THE PRACTICE AND CHALLENGES OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF ALEFA WEREDA, CENTRAL GONDAR ZONE, ANRS, ETHIOPIA.

In Ethiopia watershed management becomes a basic development issue and mainly aimed to improve rural livelihoods but faced with challenges. The general objective of the study was to inspect the practices and challenges in watershed management program in the Alefa District of the Amhara Region, Ethiopia within selected watersheds. Descriptive statistics was employed to present and analyze the collected data. Study results indicated that physical and biological soil and water conservation structures, income generating activities, forest and agroforestry activities and other social and economic activities were major watershed management activities in the study area. Local level institutions had a great role in watershed management program. Active participation of watershed users and other stakeholders was a corner stone in watershed management program. In conclusion, the negative effects of incentives (misunderstanding the purpose and taking it for granted), overgrazing, common pool resource management problem, less evaluation of the impact of watershed management and watersheds do not provide the benefits they deserve, associated with low participation of all stakeholders and lack of linkage and information sharing between institutions, were found to be obstacles to watershed management program. The involvement of all stakeholders highly affects the implementation of watershed management in the study area. The study suggested that watershed management should be based on the consent and genuine participation of the watershed users and other concerned institutions.