Ethiopian Church Forest Initiative (ECFI)

Objective:

The overall objective of this endline evaluation was to determine the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and effect/result of the Ethiopian Church Forest Initiative (ECFI).

Method:

• Reviewing relevant literatures
• Data collection:
• Data analysis and report writing
• Presenting of findings:

Key Findings:

• ECFIP Project was in a good track to deliver its outcome and objectives and is highly relevant to the protection and sustainable management of church/monastery forests.
• Project outputs has been delivered efficiently and the impact is considerable.
• Stakeholder engagement has been excellent
• The negative impacts of the surrounding community on the church forest, has substantially minimized due to the intervention
• Conflict resolution mechanisms that have been introduced have been well received and effective.

Specific Recommendations:

• Expand interventions to increase/safeguard forest cover including energy saving technologies, guarding the forest, protecting the forest, seedling planting, tree planting, labor sharing between the church and community, awareness creation, solar lighting, seedling planting and energy saving technologies, seedling planting and preserving, protection, guarding and seedling planting, seedling planting organized by the community, different types of seedling planting.
• Policy support for scaling of the interventions to other areas is required. Church/monastery land certification is very important and it was one of the encouraging output from this project,
• Next phase project intervention should also target the cleric community and the monks living inside the monasteries as wood cutting including whole tree harvest or heavy branch and shrub cutting is a common practice in the churches and monasteries.
• Further studies are recommended if the theological underpinning of the church forest is still understood by the inhabitants of the monasteries/churches and the surrounding community.