ABOUT US

“We empower communities to lead their own change”

Our Journey of Transformation

We are the Association of Pastoralist Community for Change (APCfC)—a community-based civil society organization founded in 2006 by 72 committed men and women pastoral and agro-pastoral community members from Ethiopia’s Oromia lowland areas. Formerly known as the Oromia Pastoralist Association (OPA), we have grown into a trusted local community-based voice and partner for change.
At APCfC, we work together with pastoralist communities to create lasting change. Our initiatives focus on advocacy, peace building, gender equality, livelihoods resilience, and disaster response.
For nearly two decades, APCfC has empowered pastoralist communities to engage in local policy processes and drive positive change. We promote peaceful conflict resolution through community dialogue and foster a culture of coexistence. In addition, we work to protect natural resources, restore the environment, and support marginalized groups—especially women and girls—so they can build sustainable livelihoods and achieve food security. During crises, we provide life-saving assistance to families affected by drought and conflict

Our vision is to see “a just and inclusive society where pastoralist communities thrive with dignity, equality, and resilience.”
Empowering pastoralist communities to lead their own development through grassroots advocacy, peacebuilding, gender equality, livelihood resilience, and disaster response is our mission.

Currently, we apply a Triple Nexus approach, integrating humanitarian aid, development, and peacebuilding for deeper impact.
APCfC is rooted in the traditions and values of pastoralist communities. We uphold ethics, integrity, and accountability in all we do. We respect indigenous knowledge, promote inclusiveness and equity, and ensure transparency.
Our strength lies in our people—from founding members to frontline staff—united by a shared vision of empowerment.

Our Visionary Leadership

Our governance model promotes transparency and community engagement. The General Assembly, with 72 founding members, is the highest decision-making body, meeting annually to set strategic direction. Every three years, it elects a 9-member Executive Committee (5 men, 4 women) that meets quarterly for oversight. Daily operations are managed by an Executive Director at our Addis Ababa head office, supported by 42 full-time staff—half women—across three core departments. Our Program drives community initiatives; Finance ensures compliance; HR & Procurement manage operations with skilled teams of coordinators, finance experts, HR officers, and support staff. Beyond formal structures, we ensure strong community participation through inclusive mechanisms, reinforced by the Executive Committee Chairperson serving as a voluntary advisor.

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Empowering Communities Through Action

Advocacy & Policy Influence:

APCfC has been proactively working for empowering pastoralists and their structures to engage in policy dialogue, promoted climate adaptation strategies, and secured Ethiopia’s first communal land titles for 40,000 households. It also supported livestock insurance, gained national recognition for pastoralism, improved infrastructure access, and advocated against forced evictions, strengthening land rights and government accountability.

Community led peace building:

Through its community-based dispute resolution and peacebuilding efforts, APCfC has directly reached over 350,000 pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, with more than 1.5 million people indirectly benefiting from improved peace and security that strengthened social and economic ties. Key achievements include the establishment of 24 local and cross-border joint peace committees across Borana, West and East Guji, and East Showa zones, fostering collaborative and peaceful conflict resolution.

Gender equality & Women Empowerment:

At APCfC, we believe in the power of women and girls to transform communities. Through our ongoing and past empowerment initiatives, we have reached over 10,161 women and girls across our target areas, helping them build skills in savings, education, entrepreneurship, and leadership to strengthen their socio-economic status and agency. We have established 209 women-only Self-Help Groups (SHGs) that foster peer support and financial literacy.
More than 3,700 women and girls have launched small-scale businesses, creating sustainable income opportunities.
Through our Functional Adult Literacy Program, 1,570 women have gained essential literacy and financial record-keeping skills.

Livelihoods & Resilience:

APCfC improved the livelihoods of over 10,500 pastoralists, mainly women and girls, through training in natural resource management, savings, and business skills. It rehabilitated 450 hectares of grazing land and supported 1,500 women and girls in Moyale Woreda through dairy value chain initiatives.
Through integrated efforts in natural resource management, value chain development, and education, the program has fostered sustainable community transformation.

Disaster response & Protection:

Through its disaster response and protection interventions, APCfC supported over 25,000 people with cash assistance, provided GBV protection services to 2,350 women and girls, delivered emergency livestock feed to 1,075 households, and distributed health-protective items to 350 households during COVID-19. Additionally, over 3,500 people benefited from natural resource rehabilitation through group cash transfers in Borena zone.

