Looking back on fieldwork in the Ethiopian Highlands

Attentive readers of this blog will remember Jennifer Veilleux' fascinating blog post about the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia. Up until today, this post is  one of the few source that shows exclusive pictures of the areas before flooding.
In return for this post, i have written an exclusive post for her blog, making sense of what field work in Ethiopia taught me and how these lessons learnt are shaping the inside travel start-up today. So check it out!

it is just another day for you and me in paradise

Over the last months I have been reporting from my field work for the Nile 3 project. It is time to close this reporting series and to look back on one of the most interesting time I had in Ethiopia.
The field work brought be to some remote place of the Ethiopian Blue Nile, places where no tourist ever ends up, places where Ethiopia unfolds its deepest beauty, magics and love. I am still wondering that one can get paid to do such an interesting work, i would be ready to pay for the such an experience. On the road I met amazing people, farmers, scientists, drivers, assistants, translators, friends. Almost everyone gave her/his best to contribute to the success of field work.

The Nile viewed from the sky

It was a time full of unforgettable and magic moments.

I have met this group of farmers in Shambu who a long time ago gave up waiting for any government or NGO to help them, and decided to take their own fate in hand, making use of the presence of my team to learn more about how to best implement their ideas.

Focus group discussion with the farmers in Shambu

Seeing a farmer answering his mobile phone... realizing that modernity has found its way into very traditional livelihoods. 

The Shambu farmer with his mobile phone

I have seen these women who cannot read and write for the first time in their life try to draw a house and having so much fun doing it, even if the drawing look very childish.

I was sitting in these restaurants after long days of work (and very little showers as there was no running water) trying to guess if today I would get Tibs with Kitfo or rather Kitfo with Tibs :-). I must have eaten at least one sheep and one goat over that field month.

Going through the household questionnaire and discover that I would myself have answered more than 10 times to the question "how many times were you not able to eat the food of your choice because of shortage?" (due to the lack of cheese in Ethiopia) but would have answered 0 times to the question "how many days didn't you eat because of food shortage?"

Seeing hundreds of  farmers walking for many hours with their harvest, baskets, animal walk to the nearest market to exchange some goods (while i was driving the same distance in minutes). It reminded me that probably livelihoods some 200 hundred years ago in Switzerland, when my grand grand mother was young, were probably not so different. And suddenly get a deep respect for those generations in my country who contributed to make my life easier...

I have met these young scientists fighting for their future, being extremely involved and doing a very competent and dedicated job. I never had to fight in this way to get access to education...

I met this exceptionally smart and open group of young Ethiopian men, who love their country as much as they can criticize it. With discussion throughout the night, they made me understand what it means to be a young African man teared between modernity and tradition, between wanting to see the world, to be young urban and aware and at the same time wanting to get served by very traditional wife.

I discovered the content of all Teddy Afro songs, and developed an even deeper respect for this singer that manages to spread messages that go far beyond " i love you" and touches issues like democracy and Ethiopian identity in a changing Ethiopia.

long car rides with the whole team and always with Teddy Afro

Dancing and singing on Teddy Afro songs in the long car rides with very funny drivers... 

slaughtering an oxen

I though I would visit a mushroom farm but ended up with 10 Ethiopian men slaughtering an oxen and getting fed the raw tongue for breakfast... (was maybe not the smartest idea)

the raw meat for breakfast

But what probably has moved me most, is to realize that i am extremely privileged. I have no food shortage, I do not need to walk for hours to get a piece of soap nor I do need to fight for basics... It is just another day for me in paradise. And as you are reading this blog post, realize that you have electricity and internet access and it is just another day for you in paradise. But what makes me so incredibly priviledged is that I got the opportunity to discover this beautiful side of Ethiopia, to meet all these people and understand a little bit better what drives people in this country. And I hope that you could get a glimpse of this through my blog over the last months (just make use of the N3 field report series tag to find all the related posts).

" I had forgotten where i am coming from , but suddenly it came back into my mind and it is turning around in my head. Yes I am African, oh Africa mama..."


A big thanks to all who contributed to make my field trip an unforgettable time.

