Name of Project
Basin Management Support for Resilient, Inclusive Growth and Harmonized Transformation for the National IWRMP of Ethiopia (BRIGHT)
Funders
The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Ethiopia and European Union with over €4mln in-kind contributions of Water and Land Resource Centre (WLRC) and the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE)
Project Duration
Jan. 2024 – Dec. 31, 2028
Project Description
Some facts:
- Development efforts under the different programs and projects register substantive achievements and encouraging progress in Ethiopia.
- Yet, however, land degradation is still a major problem; per capita water availability is declining; agricultural productivity is very low; food and nutrition insecurity are chronic; access to energy and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) is far below satisfactory; water pollution is a growing problem; and climate change is a formidable development challenge affecting all sectors.
- Institutional and governance challenges, deficient hydro-information systems, as well as capacity limitations, have continued to constrain socio-economic progress and sustainability of the water and land resources;
- growing demands for water (largely from geometrically increasing population size), climate change, watershed degradation, pollution and weak institutional capacity for integrated water resource management (IWRM) constitute major challenges of the sector and threaten to exacerbate water scarcity in the country.
- Rich knowledge, experience, and wisdom needed to address these challenges are available with WLRC, MoWE and the other implementing partners and stakeholders.
Development objectives of the BRIGHT project
- Overall goal: to improve resilience and reduce vulnerability of population to drought and climate change in Ethiopia
- Specific objectives:
- To strengthen the institutional and governance (technical, managerial, regulatory, infrastructural and logistical) capacities of the MoWE and the selected Basin Authority Offices (BAOs) and concerned regional bureaus in IWRM,
- To support designing and have in-place a well-functioning Basin Information System for IWRM and
generate additional evidence to fill knowledge gaps in the selected river basins; - To support the revision/preparation of basin plans and facilitate their implementation by supporting
priority and high impact IWRM projects in the target basins; and - To establish climate-smart IWRM learning sub-basins and watersheds in the target basins.
Work Packages
The project has six work packgaes
- Work Package (WP)1: Project Management and Coordination Phase
- Work Package 2 (WP2): Inception Phase
- Work Package 3 (WP3): Enhancing IWRM capacity of the MoWE, Basin Administration Offices and Regional Bureaus
- Work Package 4 (WP4): Support establishment of basin information system for IWRM and generate additional evidence to fill knowledge gaps in the selected river basins
- Work Package 5 (WP5): Supporting the preparation/revision of basin plans and facilitate implementation by supporting priority and high impact IWRM projects in target basins
Work Package 6 (WP6): Supporting establishment of climate-smart IWRM learning sub-basins and watersheds in the target basins
