An NGO serving rural communities in Ethiopia
ERSHA – Enhanced Rural Self Help Association – is an Ethiopian development NGO established in 1997. It is present in Omoro, in eastern Ethiopia, and in Amhara, in North-Choa.
The organisation organises its services around four main issues:
- Food security: trains farmers to use more resistant plant varieties and more efficient production techniques, gets villagers prepared for the impacts of global warming on harvests
- Access to basic social services: implements water sanitation projects, provides school materials to schools, trains families to adopt better hygiene measures
- Socio-economic development of women and young people: establishes women self-help groups, trains women in trade and agricultural equipment, raises public awareness about children’s rights
- Strengthening the institutional capacity of local people: draws up regulations, builds offices for community organisations so they can start development projects themselves

ERSHA & SOS Faim
Since 2017, the partnership aims to strengthen the technical and financial capacities of farmers' cooperatives in Oromo through the following activities:
- Trainings
- Accompaniment
- Field visits
- Exchange workshops
Cooperatives are strengthened at three levels:
- Agricultural production: improved techniques, innovations, better management
- Processing and marketing of agricultural products
- Access to financial services: connecting with microfinance institutions
Encouraging Results
At the end of 2019, ERSHA achieved the following results:
- 11 producer cooperatives supported
- 1,838 producers with access to the services of their cooperatives
- 111 farmers with improved management of their plots of land.
What prospects ?
By the end of 2021, ERSHA plans to have achieved several things:
- Empowerment of 14 agricultural cooperatives
- 2,000 producers (37% of whom are women) with access to cooperative services
- 840 farmers who will have better managed their plots of land
More info about ERSHA here.