

Research and community engagement

Project location

Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Target communities

Department of Economics
Department of Social Science & Humanity Anthropology
AMU s Community service-outreach Centre
Local communitie

Project coordinator

Associate professor Behailu Merdekios (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.); Prof. Roel Merckx (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Project manager

Dr. Fassil Eshetu Teffera (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Principal investigator

Mr. Getahun Kelemework Woldemariam (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.); Prof. Miet Maertens (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Total project budget (Euro)

328,999

Project start

01-Sep-22

Project end

31-Aug-27

Progress reporting period

Annually

Financial reporting period

Annually

Contact person (name and e-mail)

Mr. Getahun Kelemework (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.); Prof. Miet Maertens (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Project Management Office

Office of the Director for Grant and Collaborative Project Management:
Dr. Thomas Torora (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

RSP2 ultimately aims at contributing to more prosperous, more sustainable and more resilient rural livelihoods in the project area and in Ethiopia at large. The process of change to realize this contribution runs through three main channels or pathways. A first pathway is through a direct impact on society in the project area. Through a randomized intervention (e.g., introduction of an improved agricultural practice or micro-insurance), in cooperation with development organizations, RSP2 aims at contributing directly to the improvements of land-based livelihoods and poverty reduction in the project area. While this is a direct and short-term impact, its scale in terms of the number of affected people is very limited. A second pathway is through a less direct and medium-term influence on policy change. By advancing the understanding of rural livelihoods, RSP2 will produce insights that can inform policy initiatives and development strategies of governmental and non-governmental organizations to reach SDG1 (and with potential spill-over effects towards SDG 2, 5, 7, 8 & 10). A third pathway is through an indirect and long-term impact on academic capacity and institutional change at AMU. RSP2 will reinforce the capacity in human sciences at AMU, such that AMU can contribute to satisfying the growing demand for social science expertise in governmental and non-governmental organizations, and its staff and graduates can become agents of change in Ethiopia. The latter two pathways entail the potential for a larger impact scale, affecting a large number of people in the project area and int Ethiopia at large.