In Ethiopia, Oxfam works with local organizations to increase household access to secure and sustainable sources of food and livelihood. Oxfam also helps strengthen the capacity of partner organizations to address poverty and inequality in a sustainable manner.
Food aid is provided in return for community development work.
Poor rainfall over the past three years has resulted in very poor crop yields, but other programme activities have continued, including the construction of terraces on hillsides and farmlands and check dams to help prevent run-off and erosion. Over one million tree seedlings have been planted, and hundreds of farmers trained in sustainable agricultural techniques , nearly half of them women. The programme also builds rural roads and trains health promoters. Young children in Degua Tembien in the Tigray region of Ethiopia spend half a day at the community-managed rural daycare centre learning to read and write. In a region where few girls attend school, it is significant that fifty percent of the children attending the daycare are girls.