As part of the internal audit of the UNDP- GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), on November 10th, 2022, a team composed of an Auditor and a UNDP/GEF Team visited Habrengaka village in the Anseba region. Thanks to the reliable Habrengaka community and project stakeholders, the team witnessed the project community-based rehabilitation of degraded land and conservation of biodiversity project as successful and exemplary.

With the support of GEF-SGP of USD 50,000 and the adaptation fund, the Habrengaka community has undertaken appropriate natural resource conservation and rehabilitation measures such as:

• 30 Ha enclosed, out of which 10 Ha at the Debrehel wildlife habitat and 20 Ha within the micro dam catchment area.
• Carried out afforestation activities on the enclosed areas like the construction of 6,000 m3 check dams 83 Km hillside terracing and planting 60,000 seedlings mentioned below.
• Collected seeds of indigenous plant species bamboo Oxytenanthera abyssinica (Arkay/hel), Terminala brownie (weyba), Anaageosus leocarpus (Hanse), Acacia albida (Momona) etc, from the protected mount Hel. Accordingly, five quintals of seeds of different indigenous tree seeds and 5 sacks of bamboo seedlings have been provided to Elabered and Adi Tekelezan nurseries.
• Carried out Training of Trainers (TOT) on Natural Resource Management to 50 persons from the village development committee, local government staff, and influential persons from the community. Furthermore, 35 and 30 people, mainly women, were trained on improved traditional stoves, energy efficiency, and compost production.
• Organized model farmers to demonstrate innovations that boost soil fertility like composting and other natural resource management activities.
• Constructed a new micro dam of 110,000 m3 capacity.

“The project has also contributed to the restoration of around 120 plant species, including bamboo Oxytenanthera Abyssinia, one of the endangered plants (Arkay/Hel locally named) and fauna biodiversity,” stated Mr.  Kesete Tesfatsion, Head of Forestry and Wildlife of the Anseba region.

This mentioned above project was initiated in 2017 and completed in 2021, it represents one of the UNDP/GEF-SGP projects in the Anqer-Balwa landscape. The success of the project was achieved due to the sense of ownership by the community and government ministries at large with the active participation of women and other stakeholders.