Livelihood and employment creation project proposal ADA 2002 Telethon

Amhara Development Association/ADA/

Creating To improve life condition and increase income of

youths and women
in
Amhara National Regional State

An Appeal submitted to citizens

ADA 2002 Telethon - Unity for Development

November 2009, Bahir Dar

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Regional Background
The Amhara National Regional States(ANRS) is one of the regional states in the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The region is divided in to 10 administrative zones,
which are further divided in to 150 rural and urban woredas and 3438 kebeles.

The Amhara National Regional States in the north central and north western parts of
Ethiopia, approximately between 13o45' north latitude and 35o46' to 40o25' east longitude.

According to projections by the Central Statistics Authority (CSA), the total population
of the region was estimated as 18.2 million in July 2006, with almost equal proportion of
male and female. The population age structure indicates that the great majority or more
than 50%population categorized with in the age cohort of 15-64 years or economically
active population. Regarding the settlement pattern, the overwhelming majority, i.e.
nearly 89% of the population in the region resides in rural areas and is engaged in
subsistence agriculture. Amhara region has an estimated area of 159,173 square
kilometer.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the regional economy. According to CSA’s data, the
Amhara region constitutes 35% of the total area covered by major food crops and 29% of
crop production of the country.

The rapid population growth of the region, which is about3.2% annually is affecting
negatively the development Endeavour of the region and is contributing to land and
environmental degradation. The land holding size per household, in almost all areas of
the region is about 0.5 hectare. Off-farm activities as they are not supported by training
and initial capital are not in a position of retrieving the burden on land as expected.

Referring to the level of employment, the employment to population ratio (total

employment as a percentage of the total working age population) for urban parts of the
region, according to 2003 survey of CSA, was nearly 43%, and unemployment rate was

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57%.In Amhara Region, 130,120 person in the age range 15-64 were unemployed in the
urban areas; of this, 96,468(74.6%) were youth. This simply shows the youth are hardest
hit segment of the society by unemployment.

Organizational profile of ADA

Amhara Development Association1 is a local NGO, which has very broad constituency
and rich grassroots experiences throughout the Amhara region. Its main intervention
areas include; education and good governance, health, environment and population,
livelihood and employment creation, by providing skills training, which are proved to be
feasible and sustainable. ADA is known for the last 17 years for its peculiarity, among
others, its ability to mobilize local resources and the people for self-development,
reaching the marginalized ones, and successful implementation of various development
programs aimed at improving essential social and economic services to the poor and
disadvantaged people, can be mentioned.

ADA has so far managed to mobilize domestically more than 500,000 volunteers as
registered members. 70% of members’ financial contribution is retained in the woredas
where from it is generated for exclusive uses in the areas of education and health sectors
development. This fund has so far been utilized to construct additional classrooms for
schools in 38 woredas, health posts in five woredas, libraries in eight woredas, and other
developmental activities in 19 woredas.

Vision
To see the people of the Amhara Region free from poverty and backwardness, and ADA
aspires to be an exemplary in this development endeavor.
Mission
To support the development endeavors of the people of Amhara Region in the areas of
health, education, basic skill training and other development activities through

1
Amhara Development Association, ADA

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community participation thereby mobilizing resources from members, supporters, donors

and other sources.

Major Achievements

Since its establishment, ADA has raised about half a Billion Birr from donors, supporters
and members to implement socio-economic projects, which directly and indirectly
benefited more than a quarter million people in the region. ADA, as a local NGO with
great responsibility to deal with the development ambition of the people of the Amhara
Region, is taking part in alleviating the employment and livelihood problem. ADA, for
the last 17 years, has established 3 training centers and gave basic skill trainings for more
than 7000 youths in the areas of masonry, carpentry, business management, agriculture,
computer writing, blue print reading/quantity survey, etc. more over ADA has distributed
1222 bicycles to jobless youths who are organized in different business cooperatives.
The association has taken measures in the areas of skill training for youth job seeker most
importantly in the provision of masonry and carpentry skills. It contributes a lot to
graduate many construction workers who are working in the whole region and proudly
ascertain that almost all are engaged in construction works to the extent of being a
contractor level in many construction sites. Distributed 1222 bicycles to jobless youths

