Watershed Planning Team related to Micro-hydro Power (MHP) Projects in Ethiopia

Participatory Approach

People’s participation is of great importance in order to successfully establish and implement Environment Assessment and Watershed Action Planning. Taking into account people’s needs helps to increase acceptance and thus their willingness to invest in long term conservation. Hence all stakeholders and the watershed community (ies) should be involved in all steps of the planning and implementation as well as the monitoring and evaluation process.

Identification of Stakeholders

In order to successfully implement a participatory approach, various disciplines need to be involved. Firstly a watershed planning team should be established that includes representatives from both, various disciplines and different levels of administration. The head of the team should be the Kebele’s Development Agent (DA). Secondly, it is recommended that Stakeholders from forestry, soil conservation, agriculture and livestock be involved. In addition to this water management (water harvesting and irrigation), water mill and MHP representatives should be part of the team. If those representatives cannot be found in the Kebele(s), they should be assigned by the Woreda’s rural development office. Against the above backdrop it is essential to also consider gender issues, which is why it is important to have at least one female team member. Finally the Kebele’s chairman should be part of the team.

                         Organizational Diagram of Watershed Planning Team

If there is more than one Kebele in a watershed, representatives from each Kebele should be part of the planning team (at least each Kebele’s DA and chairman) to represent possibly varying interests.