Here the link official blog post on the NBDC blog about this field work
http://nilebdc.org/2012/07/03/multi-scale-participatory-mapping/

A traditional Ethiopian family

During the field campaign of my project, I followed some enumerators and joint the interview. The first farmer, i interviewed was a traditional Ethiopian family. The husband and head of household decided to answer our questions and sat down with us. His wife was working in the field and the two kids very soon ended up sitting next to me. Their oldest son was at school. 

The first thing that stroke me was the fact that he as well as his son wore shoes, whereas the wife and the daughter were barefoot. Also he did not know the age of the children and needed to ask his wife. Both wife and husband are illiterate, the oldest son can read and write. 

This household owns 3,5 timat of land (almost a hectare) on which they grow potatoes, wheat and barley. He also does some crop-sharing on plots of other farmers. He makes compost to improve soil quality, and also uses fertilizers. Also all his land was terraces, and animal movement within the land was limited and partially fed in a cut-and-carry system. He got lot of agricultural advise from the extension services over the past years. Also the district administration gave seeds for farmers on credit, that needs to be reimbursed after the harvesting. The household can live about 11 months from their own production. On Saturday, they go to the market in the nearest town and sell some of their products caring them on the horse or on their head. For buying livestock, cloth and agricultural input the go the a bigger town.

They have seen their neighbor planting apple trees and would like to plan apples too. But they don't have a well or other source of water to irrigate the young apple trees during the dry season. They think that apple is a very profitable business. This is an interesting statement as the oldest tree in the area is 3 year old and none of the apple tree in the area did provide any benefit to anyone. It is an anticipated business and no one really know if there will be a value chain for these apples... 

The wife is part of a women's association which allows her to access information about health and family planning. The association also helps out selected women with a credit, of which she did not benefit.
I asked the girl about her dream, she did not answer as she is not allow to talk. Her father explained to me that she is going to become a doctor and help people to be healthy...
Despite of all the work and difficulty this family is facing on a daily base, they gave me the feeling that they were happy...

What about a chicken farm?

On my recent field trips to 4 different watersheds in the Blue Nile Basin, two majors practices were the most promissing : fruit tree and poultry. Whereas my last post focused on the fruit trees (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/07/fruit-trees-hopes-illusions-and.html), here are some thoughts about poultry farming.

In Shambu watershed and in Maksenit farmers have little amount of chicken (2-3 in Shambu 5-6 in Maksenit) and wished they could increase their chicken production. In both sites the envisage farmers to own between 20-30 chicken each.

In Shambu, the reason for not having more chicken is the cold climate, that makes reproduction difficult. In Maksenit where it is significantly warmer the reason for not having more chicken is the lack of access to medicine to control diseases.

Chicken in Maksenit 

Shambu farmers would like to get an incubator, so that they could get more chicken. But they they that they cannot access an incubator and therefore are stuck where they are. I found on the internet the instruction on how to build a low cost incubator with local material : http://www.ehow.com/how_4988665_build-chicken-incubator-light-bulb.html. It looks very easy and even feasible for the Shambu farmers. But does it make sense to build an incubator in an area where electricity cuts are common? there is no way to guarantee constant temperature and therefore all the eggs will die. So after discussing with a friend who understands more, I discovered it might be easier to go for the natural way, it would be sufficient to keep a critical amount of chicken (about 8-10) together, in order to have less egg dying because a chicken decided to get some food for too long. And then increase slowly slowly the amount of chicken in the area.

Stays the disease problem, in which i haven't dug into it yet. But it would be worth looking better in the poultry option for Ethiopia. On my last trip to Kenya I had the chance to visit a chicken farmer who breeds his 200-300 chicken. In that also the way forward in Ethiopia?

200 chicks on a Kenyan farm

Nonetheless, one should never forget to look at market access. In Shambu an alive chicken goes for 80-120 birr, i just bought my frozen chicken 80 birr in the shop next to ILRI in Addis. Shambu chicken are expensive because there are very few chicken locally. But as production increases prices will fall. Bringing chicken to the towns meant to compete with "my chicken" that comes from a commercial chicken farm near Mojo (South of Addis). Will smallholder be able to compete with those low prices? 

A farm with 100 chicken in Kenya

A short look at the Kenyan situation might give some ideas. Smallholders have a hard time with poultry. They all produce when it is easy, then there is enough fodder. This implies that too many chicken come on the market at the same time, price falls and farmer get obliged to sell below production price. It is only a good business when one is able to produce in the more difficult dry times.

