Education For Development Association/EFDA

  1. Formation-

Education For Development Association (EFDA) is a local civil society organization, which was established by motivated volunteers on June 19, 1999 and legally registered at the then Ministry of Justice. EFDA is re-registered in 2019 in accordance with the new Civil Society Organization Law (1113/2019) of Ethiopia with registration Number 0035.  It is a voluntary, non-profit making membership organization led by Board of Directors. It is a pro-child and women focused organization, working mainly on rural disadvantaged children and communities for over 25 years. 

EFDA has a vision to “see literate, self-reliant and productive community that is capable of solving its economic, social and environmental problems”. This vision is inspired by the idea that today’s children are tomorrows’ citizen on whose shoulder rests the future of the nation.  Hence EFDA has a mission to “facilitate, foster and influence a process of ongoing social changes in favor of the poor particularly children, youth and women through integrated community based development programs in order to bring about a sustainable development and prosperity in the lives of the people it has committed to serve”.

  Overall Goal: To empower community to manage their own economic, social, environmental and health problems, relying on their own skills, knowledge and resources with a minimum dependence on external support

Organizational culture

  •  Respect norms and values of the community,
  •  Capacity development to ensure community management and ownership of the development programs,
  •  Local resource mobilization as community contribution and participation,
  •  Working with , sustainable and functional community structures,
  •  Gender equity and mainstreaming in all programs,
  •  Foster networking and collaboration among stakeholders and external development actors for process diffusion and sustainability,
  •  Learning through experimentation on innovative tools, methodologies and approaches,
  • Commitment on providing means, information and/or technical supports, not services,
  •  We believe to start from what the communities know and build on what they have.
  •  Aspiration for team work and partnership.

EFDA Programs and Major thematic areas

  • Primary Education and Job creation
  •  Natural resource & Environmental Sustainability
  • Community Livelihood Development
  • Community Health Promotion
  • Water and sanitation
  • Social Accountability
  • Women empowerment
  • peace building & Conflict prevention
  • Emergency support to IDPs
  1. Administration-

The general assembly assumes the ultimate decision making power in the administrative structure of EFDA while the Board of Directors, led by its chairperson implements and follow-up policies and guidelines set by the general assembly. The Board prepare organizational plan, assure its implementation and reports to the general assembly on annual basis for review and approval. While the general assembly convene on annual basis to review overall organizational performances, the Board of Directors meet quarterly to evaluate  specific program implementation and organizational performance as reported by the Executive Director. The Executive Director is responsible for daily organizational activities supported by management committee at the head office.  For routine activities in the project areas, Area Mangers are the main decision makers in team with project officers formed as a committee depending on the number of projects under implementation in a given area.

  1. Institutional Setup –

Besides multi-sectoral project management experiences, EFDA developed a modest institutional systems, human resource management practices and financial management capacity to effectively implement projects and attain set of goals and objectives. It has a strong governance and accountability structures and systems that ensure segregation of duties and guide decision making processes. Its M&E system and reporting mechanisms both to internal and external stakeholders assume central role in establishing accountability.  It has also up-to- date and robust financial management system that employ computer application software to record, monitor, control and generate accurate financial reports. Pertaining to long years of service to the community, EFDA has a well experienced and long serving staff in different programmatic areas and field of qualification. Although the number of staff shrinks or expands with availability of projects, it has currently 28 full-time at its head office and project locations at times when the annual transaction is about 28 million ETB. 

  1. Program Management Capacity and Experiences-

Working over the last 25 years, EFDA has accumulated a wealth of experiences in integrated community development adopting education as an instrumental tool to bring about sustainable change to the lives of the people. It had been implementing projects on areas of primary education, community health education, children’s livelihood support, food security, environmental protection, women empowerment, Reproductive health education, improved Enset plant management & processing, peace building & conflict resolution, emergency support for IDPs among others. Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation (PCF), Pact-Ethiopia, Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS), Edukans Foundation (EF), Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA), Roger Federer Foundation (RFF), CSSP/British Council, USAID,  Swiss Development Cooperation/SDC are major agencies who have been supporting EFDA financially and technically towards its objectives. In terms of geographic distribution EFDA is now operating in two regional states namely Beneshangul  Gumuz and Oromia. 

Other similar projects were also under way in places such as East Arsi, East Hararge, Eastern Wollega and Benishangul Gumuz. Some former experiences include, the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program (ESAP I, & II), Strengthening Institutions for Peace and Development (SIPED II) and drug abuse prevention among youth and rehabilitation of  chat addicted persons were some of the most effective project undertakings of EFDA, the experiences and lessons of which contributed to prospective interventions. Some of these projects had an inbuilt objective of strengthening the service delivery systems and accountability of the government to service users. Implementing this project has developed important experience of acquiring cooperation of government officials on processes that potentially make them more accountable to the public, and issues that potentially look to transgress boundary of their authority.

EFDA’s response to problems associated with communal violence is relatively a recent experience and traced back to 2019. It has emerged in response to the deteriorating security situation in Ethiopia in general and Western Ethiopia in particular.

Currently, EFDA is providing emergency food support for the IDPs in East Wallagga zone in collaboration with AESCO.

Geographic Interest for Future Intentions The future intention of EFDA is to expand its peace building interventions towards Western Ethiopia. For the EU call, EFDA would like to continue operating in Western Wollega zones and expand it to Kellam Wollega, East Wollega and Horro Guduru Wollega areas. These areas are known for multi layers of conflict patterns which include violent conflict between the government and armed group and communal conflict between Amhara and the Oromos particularly around the Jarte Jardega, Amuru  Gida Kiremu, Haro limu ,Sasiga  & Guto Gida   Woredas where  people are displaced and currently in need of food .