ADA, in the area of accessing quality education and health to the people of Amhara has
also successfully accomplished the following projects and handed them over to the
community:

♦ Constructed and furnished 100 primary schools and a high school (grade 9 -10)

♦ constructed and furnished seven public libraries

♦ established and conducted Alternative Basic Education and Functional Adult

Literacy projects at 214 centers in 18 woredas;

♦ Distributed more than 400,000 reference books and encyclopedias.

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♦ Provided scholarship and academic supports to 12920 high school girls and 60
boys in primary schools

♦ Awarded to students with best results of Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate

Examinations

♦ Constructed and furnished 88 clinics, health posts and cluster health centers

♦ Expanded RH/FP services in most parts of the region

♦ Constructed 20 pit latrines in slum areas of Bahir Dar

♦ Conducted community based malaria prevention and contort project.

♦ Donated medical equipment to 8 hospitals in the region.

♦ constructed five hand dug wells and developed springs

♦ Conducted community based malaria prevention and contort project.

♦ Constructed 250 km rural roads-RR10 and RR30

♦ Soil Conservation and Environmental Rehabilitation project including 161,640

km check dam construction(Angereb Dam catchments )

The Socio-economic Situations of the Youth

In Amhara Region, youth (all population of the region who fall under the age category of
15-29) constitute high proportion of the population. According to CSA’s report, 28.4 %(
14.4 % male and 14% female) of the total population were youth. Of these, 18.6% and
81.4% are living in urban and rural areas respectively. The youth in Amhara region
constitutes 25.2% of the Ethiopian youth population. Of the total population of the
Amhara region, more than five million are youth.
The study conducted by BoFED (2006) on socio-economic and political situation of
youth in Amhara Region indicated
• 47% of the Amhara rural people falling in the age youth category don’t have
land for their living. Even among those who own farming plots, 63% are
below a hectare of land. It is clear that given the ever increasing population,
the size of individual holding is likely to decline through time because of

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fixed size of available land. This definitely could further worsen the situation
of rural youth and calls for urgent interventions to deal with the problem of
youth landlessness in the rural areas.
• Regarding to capitalize on existing income generating opportunities which are
available for the youth, 59% of the rural youth they have got alternative
sources of income other than farming in their localities, but 53% of them were
enable to engage in and benefit from any of these opportunities because of
problems associated primarily with capacity such as finance and skill.
Similarly, though 87% of urban youth are aware of the existence of income
generating opportunities in their localities, 55% don’t take advantage due to
lack of skill, shortage of start-up capital, working premises and shortage of
business information.
Although youth have critical value in socio-economic and political arena, they are living
in many pressing that are interrelated. To mention some of youth problems,
unemployment is the major problem. Large numbers of youth find themselves not
working or in decent work deficits as they work mainly in the informal economy for low
pay and no social protection. Lengthy duration of unemployment and underemployment
in early life can have severe long-term socio-economic consequences, permanently
impairing employability later and continuing life cycle of poverty.

In light of the particular behavioral problems, youth are vulnerable to and their
productive potentially in both the social and economic sectors, they need to be given
special attention. Even if, youth are considered as creators and generators of wealth,
majority of them are unemployed. Because unemployment is prevalent in the region, it
has led to other social evils such as youth prostitution, begging, street life, theft and
robbery, etc. This problem of unemployment calls for a prompt solution because it is not
only a social problem but also it is linked with stability and security problem.

Due to lack of employment opportunities, many youth choose to emigrate, some legally
and some illegally which is often a destabilizing choice. Others, who remain in their
country of origin, become discouraged about the future and lose trust in their leaders (and

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their parents).These combined factors have important demographic, economic and

security implications.

