Tigray, Cons.-Based Agricultural Dev.-Led Ind.
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Tigray’s Conservation-Based Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization
Ethiopia’s Tigray region has made significant progress in restoring its degraded lands and improving its food and water security. The impressive results derived from the major land restoration undertaken by local communities and the regional government.
Key to this success is Tigray’s regional development strategy, known as Conservation-Based Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization, which focuses on food self-sufficiency and economic growth by conserving land and promoting sustainable agriculture. Thanks to a unique combination of collective action, voluntary labour and the involvement of young people, the people of Tigray are restoring land on a massive scale.
Another important point is the Productive Safety Net with paid work (FFW) as well the interventions of NGOs and parastatals (paid work).[1]
For its remarkable achievements under harsh conditions, Tigray’s policy was recognized with the Future Policy Gold Award 2017, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with the UNCCD.
Youth unemployment is a growing challenge in developing countries.[2] Ethiopia has spearheaded a new approach to youth employment by allocating rehabilitated communal lands to unemployed, land-poor and landless youth.[3] The youth organize themselves in business groups formalized as primary cooperatives based on cooperative law. They are allowed to establish a sustainable business on the allocated land. They elect a board, make their own bylaw, and prepare a business plan that has to be accepted by the local administration. They typically invest in activities such as forestry, apiculture, livestock rearing, horticulture and irrigation. It takes time for these joint activities to start to yield sizable incomes to be shared by group members. They therefore depend on complementary sources of income.[4]The fact that land cannot be purchased or sold in Ethiopia limits the potential for the “agricultural ladder” to be a pathway out of poverty for the poor through first renting and then purchasing land. However, in 2019 land renting is the most important source of income for 16% of the youth and the second most important source of income for 20%, respectively. It was mostly male youth, who own oxen, that were able to rent land.[5] In the future, the majority of the youth expected their joint business activity to become their primary source of income and land renting was expected to become less important. We may therefore conclude that land renting was perceived as a temporary solution during the period they are building their joint business.[6]
Update 2024:
Tigray’s Conservation-Based Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI) has faced significant challenges due to the Tigray War, which began in November 2020 and cost hundreds of thousands of lives during the two years it lasted. The conflict has severely disrupted restoration and agricultural activities, causing famines, destroying livelihoods, extensively damaging the infrastructure and displacing millions (World Food Programme). It will take time to recover and restore the previous achievements. Internal political dynamics within the TPLF and tensions with other groups pose ongoing challenges to sustainable peace and recovery in Tigray. At the same time, the population in Tigray has grown by about 25 %.
World Food Programme: https://www.wfp.org/publications/tigray-emergency-food-security-assessmentThe Global Observatory: https://theglobalobservatory.org/2023/02/peace-agreement-ethiopia-tigray/
[1] Jan Nyssen
[2] Awogbenle and Iwuamadi 2010.
[3] Holden and Tilahun 2018a
[4] Stein T. Holden, Mesfin Tilahun (2018). Land rental as a complementary income source for land-poor youth, Working Paper 6/18, Center for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas, Norway.
[5] Stein T. Holden, Mesfin Tilahun (2019). Are land-poor youth accessing rented land? Evidence from northern Ethiopia. CLTS Working Paper No. 7/2019 Center for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas, Norway.
[6] Holden and Tilahun, July 28-August 2, 2018 – Land rental as a complementary income source for land-poor youth.