288 Scarcity and Surfeitpotential resource development, most of which are in arid or semi-arid areas
inhabited by pastoralists.
Today, the Awash Basin Water Resources Administration Agency coordi-
nates, administers, allocates and regulates the utilisation of the surface water
resources of the Awash Basin. Like its predecessors, the Awash Basin Board
(set up in 1998) and the AVA, it will have to address the prospect of growing
privatisation, environmental degradation and conflict. Indeed, though it has
been proposed that most of the cotton state farms be privatised, the pace of
redistribution is very slow. In the meantime, public irrigation schemes are
facing formidable problems including a lack of cash flow, seasonal flooding
and inadequate management.
Blanket-style policies continue to be formulated at a federal level and are
uninformed of the complexities and nuances of different local areas. Many
policies, therefore, are inflexible to local needs. As Alem Hadera Abay argues:
"Policies in Ethiopia tend to be highly land oriented and lack specificity and
sensitivity to the pastoral way of life."'" In the future, place-specific strate-
gies are needed within an overall flexible policy framework. These strategies
must be framed on the variability and peculiarity of local ecology, including
land and natural resources. As Gezachew Abegaz explains, the "characteri-
zation of the land resources in terms of the major patterns of change in
resources management and their hypothesized causes and effects are the key
elements in designing place-specific strategy and policy framew~rks."'~~
At the same time, development through aid interventions needs to be more
conscious of the real impact of development projects and whether these opti-
mise use of scarce ecological and human resources. As Ayelew Gebre Mariam
suggests:
"Water points development should be integrated with natural resource
management. Extra water supplies in the rangelands should not be
developed without regard to the grazing capacity of the area. The
resource imbalance may disturb former use patterns and may acceler-
ate resource depletion. Uneven development of water resources should
be balanced, and the drilling of boreholes in deep well areas should be
avoided. Water development is not about replacing the existing indige-
nous water sources."17o
How to ensure adequate water supplies, yet prevent the decline of pastures
on which livestock production depends, is a dilemma that policy makers and
practitioners alike now face.
There are more recent attempts to move away from large-scale agricultur-
al production schemes to more intermediate and targeted interventions. In
1994, the European Union provided ECU 1.9 million for the Afar Pastoral
Development Project (APDP), which was implemented by the newly appoint-
ed regional government. The project was modestly successful, directly