No wonder that in Europe, poultry chain in fully integrated. The integration allows to coordinate the chicken production (farmers get contract stipulating how many chicken he needs to grow by when even with which fodder and medicine) and make sure that a sufficient amount of chicken are available, not more not less...

I wonder under which conditions there is room for smallholders in Africa in the poultry sector. But for sure there is a transition time during which poultry might be a good business...

Fruit trees: hopes, illusions and disillusions

For a well functioning watersheds that provides all the necessary ecosystem services, there should be forests on the upslope of the watersheds. But in the Ethiopian Blue Nile context, these areas have been deforested and cultivated, mainly due to increasing population densities.

The infiltration properties of the upslope has changed : less water infiltrates, there is more run-off and therefore more erosion and ground water does not recharge. The lack of trees on the slope can explain to a large extend why watersheds are getting dryer.

a typical Ethiopian landscape with only very little forest

Motivating farmers on the upslopes to plant trees is difficult as there are only very little benefit from the trees for the farmers who plants them, but there are benefits for downstream farmers. Basically there are two options to approach the problem. Or one develops a benefit sharing mechanism where the downstream farmer compensate the farmers upstream for loosing its crop land for trees, which is very difficult in the Ethiopian context, or one finds solutions that are profitable for the upstream farmers.

Apple in Laku watershed (Shambu)

Some trees at least in the mid terms can give benefits to upstream farmers. This is the case of the multipurpose trees and for fruit trees.

Multipurpose trees can provide high quality fodder during the dry season (when there is shortage of fodder) allowing upstream farmers to intensify there livestock production. (for more information see : http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/changing-livelihoods-at-very-little.html)
The second option is fruit trees, like apple and peaches in the highlands or mango and papaya in the lowlands. These are interesting options because fruits allows farmer to diversify their diets as well as their income.
This second option has been recognized by NGOs and has been pushed in different locations in Ethiopia, and farmers are more and more aware of fruit trees as a diversfication option.

During the field work in the four watersheds (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html) , all the farmers wanted to have some fruit trees, some had it and could harvest, some just planted trees and cannot harvest yet, others only wished they could access seedlings.

Let's look at these different stages, hopes, illusions and disillusions in each of the fruit tree implementations stages.
In the Gorosole watershed (Ambo), farmers do not have fruit trees but have heart of it. They would like to have apples and peaches because they believe it could be a new source of income. Unfortunately they don't know how to access seedlings nor have sufficient knowledge to grow the trees.

The apple tree planted this year in Zefie watershed

In Zefie watershed, some farmers started to plant apple tree three years ago. The strategy is to plant the trees on the soil bunds to not loose crop land. Also every year they plant some additional seedling.

The 3 years old apple tree in Zefie (does not give apples yet)

None of the farmers has yet harvested any apple in Zefie. Nonetheless, more and more apples tree are planted and more farmers are considering of planting apples because they believe that they can sell apples and diversify their income.

Papaya trees in Maksenit watershed

In Maksenit watershed, apples are not an option as it is low lands. Some farmers have planted papaya trees in so called "home gardens". Very few households have access to water during the dry season to get the papayas growing. Those who have it mainly consume the papaya themselves. Income in this area mainly comes from garlic wich is a good business (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/success-and-failures-maksenit-watershed.html) and therefore do not really need papaya to get more cash.

Finally Shambu watershed produces apples. Seedlings have been introduced 10 years ago by an NGO and some farmers today have an apple orchard on their farms. The farmer i have talked to runs his own apple tree nursery and sells some of the seedling to other farmers in the area. Each year he extends his orchards with new trees. In this way he can level his loss of land. He can get incomes from older apple trees, and therefore can afford to loose some cropland for new apple trees that will take 5-7 years to give apple.

the apple orchard in Shambu

He has apple but finds it very difficult to sell them. The lack of market linkage is the main reason why he cannot make the expected benefits from apple. Therefore he is also trying to intensify his livestock production as well as in poultry production.
Whereas for many farmers who do not yet harvest yet, fruits are a symbol of hope. But the reality in Shambu shows that it is actually an illusion. The only farmer that really could harvest apples was disillusioned.