Amhara Development Association to deal with poverty and unemployment problems of

the region through rendering skill trainings has no enough training institution to satisfy
the regional training demand. Amhara Development Association has only two under
capacity training centers (Ataye and TIsabalima) which has no standardized dormitories,
lecture hall, administrative building, laundry, sport field, cafeteria, auditorium,
workshops, store, recreation center, guard room, etc. It is, therefore, crucially important
to strengthen these two training centers (for south east and north east) and establish two
new training institution (at North west ketena, Gondar and South west Ketena, Bahir Dar)
to implement livelihood and employment creation programme put in the strategic plan.

Gaps of skill training and employment creation & project cost

s/n Description Unit Gap Unit cost Total cost

I Strengthening the existing training Training 2
institution institution
II Establishment of two new training Training 2
institution institution

The new education and training policy of Ethiopia has made it possible the expansion of
training institutions at private and government initiatives. So many private institutions
distributed in the entire parts of the Amhara region are conducting trainings that
important for the overall capacity building desire of the region. The government owned
TVET is serving the whole region distributed at every zonal capital. Very big number of
youths is benefiting from the trainings and significant number of them started their own
private business and/or employed in different construction and service enterprises.
However, at least 375,000 youths are entering in to the regional labor market every year.
These much number of people needs some kinds of skill or profession to be able to carry
out economic activities and social responsibilities.

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Various researches shows that youth are the sources of most new ideas and also constitute
with the group with the greatest potential to develop entrepreneurial skills that is
important for product diversification. Youth are creators and generators of wealth and
investing in youth is like investing in fine-win-with proper attention, the payback can be
tremendous.

To this end, Amhara Development Association (ADA) in its second five year strategic
plan (2000 – 2004 E.C.) has planned:

Strengthening 2 and establishing 2 new training institution that can train

8000 youths annually.
300 people will be trained in basic construction skill annually during the
5YSP period
4000 youths will be trained in coble stone production
200 women will be trained in food preparation and home management
sciences for women who legally wants to work in the middle east
100 youths will be trained in computer skill training
1000 people will be trained in agricultural related skills in five year time
150 work groups will be organized and legalized in the 5YSP period
Three Training workshops each consisting of 500 trainees on poultry
farming will be conducted annually during the 5YSP period
750 people will be provided with cages for modern egg laying hen
production annually during the 5YSP period
500 people will be trained in horticulture farming skills in the 5YSP period
Workshop will be conduced on food preservation especially potato
preservation home based scheme annually during the 5YSP period
At least one research will be undertaken annually during the 5YSP in
collaboration with research institutions and own staff

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Therefore, this project proposal is prepared for those who by themselves or in a group of
friends/families would compassionately like to finance project. Support types expected
from the donors include construction of new schools, additional classrooms, and school
libraries/laboratories with or without furniture/equipments provision. Donors can donate
in any form convenient to them either in the form of cash or kind.

ADA is running its world wide fund raising program “ADA 2002 Telethon- Unity for
Development”. This appeal is one of the several events designed to mobilize resources
from citizens at home and abroad.

Project goal

• To improve life condition and increase income of youths and women in the
Amhara Region

Project objectives
• strengthening the existing two training centers of ADA to be able to efficient
in their training services
• to establish new training centers for north west and south west ketenas
• to furnish training materials (machineries, equipment and tools for the centers)

Implementation strategy

ADA shall make sure that the proposed intervention is fully participatory. Accordingly,
the project design, implementation, and evaluation will be undertaken through active and
meaningful involvement of donors and other relevant stakeholders in the region. The
donor shall be duly acknowledged in all media promotions, printings and on construction
structures including on supplied materials. Progress reports and an external audit report
shall be submitted to donors in due time.

Major Activities

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o Document commitments of citizens/donor- sign pledge form

o Select/visit project site with the donor and take over the site
o Sign project implementation agreement with community and respective woreda
/zonal office
o Prepare detail implementation plan
o Procure and deliver services and materials
o Orient and deploy the workers
o Implement the project
o Monitor project activities
o Submit both narrative & financial project report
o hand over completed project to the community and respective woreda office
o conduct post project monitoring

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