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Safty Net program backing poverty alleviation
By Tesfaye Lemma
Ethiopia was imersed in a dire poverty some three decades ago. Its major means of income for its food insecutiy was dependent on foreign aids. It was really dominated by emergency food aid. In fact, that emergency aid could saved lives at every moment. But is never guarantee the livelihoods of the people of Ethiopia. And this system has contuned for some years in the aftermath of the demise of the military rule.
Cognizat of that the government of Ethiopia revised its emergency food aid system in 2005 and launched the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), which was more productive approach to providing a safety net to vulnerable populations.
In a continued efforts, the Ethiopian government maximized its efforts to both relief and development, with harmonized donor support from 2010 to 2014. In this program, the government in collaboration of stakeholder began to provide a safety net for households with a consideration of assuring food consumption, and simultaneously protecting and developing assets along with services. That was operated across widespread geographies and rural communities to determine eligibility to receive payments based on specific criteria.
The Ethiopian climate is complex, with a high degree of inter-annual and spatial variability in rainfall and temperatures. The uncertainty around weather patterns is increasing with climate change in the Horn of Africa, which has a significant implications for economic development and living standards in Ethiopia.
The economy has grown rapidly over the last two decades but the vast majority of the Ethiopian population make their living through rain fed agriculture. That is why the country was hit by drought at different times. The most disasters the country faced in this regard are in 1973-4 and 1984-5.
Historical documents indicated that the country has been facing recurring drought every ten years gap. When we evaluate the nature of current drought crisis in Ethiopia, it is the most severe in the past fifty years. However it is the only period of such occurrences where there is zero death risks.
A number of political and economic analysts emphasized to some significant reasons why the most severe drought occurred mainly in the remote areas of the country never impacted hunger up on the 10.2 million people is a paradoxical to some Ethiopians living away and to the international community.
However, there are various grounds that enabled the people and government of Ethiopia to withstand the crisis. One of the reasons could be the consolidated effort and wise disaster and risk managing approach of the government of Ethiopia.
Firstly, the government had been accumulating cereals for such cases in good harvesting times. Secondly, the government took immediate actions as soon as the first failure of harvesting season failed due to the El Nino.
It set committees that could daily monitor evaluate and identify immediate needs at National, Regional, Zonal, Woreda and village levels. These committees are headed by senior officials at all levels. For instance, the national committee is headed by the Deputy Prime Minister of the country and the Regional Committees are headed by Regional Chief Administrators and it goes like that.
These committees consisted different people representing various sectors. This serious attention given to the drought crisis helped to maintain death risks to zero level.
According to Disaster Prevention and Risk Management Commissioner Mitiku Kassa there is no death due to starvation in all areas hit by the current drought crisis. The coordinated campaign against the crisis is one of the major reasons for fast and timely assistance delivery that keeps death risks at zero level due to the crisis.
The government has been assisting the people in drought impacted areas with the necessary daily food consumption an individual needs. Fifteen kilos of wheat, half litter oil and 4.5 kilos of cereals.
The combination of all these gives an individual about 2100 calories that is an international standard, the Commissioner reacted to those who have attempting either to blackmail or underestimate the assistance activities in a bid to use it for their political consumption.
The criticisms against the package of delivery to drought affected citizens is baseless as it even never compare the amount of monthly support given to an individual in Ethiopia and what amount is given to crisis victim people at international level. The international standard given to anyone in need of means daily food is the same as what is given here in Ethiopia to drought crisis victims.
“Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) is a large-scale social protection intervention aimed at improving food security and stabilizing asset levels. The PSNP contains a mix of public works employment and unconditional transfers. It has been successful in improving household food security. In this study, we assess whether it had additional impacts on children’s schooling, labor and nutrition. The descriptive analysis we undertook as part of this study, using quantitative data and qualitative fieldwork, shows that there are marked differences in the types of activities children undertake. We saw differences according to both sex and age, with labor demands increasing as children get older. While children in our focus groups make repeated reference to domestic and farm work, there are few references to paid employment outside the home. This is consistent with what we find in the quantitative data. In terms of the impact of the PSNP, there are suggestions of overall positive impacts, but these may differ by age,” Gilligan et al. 2009 emphasized.
The program has been under implementation for the past fifteen years that currently in its fourth round supporting more than eight million people so as to enable them support their development. More than three million families have managed to ensure food self reliance. According to available information, job opportunities were created for 1.57 and 1.799 million youths in 2016 and 2017.
We find no evidence that the PSNP reduces chronic or acute under nutrition. While we cannot definitively say why this occurs, we note that child diet quality is poor. We find no evidence that the PSNP improves child consumption of pulses, oils, fruit, vegetables, dairy or animal source proteins. Most mothers have not had contact with health extension workers, nor have they received information on good feeding practices. Safe water practices – as captured by the likelihood that mothers boil drinking water – are poor.
The objective of the Additional Financing for the Fourth Productive Safety Nets Project is to increased access to safety net and disaster risk management systems, complementary livelihoods services and nutrition support for food insecure households in rural Ethiopia. The additional credit will scale-up the Productive Safety Net Program, which the PSNP 4 Project supports, in response to the ongoing drought.
It is expected that this Additional Financing (AF) will enable the PSNP to provide much needed safety net support to households that are suffering from the ongoing drought, thereby strengthening their resilience. The project will also contribute to the higher level objectives of: (i) improved household food security, nutrition and livelihoods, and (ii) enhanced household and community resilience to shocks.