the apple tree nursery 

Fruit trees are a promising option  to restore ecosystem services in watersheds, but are only likely to work if farmers are linked to markets when they can start harvesting. Not later than yesterday i bought some apples for 50 birr per kilo (about 2.5 dollars a kg). It might not sounds too much to you, but for comparison 1 kg tomatoes is about 12 birrs, onions about 8 birrs, improved (huge and juicy) mangos 25 birrs. There is definitely huge potential for apples, it is a matter of unlocking the potential and linking farmers to markets.

successes and failures : the Maksenit watershed (Gonder)

During my recent field trips, i got the chance to walk through a very interesting watershed : Maksenit Watershed, which outlet lies on the border of Maksenit town, South East of Gonder, Ethiopia.

View Larger Map

approximate location of the farmers' training center of Maksenit watershed

It is a very interesting watershed, as GIZ (German development cooperation), ICARDA (international center for agricultural research in dry areas) and the Ethiopian government have been involved in water issues over the last years. It is a watershed full of success stories and failures.

Please join me on this long but interesting walk across the watershed. I started the walk near to the farmers' training center and discovered 3 of the 5 water havesting ponds. These ponds have been build by ICARDA in order to better understand on the ground under which conditions individual water pond could work. (have a look at for a study that suggest that ponds do not work in the Ethiopian context http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2011/10/bahir-dar-reporting-series-is-water.html)

the almost empty pond

Two basins trap the sediment before the water flows into the pond

Some farmers got a treadle pump and a drip irrigation system, other just irrigate with a simple bucket. The pond allows to irrigate a plot of 30x20m and get one crop during the dry season, mainly pepper.

ICARDA has also installed two sediment traps to measure sediments from an untreated watershed, and one from a watershed treated with terraces and bunds. Sounds like a great initiative, in a country where there is no empirical evidence that about the effectiveness of this type of technologies. Finally ICARDA also has build a monitoring station at the outlet, allowing to know all the year round how much water is following in the perenial river. 

female headed household 

But while crossing a watershed, there is nothing better than stopping and talking to farmers. The first farmer I stopped at, was a female headed household. The lady and her three kids mainly live from selling garlic which is grown near to the outlet and is irrigated thanks to a river diversion. She earns enough money to invest into a house in Maksenit town, that she plans to rent out.

Roof full of dry garlic, the source of cash for many farmers in the watershed.

Years ago, a roof water harvesting system and a cistern has been built on her farm by GIZ. Unfortunately, the cistern is leaking even after several attempt to repair and therefore is not in use anymore. She did not seem to really need the cistern as she could get water for domestic use from the near by river. 

the roof water harvesting installation with the leaking cistern 

The whole farm is surrounded by fodder trees that allow her to feed her livestock during the dry season. She also has a sort of olive tree, that does not give edible olives but is a very good timber tree. To have sufficient trees, she has a mobile tree nursery, which she can carry around, mainly to the water or to the shadow when necessary. She mainly uses the seedling for herself. A governmental tree nursery is within walking distance near to Maksenit, in case she want seedling from trees she does not have. Finally she also had modern beehives, allowing her to get income from honey. 

the mobile tree nursery 

As we walked upwards, we discovered an amazing landscape with mountains in the back covered with shrubs, and in the flatter areas, farmers where ploughing. 

looking upwards 

We stopped at another farmer who ended up guiding us through the watershed. He had a very similar livelihood, with garlic as major income, mobile tree nursery, traditional and modern beehives. He also affords a pump that allow him to irrigate some of his plots. He also rents out the pump. In principle he has electricity, but the distributor broke down. And despite of the continuous request of the community, the government did not give them the permission to repair the electric system. 

the tube used for irrigating with the pumps 

Near to his house, there is a non-perennial river that was dry. Nonetheless one can tab from the underground stream. ICARDA has build a pump that now allows his wife to get domestic water from very near by. 

the ICARDA water pump

A bit further down in the river bed, one can find hand dug wells, which are used for livestock as well as irrigation of near by nurseries (trees or pepper). He makes use of the pump, to get water from the well to the nursery and in some other season to irrigate nearby plots.

a hand dug well in the river bed, taping into the underground stream.

