Collaboratively Responding to Drought in Ethiopia's South Omo Zone

In 2021/2022, the South Omo zone, located in the lowland southern region of Ethiopia, faced the most severe drought crisis in 40 years, leading to livestock mortality and economic instability. This situation prompted USAID’s Resilience in Pastoral Areas South (RIPA South) activity, implemented by Global Communities, to respond to the crisis, guided by a framework and culture of CLA steadily built throughout the past three years.

RIPA South’s objective is to improve the resilience capacities of households, markets and governance institutions to enhance food security and inclusive economic growth. RIPA South’s approach incorporated many CLA sub-components but most notably strategic External Collaboration and M&E for Learning to integrate diverse resources, knowledge, and perspectives from various partners including research institutions, governmental bodies, and other implementing partners in the region. This collaboration aimed to leverage each stakeholder's strengths and foster continuous learning for a sustainable, cost-effective solution to the drought crisis. The utilization of data was another key theme in RIPA South’s approach. Ongoing monitoring of indicators tracking climate change, data obtained through stakeholder meetings, and insights gathered through site visits to impacted communities all provided a comprehensive and evidence-based picture of the crisis and helped to generate possible solutions.

Enabling factors such as adequate resources, team members with a curious and adaptive mindset, and agile management processes facilitated RIPA South’s CLA approach. While RIPA faced challenges, the project learned the importance of efficient processes, institutional memory, transparent decision-making and being aware of organizational cultural differences. Despite the challenges, RIPA’s collaborative approach ultimately led to a sustainable solution for the region's recurring drought crisis, demonstrating the effectiveness of the CLA methodology in a complex, dynamic and challenging development context.