For the past ten years, the Pastoral Community Development Programme (PCDP), jointly funded by IFAD and the World Bank, has worked to increase the resilience of Ethiopian pastoralist communities in the regions of Oromia, Afar, Somali and SNNPR. To that end, it has supported a number of public services investments, particularly in terms of water and sanitation, and has introduced an early warning system to better manage and respond to potential food-related disasters. The third phase of the programme became effective in 2014.
Beside the physical investments, one of the most important achievements under the PCDP programme was the demand driven nature of the project through the application of the Community Driven Development (CDD) approach. Such an approach has helped the communities identify their needs from within and has ensured participation of all communities’ members, including women and youth. In addition, it has provided local institutions with a methodology to replicate elsewhere. Over the time span of the programme's second phase, a total of 2.85 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists (of which 41 percent female and 19 percent youth) were mobilized, sensitized and consulted. Given its positive impact in the planning process of development, the institutionalisation of the approach has been included in the third phase of the programme.