11-02-2022 | di COOPI

Ethiopia. Creating a future for young and women

Thanks to the project "A Future for You - Sustainable Local Work Now", started in November 2020 and financed by the Ministry of Domestic Affairs, COOPI - Cooperazione Internazionale, in collaboration with LVIA, continues its activity in ensuring continuity training of young returnees or potential migrants and women, by creating knowledge about risks of irregular migration and new opportunities for sustainable work in Bale, Arsi and West Arsi (Oromia).

To enhance information on the risks of irregular migration, COOPI has made use of music and theatre, while to train on the opportunities available in the agri-food sector, it has introduced new techniques, such as solar energy.

Fabio Gaggi, Head of Mission explains:

“Among the activities, the one that generated the best response was the promotion of packaging of vermicompost manure and the sale of earthworms, as it set up a sustainable process of entrepreneurship: the beneficiaries feel the activity is their own and take responsibility for it. This also applies to women, who feel more emancipated. Not to mention that, the establishment of a steering committee composed of signatories and non-signatories of the project at the level of the Woreda, zone and region, ensures strong government accountability, develops good collaboration and plays an important role in ensuring the sustainability of the project.”

By December 2021, COOPI achieved:

• 750 hours of training in the areas of improvement of agricultural and storage practices, maintenance of agricultural machinery, management of water schemes and installation and maintenance of photovoltaic systems;
• 4711 beneficiaries involved in activities to strengthen local entrepreneurship, through the creation of agricultural processing and cooperation groups, solar businesses, the strengthening of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the valorisation of agricultural waste.

The Oromia region is the territory of origin of more than half of the country's irregular migrants, estimated to be around 300/350,000 individuals per year. The motivation behind this large migration flow is found in the social situation, which is made unstable by a variety of factors: high unemployment and underemployment rates, unstable and low incomes, poor, unprotected and informal working conditions, social contexts of endemic poverty, social and family pressures. In addition to this, most of them are between 20 and 29 years old, male, with a low average level of education and unskilled work skills.

In this context, in an attempt to reduce the phenomenon of irregular migration, COOPI has acted to encourage the improvement of living conditions in rural areas in order to make them sufficiently attractive and motivate young people to stay, by creating well-paid and stable job opportunities.

Ethiopia is one of the most populous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and, since 1995, COOPI has been working to counteract food insecurity and lack of livelihoods.