A New Partnership Agreement between the Icelandic Church Aid and ICEIDA in Ethiopia

The Icelandic Church Aid and ICEIDA have decided to collectively spend 75 million Icelandic krónur (ISK) on a three year project in one of the poorest districts in Ethiopia. This is the largest project the Icelandic Church Aid has undertaken.

Sighvatur Björgvinsson, ICEIDA’s General Manager, and Jónas Þ. Þórisson, the Director of the Icelandic Church Aid, signed a collaboration agreement concerning the project and the budget is over one billion US Dollars. ICEIDA contributes 60% of the funds and the Icelandic Church Aid 40%.

According to Lydía Geirsdóttir, a Project Manager for the Icelandic Church Aid, the project is developed and arranged in close cooperation with the residents and is also planned according to the Ethiopian Government’s priorities and the United Nations Development Goals. The party that carries out the implementation of the project and which is accountable for it are the Church Aid’s collaborating partners, the Lutheran church and its division in Ethiopia. “Both of these organisations have great experience when it comes to development aid in Ethiopia and they mainly build on the knowledge of the locals,” says Lydía and mentions that the project will be carried out in one of the poorest districts in the country, Jijiga-district in the state of Somalia in the eastern part of the country where the inhabitants are 230 thousand.

“Ethiopia is the sixth poorest country in the world with 74 million inhabitants,” says Lydía. “Only 30% have access to clean water which means that more than 50 million people do not enjoy the human right of having access to clean water.”

The main goals of the project are:

1.     To secure access for the inhabitants to clean water for consumption, cultivation and livestock breeding by building water tanks/cisterns.

2.     To strengthen agriculture with improved cultivation methods and reinforced livestock breeding.

3.     To strengthen economical security and women’s rights.

4.     To improve the health of the inhabitants by opening a health centre and educating them about HIV/AIDS.

5.     To strengthen the infrastructure and administration of the society.

The project as a whole will benefit all of the inhabitants of Jijiga-district. The part of the project that pertains to water acquisition will secure access to clean water for consumption, cultivation and livestock breeding.

ICEIDA and the Icelandic Church Aid also have a successful partnership in Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda.