By: Kassahun Chanie
Wetlands International and Sher Ethiopia today launched a three‑year “Ziway Lives and Landscapes” initiative in Addis Ababa to halt Lake Ziway’s decline, restore degraded uplands and shorelines, and bolster water security and livelihoods across the basin through collaborative, nature‑based solutions.
During the occasion, Wetlands International’s Programme Coordinator, Simeneh Shiferaw, stated that the partnership—supported by the Agriculture Department of the Netherlands Embassy in Ethiopia—will pilot practical interventions at scale and invite other companies and partners to join in replicating successes across the watershed. “Reversing the degradation of Lake Ziway and its impacts on people and nature can only be tackled together,” Simeneh said, urging private‑sector actors, donors and communities to co‑fund and co‑implement landscape‑level action that reduces erosion, protects wetlands and strengthens climate resilience.
The initiative combines Wetlands International’s restoration expertise with Sher Ethiopia’s agronomic capacity and local presence to deliver measurable results, including restoring 300 hectares of degraded uplands, creating 50 hectares of protected lakeshore buffer zones and improving water‑use efficiency for 300 smallholder farmers.
For her part, Lulit Tadele, Director of Sher Ethiopia, described the effort as an operational response to shared business and community risks: “Ziway Lake underpins our farms, farmers’ incomes and regional biodiversity; Sher Ethiopia is committed to practical solutions that secure the lake and local livelihoods,” she said, calling on other enterprises to contribute technical skills, finance or logistical support.
Beyond on‑farm interventions, the project will remove water hyacinth at scale—aiming for 50,000kg cleared—and reduce chemical inputs to improve water quality.
Alwin Quispel, Counsellor for Agriculture and Nature at the Netherlands Embassy in Ethiopia, welcomed the collaboration as a model for private‑public partnerships, recommending that national and regional actors align policies and financing to replicate the project across the Horn: “There is no silver bullet; scaling impact requires unprecedented collective action and long‑term commitments from the private sector,” Quispel said.
The Ziway Lives and Landscapes project is explicitly designed as a “proof point” and learning platform: partners will test nature‑based interventions, monitor seedling survival and water quality, and document best practices for wider uptake, it was learned.