Driving Change with Purposeful Strategy

Stakeholder participation

We base our interventions on the needs and priorities expressed by our communities affected by various crises and we work to ensure their active involvement in designing and implementing interventions for change.

Partnership & Collaboration

We closely collaborate with customary institutions, local formal structures, and relevant community groups in our local interventions from pre- inception to regular review, follow-up, and evaluation of our activities

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL)

We continuously track progress, learn from experience, and adapt our strategies to improve effectiveness and impact.

Capacity Building

Enhancing skills, knowledge and the operational capacities of local communities and their structures to be stronger representatives and active players in producing local results for local community problems is our key strategy.

Knowledge Sharing and Learning

We work to facilitate the flow of information between pastoral communities and local authorities, and with other actors for best practices and lessons learnt.

Milestones That Shape Tomorrow

Through strong collaboration with donors and local partners, our community-level interventions have positively impacted over 1.5 million people, fostering peace, environmental sustainability, and resilience among pastoralist communities across our target geographic areas.
Specifically, through our community-based peace building interventions 350,000+ pastoralists and agro-pastoralists have experienced improved peace and security, local peace structures are strengthened, Women’s participation and decision-making in community dialogue structures have been improved.
▶ 8,161+ women and girls in multiple localities across our target areas benefited from programs in savings, education, business, and leadership and 2,106+ women and girls in Moyale and Dire received comprehensive protection services, including Case management, Safe spaces, Emergency cash support and Psychosocial services.
▶ 7,500+ people (1,500 households) benefited from our land rehabilitation, removal of invasive species and construction and repair of water sources.
▶ 15,471+ individuals received food and essential supplies through our emergency response efforts provided in the forms of cash assistance, Survivor-led response, and recovery
▶ Our local level advocacy and Policy Influence initiatives have contributed to several results so far. The historic land rights achievement and Borena pastoralists received Ethiopia’s first communal land holding titles, benefiting 3 communities with over 40,000 households (255,000+ people) being one of such achievements.

Our Collaborations That Create Lasting Change

Through strong partnerships and collaborative efforts with donors, local governments, community-based organizations, and customary institutions, we have consistently delivered effective and culturally relevant interventions. Our approach is rooted in local knowledge and leadership, ensuring sustainability and community ownership. We work closely with community groups and traditional leaders through joint planning and implementation and actively collaborate with local CSO partners such as Pastoralist Initiative Development Aid (PIDA) to promote synergy among actors with shared goals.

We are active participants in several local Multi-sectoral Coordination platforms such as Women, Peace and Security Task Force, GBV taskforce, zonal humanitarian taskforce. We are member of national and regional forums such as Pastoralist Forum Ethiopia (PfE), The Ethiopia Humanitarian National CSOs Forum (EHNCF) and Alliance for IP &LC for Conservation in Africa.

Voices of Impact

Explore Stories Unveiling Journeys of Hope and Transformation as witnessed through witness of those participated and benefited form our interventions.

case story

“Lighting the Path”

Mandacho, a kebele with approximately, a population of 5135 (2570 female and 2565 male) is one of the many kebeles in Borana zone, Oromia region where biased stereotypes and social norms prevent women in most from exercising their free choice and taking full and equal advantage of opportunities for individual development, contribution and reward.

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case story

“Journey to Empowerment”

“…Dhaki Kanchoro is one of the project target women who never learned how to read or write as she never had the chance to go to school. She spent her childhood helping her mother at home, until the age of 16, when she was married off to her husband Kanchoro. Today, Dhaki is a 27-year-old mother of three. Currently she is one of the 91 women who are receiving FAL through the project. As someone who never went to school, Dhaki treasures the opportunity to learn through the programme and to pass on to others what she has learned. “The nice thing about being part of the programme is that I am not the only one who learns, but my family learn too….”

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Celebrating Recognition

We are proud to share that our efforts in promoting local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities have been recognized at local, national, and international levels.

Through the facilitation of cross-border pastoralist community dialogues and the co-creation of conflict resolution strategies—including innovative reciprocal resource use agreements—we have contributed to:
▶ Reducing overgrazing and soil erosion
▶ Promoting gender equality
▶ Improving market access for pastoralist products
▶ Strengthening resilience to climate-related stresses

These achievements have earned us prestigious recognitions, including:
▶ The Equator Prize Initiative awarded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
▶ A Certificate of Recognition from the FDRE Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands.
▶ Recognition award from Oromia region Irrigation and Pastoralist Development Bureau
These honors affirm our commitment to empowering pastoralist communities and fostering sustainable, inclusive development across borders.