IKEA Foundation’s chief executive returns to Melkadida
Per Heggenes and a delegation from UNHCR, RRS and the Somali Region visited cooperatives where refugees and hosts farm side by side.
- When 28 August 2023
- Where Melkadida, Bokolmayo Woreda
- Visited Bukurale and Anfac agricultural cooperatives
- Programme Integrated Livelihoods Programme
Through the strategic partnership between UNHCR and the IKEA Foundation, and together with the Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS), Wa-PYDO has implemented projects in agricultural crop production, cooperative capacity building and livestock production and productivity since 2015.
On 28 August 2023, Per Heggenes, Chief Executive Officer of the IKEA Foundation, visited the Melkadida refugee operation for the second time to see the results of a decade of investment. He was accompanied by the Director General of RRS and her deputies, the UNHCR Representative in Ethiopia, a senior transition coordinator from UNHCR headquarters, an energy advisor from Norad and representatives of the Somali Regional Government. Wa-PYDO’s Executive Director, Mohamed Ali Abdi, received and hosted the mission.
The delegation visited the Bukurale and Anfac agricultural cooperatives at Melkadida. They are two of the nine agricultural cooperatives in the operation, in which refugees and host community members benefit equally from the cultivation of 1,000 hectares of land that the IKEA Foundation has invested in.
Waber Abdille and his council of elders received an appreciation gift of traditional and cultural items, and Dollo Ado and Bokolmayo districts, which host the refugees, also expressed their appreciation for the joint investment. The mission later shared lessons and reflections at a meeting in Addis Ababa, where Wa-PYDO presented cultural gifts to its guests. Read more about the Integrated Livelihoods Programme.
In pictures
First shared on Wa-PYDO’s Facebook page.
