Infrastructure & Social Services Program
Expand, improve, and develop modest housing and public service infrastructure in Alitena and Dawhan towns and the vicinities like Kallassa, Gibidawo, and Daya villages. This will be an excellent incentive for local resettlement of the internally displaced and young families who are encroaching into semi-wilderness regions in search of land for residence and agricultural needs. It will create an opportunity free the mountainous region for restoration and ecotourism.
Urban Development in Alitena-Dawhan-Kallassa-Daya
The Irob community is a vulnerable group that lives in the border region between Ethiopia and Eritrea. They have suffered two episodes of forced displacement due to the Ethio-Eritrean conflict and the 2020 Tigray crisis. Most of the Irob people reside in the highlands, where the provision of services is expensive and ineffective due to the harsh terrain. Moreover, their encroachment into new semi-natural areas for their agricultural, pastoral and residential needs causes environmental degradation. IAA proposes to improve Alitena and Dawhan towns and expand the urban housing infrastructure to the nearby villages of Kallassa, Gibidawo, and Daya. This will enhance the delivery of services and also free up the steep mountainous habitats for land restoration.
IAA recommends to invest in modest housing infrastructure and public services development in Alitena and Dawhan towns and the surrounding areas like Daya and Kallassa villages. The goal of this project is to improve the efficiency and affordability of public services (electricity, housing, water, communication, and health) provision.
Housing shortage is the main challenge for local resettlement and youth opportunity creation. This will be a great incentive for the young generation to abandon the dispersed settlement on mountains and steep slopes and move to the towns. It will also make the delivery of public services (electricity, housing, water, communication, and health) more efficient and affordable. In addition, the success of this program will have a positive spillover effect on upland restoration program by releasing steep highland slopes for ecological restoration and environmental research. IAA will partner with Irob government and other interested agencies to implement this project.
This Google Earth snapshot view shows the potential villages where Alitena and Dawhan can be expanded. This program's success will make possible the delivery of much-needed technical training on agro-industry and entrepreneurship using the “Kallassaá Technical Vocational College”.
Alitena town
Dawhan town
The success of this program would also release more than 50,000ha of the agriculturally unsustainable rugged mountainous region of Irobland for nature restoration and environmentally friendly livelihood practices like beekeeping, ecotourism, biodiversity restoration, and research of the extremely diverse and unique native flora. Thus, the successful implementation of this program will have a ripple effect towards the success of mountain ecosystem restoration as it will halt the encroachment of young families into remote areas in search of residence and cultivable land in the Irob mountains.