Partnership on Scaling Up Bamboo in Ethiopia and Beyond

Objectives

Beginning in 2020, two NGOs, an academic institute, a government agency, and a private sector company have formed a partnership consortium and started work on “Scaling up high-value bamboo production across Ethiopia” with selected communities in the Sidama region. The vision of the consortium is to expand to Southern Ethiopia and high-potential bamboo areas in Ethiopia and beyond.

The members of the consortium are:

1. Private/Commercial actor

African Bamboo (AB) PLC is the Ethiopian commercial partner implementing activities covered by this CN. The vision of African Bamboo PLC is “bamboo as a part of everyday life, substituting tropical hardwoods and plastics while contributing to abatement of climate change, land degradation, poverty and hunger. AB mission is to design, develop, patent and market sustainable products manufactured from highland bamboo, opening up opportunities for Africa-based entrepreneurs, and driving positive social change in rural communities linked to upstream assets.” With offices in Addis Ababa, processing facilities located in Hawassa Industrial Park, and present production activities in Sidama, AB PLC is responsible for developing the Bamboo group’s initial value chain in Ethiopia.

2. Civil Society/NGO

Verdens Skove’s (Forests of the World’s) vision is a world with rich forest nature. In pursuit of this it works strategically on strengthening rights of forest-dependent local communities, civil society and sustainable value chains to ensure ecologically, socially and economically sustainable use of the World’s forests, in order to conserve or (re)generate valuable biologically diverse forest and support indigenous and local forest communities in their right to live with dignity. FoW was established in 1983, and presently has 5000+ members and a large score of active volunteers, mainly professionals and students. In 2017, FoW began interventions in Ethiopia and Uganda and our East Africa Hub was registered as a foreign charity in Addis Ababa in early 2021 to closely work with local implementing partners in both countries. In this partnership, FoW will play key administrate role.

International Development Enterprise (iDE) 

iDE has operated in Ethiopia since 2007 as a foreign charity. iDE is a non-profit organization headquartered in the USA with a mission to create income and livelihood opportunities for rural poor households. IDE Ethiopia currently operates various projects in WASH, Agriculture, and Rural Finance and now operates in five major regions with funding from EU, USAID, GAC and various foundation. In this partnership, iDE Ethiopia takes an opportunity to link NRM with employment creation. In the project IDE play the main role in ensuring implementation of the proposed project cycle (from planning to evaluation) in Sidama, and possibly also Munesa and Nansebo  

Government

The Ethiopian Government Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC) is a government agency charged with the coordination of activities to ensure that the environmental objectives provided under the constitution and the basic principles set out in the Environmental Policy of the Country are realized. The commission staff will play role in monitoring, evaluation and technical support in the partnership.

3. Others (e.g. academic institutions)

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) East Africa will be in charge of developing the interim FSC Forest Management Standard for Ethiopia and as such a critical partner to enable FSC certification of bamboo production.