A two day international conference on sustainable land management and poverty alleviation which was held from 18 - 19 May 2009 organized by EfD/EEPFE has sucessfuly been completed in Addis Abeba.
The conference was officially opened and attended by His Excellency Ato Beshir Abdulahi, State Minster of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD). It was also attended by individuals from a variety of institutions including federal and regional government, non-governmental organizations, donors, and embassies.
"Since Ethiopia is predominanty an agrarian country, sustainable land management is vital to enhance productivity as well as endure sustainable development" says Dr Menale Kassie.
"Though a number of researchs are being conducted on land mangement and poverty alleviation in Ethiopia, a lot remains to be done in translating the findings into practice in a coordinated manner" he adds.
The conference has been covered by the Ethiopian media.
The conference focused on sustainable land mangement issues in the Oromia region and the Southern Nations and Nationalities Peoples region of the country. Two similar conferences focusing on the Amhara and Tigray regions had been held in the past two years. The proceedings from the Trigray conference have now been published.
Gunnar Köhlin, Director of EfD offically closed the conference by concluding and stressing the importance of scaling up all the available research findings towards strategic levels.