''Climate Change affects not only you but also your neighbours, so we can not pretend the danger does not exist or ignore it. We need to keep this in mind'', said Mr. Nabil Ben Khatra, during the EURECCCA project closing ceremony, held in Kampala on June 6, under the high patronage of H.E. Mr. Sam Cheptoris, Minister of Water and the Environment of Uganda.
Beneficiaries from Maziba, Aswa and Awoja shared their testimonies and through their journey with the project, they highlighted some of the achievements such as the restoration of degraded lands, the development of infrastructure, the fight against floods and landslides, capacity building, women empowerment and the improvement of the communities' living conditions. The testimonies spoke very high of the bottom-up approach that was adopted in every phase of the project and that led to a true ownership feeling of all speakers.
The OSS experts made a presentation of the performance indicators and the sustainability strategy of the project accomplissements before the interaction session with the audience that came up with scaling up recommendations and a commitment to expand the project impact.
On this occasion, advocacy and communication tools (videos and brochures) were presented, summarizing the project process and highlighting possible and reproducible solutions in the field.
The community beneficiaries had the opportunity to exhibit the products they developed thanks to the project and exhibitors shared with the high-level authorities the processes they went through as well as the lessons learned.
The participants at all levels received trophies during a ceremony with the presence of H.E. Minister Sam Cheptoris who took his closing remarks to extend his deep satisfaction with the OSS partnership and his willingness to promote the collaboration and reinforce the sharing of expertise under new initiatives.