With funding from the Government of Canada through the Department of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development (DFATD) and the Government of the Netherlands through the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) The Small Scale and Micro Irrigation Support Project (SMIS) aims to support the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) through the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) with the implementation of the adopted Small Scale Irrigation (SSI) Capacity Building Strategy. In line with the SSI Capacity Building Strategy of MoA, the objective of the SMIS is: “To ensure that the concerned public and private institutions within each of the four regional states have the institutional, human and technical capacity required for gender-responsive identification, planning, design, construction and management support of sustainable SSI systems and micro irrigation schemes in a coordinated manner and according to the adopted integrated watershed-based approach”.
Through SMIS’s national project office in Addis Ababa and regional project offices, SMIS is implemented in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People`s Region (SNNPR),
SMIS will support the transformation of concerned government agencies from an approach focused on implementation to one with more emphasis on planning, coordination and supervision of activities related to development of SSI, micro irrigation and irrigated agriculture. With a total budget of Euros 20 million and a five-year term (2014-2019), the SMIS has three key components, namely: SSI capacity development (component 1), capacity development of Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training (A-TVET) Colleges (component 2) and promotion of Micro Irrigation (component 3).
The objective of Component 1, SSI capacity development, is to address the institutional, human and technical capacity gaps of the public and private institutions involved in the development of SSI and irrigated agriculture as well as to institutionalise the capacity building interventions in the regional government structures.
In support of the GOE’s plan to expand the irrigable area in the country in the next 5 to 10 years, mainly through the development of SSI and micro irrigation, the objective of component 2, capacity development of A-TVET colleges is to provide capacity development support to A-TVET Colleges including establishment of demonstration plots for training and to demonstrate appropriate irrigation systems. This component also aims to establish a Centre of Excellence for Water Management as a separate unit within an existing A-TVET College. A further aim of this component is to address the medium- and long-term need for technicians as well as subject matter specialists (SMSs) working at woreda kebele levels through the provision of short-term practical training.
The main aim of Component 3, promotion of Micro Irrigation, is to promote irrigated farming at household level by introducing suitable micro irrigation systems, including low-cost and effective (hand-driven) pumps and rainwater harvesting structures.
SMIS’s target beneficiaries are: the public and private institutions at regional, zonal and woreda level that are involved in the development of SSI, micro irrigation and irrigated agriculture; A-TVET Colleges; Local entrepreneurs involved in manufacturing, installation and maintenance of hand-driven and motorised pumps, and unemployed youth and landless women interested in training in hand-drilling techniques.
A consortium led by Agriteam Canada Consulting Ltd. (Agriteam) has been contracted for the provision of consulting, professional, technical and other related services related to the delivery of the Ethiopia SMIS.