20/10/2023
A grant totaling 10.1 million CAD was won to fund the SUNCASA Project.
Haramaya University in collaboration with the World Resource Institute (WRI) and the Institute for International Sustainable Development (IISD) received a grant totaling 10.1 million Canadian dollars from the Canadian government under IISD for a project titled “Scaling Urban NbS for Climate Adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SUNCASA) Initiative, Dire Dawa Dechatu Project”.
The project is a physical implementation of the output of a previously completed project entitled “Study and Design of Dechatu River Climate Resilience Green Infrastructure Initiative Project of Dire Dawa Administration, Ethiopia” funded by Dire Dawa Administration through its UIDP_ project and supervision of Dire Dawa City Environment and Climate change Authority which was led by Senior staff member of Haramaya University, Dr Asfaw Kebede, Associate professor of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering. The duration of the project is two years and three months.
SUNCASA project is a unique project for the Dire Dawa administration that focuses on green infrastructure mainly for flood protection and focuses on gender and disabilities. The project is one of three projects funded by the Canadian government in three countries (Ethiopia-Dire Dawa, Rwanda-Kigali, and South Africa) with a total budget of 30.1 million CAD out of which 10.1 million CAD is for the Dire Dawa SUNCASA project.
The agreement has been signed between the IISD and WRI, and a kickoff meeting at Dire Dawa in the presence of the City mayor. The project implementation plan preparation by Haramaya University, WRI, HCS, Environmental Authority, and Agriculture Bureau will be done in the coming two months, which sets the deliverables among each partner.
Haramaya University is proud of its faculty members and honored to take the leading role in the mobilization of funds for this project (research-based intervention). The university will use its research experience in implementing the project.
The project is focused on 10 major activities that include Afforestation, Agroforestry, Buffer zone establishment, Urban tree planting, Urban greening, DSS dashboard, Capacity building, Developing and implementing a stakeholder engagement plan, designing and implementing awareness building campaigns and completing stakeholder agreements, Research and preparing best practice guides, training modules & finalize schedule for implementation of capacity building and skill development modules, Support time for work with IISD and WRI to develop economic analysis; create communication and media products; designing and implementing resilience, gender equity, and biodiversity monitoring protocols.
The Canadian government funded the project under IISD. The total project budget for three cities in Africa (Dire Dawa, Kigali, and Johannesburg) is 30.1 million CAD, out of which 10.1 Million CAD is for the Dire Dawa SUNCASA project.
“Enhanced climate adaptation, gender equality, and biodiversity protection in urban communities,” is an expected project outcome.
The project technical lead is the Haramaya University (Dr. Asfaw K –PI, Dr Kibebew K. Co-PI, Solomon Estifanos, and Negash Tessema are members). From the WRI side, there is a team of experts to work on all activities in collaboration with HU. From the IISD side, there is also a team of experts that overlooks the whole project activities representing the Canadian government. The project implementer is Harareghe Catholic Secretariat (HCS), selected based on its history of achievement in the region for funded project implementation capacity related to Nbs. The city administration bureaus like Environmental Authority and Agriculture are the ones facilitating the community mobilization and other issues related to the project implementation.