One of his neighbors tried to get groundwater by digging a well on his field, but could not find any water after 10m. So the whole was closed again. 

the unsuccessful well

Walking down the watershed towards the outlet, we stopped at a "papaya orchard" or what the locals call "home garden". Also pepper could be found next to the papaya trees. Women are usually responsible for these home gardens.

Papaya orchard

As we were crossing the main gravel road in the watershed, we found again a plot owned by the farmer who was guiding us. The plots South of the road in the flat area are mainly vertisol, that are soil that can absorb a lot of water and keep soil moisture over a long period. He would use the run-off of the road and divert the stream to flood his fields increase the number of days with sufficient soil moisture to crop (also referred as spate irrigation). He would even use electric pole from the ongoing renovation of the electric system, that has not yet been fixed to divert the water. 

furrows for diverting the water during the rainy season

In principle on these vertisol one can have 3 crops per year, first a cereal, then a legume on residual moisture and then a high value crop (pepper, onion or garlic) if there is access to irrigation water. 

Also we found the relatively big tree nursery. All the trees were dead, attacked by termites. 

the failed tree nursery

Back to the road we found another manual water pump taping water from the underground stream. It was build by the government as part of the WASH program and came with a additional concrete basin for giving water to livestock and a concrete place to wash cloth. The two latter infrastructures were broken and not in use anymore. Just the pump survived, and a micro-dam from earth has been built to capture the excess water pumped, were livestock can access water now. 

the govermental pump

the broken washing basin

the micro basin that capture excess water from the pump and is used for livestock

This is a nice example on how locals adapt and use the infrastructure differently than inially though of. Cloth are washed in the nearby perennial river.

In this watershed, some things have worked : the pumps are still in use, mobile nurseries allow women to grow their own seedling, hand-dug wells allow to tap the underground streams, women grow more diversified food (papaya) for their families. Others haven't worked, the GIZ cistern is leaking, some hand-dug wells have been closed, a tree nursery failed due to termites. Finally others will have to proof their use : the ICARDA water harvesting ponds and their lifting devices. It is definitely a watershed where a lot has happened and there is a lot to learn both for the successes and the failures. I hope you have enjoyed on my virtual tour of the Maksenit watershed and that you are convinced now, that unless we have tired, we don't really know what works and what doesn't work.

I would like to thank Baye from the Gonder Agricultural Research center for having accompanied me on this transect walk of more than 5 hours as well as the farmer who crossed have to the watershed to show his success and failures on this fields.

the farmer (left) and Baye (right)

Giving rural communities a voice : adapting the "Happy strategy" game to communities

Within the multi-scale adoption studies I am currently involved with  (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html), we are running focus group discussion with some key informant farmers in 4 sites in the Blue Nile. I am just back from the Oromia sites, Gorosole (near Guder, Ambo) and Laku (near Shambu) where the focus group discussion have been run in collaboration with the Oromia agricultural research institute (OARI). 

The cards of the Happy Strategy game

For the focus group discussion we have adapted the "happy strategy" game. This is a game that has initially been developed to involve stakeholder into the discussion on how rainwater management practices should be combined within a landscape. The game consist of a set of practice cards that describe single rainwater management practice, as well as innovation cards, that are empty practice cards that can be filled if a given practice is not part of the game. Finally, there are intervention cards, that are cards that allow for changes beyond farmer's decision making that could enable the adoption of a practice, such as access to credit or access to seeds or better cooperation among the community. Each participant chooses a card and joins a "landscape" that is clearly described watershed, and discusses where and why the chosen card should be adopted. If the group does not agree the person has to find another landscape or trade the card. For more details have a look at : http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/20/happy-strategies-where-strategic-land-and-water-management-is-as-simple-as-playing-a-game/
http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/24/jegerida/ 

Opening the focus group discussion : Gerba welcomes the participants, introduces the project, the objectives and explains how the whole happy strategy approach works.

This game has been adapted for communities and is used to identify what the best watershed management would be from the perspective of the farmers. In addition we want to identify what hampers adoption of the wished practices and identify the needed interventions allowing the adoption of those practices. Finally we also try to capture upstream downstream effect, identify winners and losers in the landscape as well as trade-off and synergies.

The used approach is the following (in gender separated groups):

1. participatory watershed mapping exercise, in order to create a map that all the participants can understand, with colored post-it they can indicate land use.

Mapping exercise with the women's group in Gorosole 

2. Identifying rainwater management practices that the farmer know of, these are selected from the happy strategy game

The happy strategy cards are ready, as farmers mention a practice , the relevant card is introduced into the game 

3. Let every participant choose her/his favorite practice, place it on the map and discuss with the group why the practice should be there, the benefits of the practices and if it is adopted what type of support they got or if it is not adopted what hamper adoption.

A participant choosing a card (Shambu)

A participant explaining his choice (Shambu)

4. Discuss synergies and trade-offs of the ideal watershed

The facilitator Zerihun, in the discussion with the farmers (Shambu)

5. presenting the work to the other group and have a more general discussion and evaluation. 

Women's group presenting their work on their final map (Shambu)

The men are carefully listening to the presentation of the women's work, after it will be the other way round (Shambu)

The whole processes in followed by at least two note takers who make sure that none of the relevant information gets lost. 

Gerba taking notes from the general discussion (Gorosole)

We have been developing feasibility maps that show where which practice should be feasible in terms of bio-physical but also socio-economic conditions. Results from these focus group will be used to validate these maps. Basing validation upon an wished watershed management instead of observed adoption on the ground might in the Ethiopian context be a smarter way to validate the maps. Indeed, due to important top down policies, practices might be adopted on an non-suitable location. Other practices might not be adopted, not because they are not suitable but because farmers crucially lack access to input, finances or knowledge (which is difficult to map and take into account in our feasibility maps).

The discussion in Oromia went very well, both women and men came up with new ideas, challenging our maps and our understanding of the landscape. Finally, in Gorosole, one of the participant has mentioned in the evaluation round, that he is very happy that he was given the chance to think about future beyond of what he has and he believes to be within his reach, in a time that is about "to be or not to be". 

Discussion from the different focus group discussions and lessons learnt will follow in up coming posts. 

Some impressions from the discussions : 

women's group presentation (Gorosole)

Men's group, defining the land use of their watershed (with colored post-it) (Gorosole)

Women's group defining land use is their watershed (Shambu) in a calm and silent way

Men's group defining land use in their watershed (Shambu) in a lively discussion

A very lively general discussion in Shambu

 

 

Find the Happy Strategies website : happystrategies.wikispaces.com

Changing livelihoods at very little costs : the tree nursery in Zefie watershed

In Zefie watershed, the NGO Tana Beles (http://tana-beleswme.org/)  has instated a tree nursery based on a very interesting concept. The government has given some of the communal land to the NGO to set up a tree nursery near to the river outlet. As the river is perennial, water can be carried from the river to water the seedlings. The 3 employees are paid by the NGO. As their wage is very little, the employees are allowed to use the unused land for their own purpose. The employees plant garlic and onions. These are high value crop they can grow in the dry season by irrigating the plots. In this way the employees can improve their wages.

The tree nursery

The nursery produces grow multi-purpose tree seedling, namely Saglina, Lucerne and Sesbania. Multi-purpose trees as its name indicates fulfills different purposes such as nitrogen binding (and therefore increasing soil fertility), providing timber/fuel, providing high quality fodder for livestock. In addition, trees increase water infiltration when planted on the slope. Despite of these benefits, adoption of multi-purpose trees is low. It might be because alternative land uses such as crop production provides more immediate benefits than trees that need time to grow.

Tree seedlings

Nonetheless, there are smart option for multipurpose trees, such as planting them on the contours or to stabilize gullies or soil bunds. Multipurpose trees might also be a key in farming systems in which livestock intensity is increasing. Indeed, it can provide protein rich fodder that is crucially needed when local cow breeds are replaced by improved breeds that are more productive or to address some fodder shortages during the dry season.

Access to water for the nursery (and outlet of the watershed)

Accessing multipurpose tree seedlings is one of the biggest challenge for farmers and one of the reason why farmers do not adopt multipurpose tree. Tana Beles addresses this gap by promoting the tree nursery. It is good example on how development work can possibly change farming systems and livelihoods of smallholders without costing a lot of money. The tree nursery initiative is very recent, only time will show if it will bring the hoped benefits.