BOX 3.3 TWO EXAMPLES OF RELIEF-AND-DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS FROM ETHIOPIA


Ethiopia is notoriously vulnerable to large-scale droughts, in both the sedentary mixed crop-livestock areas of the highlands and the mostly pastoralist lowlands. In the 1980s and 1990s, droughts left Ethiopia constantly scrambling for unpredictable humanitarian relief, particularly food aid. By the 2000s, experts agreed that this inefficient approach could leave the Ethiopian poor even worse off. It became clear that the cycle of crisis and relief was not helping the poor escape chronic poverty. They needed more help to spur the country’s longer-term economic development. Over the next decade, Ethiopia’s government and many international development partners experimented with new programs that mixed both relief and development elements. Two such programs were the Produc- tive Safety Net Program and the Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative.


THE PRODUCTIVE SAFETY NET PROGRAM. In 2005, the Productive Safety Net Program set out to achieve multiple objectives. On the relief side, it aimed to improve the targeting of benefits to the most vulnerable and increase the consistency and predictability of food and cash transfers. On the development end, it focused on build- ing community assets through a public works program for all but the most labor-constrained households. A linked Household Asset Building Program focuses on building assets at the household lev- el. Both internationally and in Ethiopia, many consider the Produc- tive Safety Net Program successful. Its key strengths are its cov- erage of 7–9 million recipients, or about 13 percent of the rural population; its unique inter-institutional coordination; its strong monitoring and evaluation and capacity to improve itself through feedback loops; and its clear impact on food and nutrition securi- ty indicators. Despite these benefits, questions about resilience- related aspects of the Productive Safety Net Program persist. Is the program climate-proofed? Should it cover urban areas? Does it inhibit migration out of unsustainably low-potential regions? And are the Productive Safety Net Program and Household Asset Build- ing Program really graduating people out of chronic poverty?


THE PASTORALIST LIVELIHOODS INITIATIVE. Though recently extend- ed to the pastoralist lowlands, “conventional” safety net programs such as the Productive Safety Net Program are difficult to apply to pastoralist settings because of the dominance of livestock-based livelihoods, and the greater dispersion and mobility of pastoralist populations. On a smaller scale than the Productive Safety Net Pro- gram, the Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative adopts a unique approach


to combining relief and development activities in a pastoralist set- ting. Severe drought is a fact of life in the arid lowlands of the Horn of Africa and has always led to cyclical booms and busts in herd sizes. Yet there is evidence of a long-term decline in herd sizes because pastoralists are unable to rebuild herds after droughts. While some debate the reasons for this trend, mounting evidence suggests that it is far more cost-effective to limit herd deaths in the first place or to ensure that pastoralists slaughter or sell their animals for cash rather than see them die of starvation or disease. Nongovernmental organizations working in pastoralist areas echoed the same complaints that spurred the development of the Produc- tive Safety Net Program. Emergency funding and resources were too slow to mobilize at the onset of drought, leading to inefficient relief activities. The Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative implemented two innovative approaches to resilience building. First, it focused on development activities in normal years (largely for livestock activities to grow herds). Second, it built in a “crisis modifier” approach that allowed implementing agencies to quickly reallocate resources to relief activities if a drought set in. How does this work? The Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative features built-in triggers to switch between relief and development. In the first phase of the initiative, agencies could set aside and access 10 percent of their allocated funds if drought triggered the crisis mod- ifier. In the second phase, the main implementing agency (USAID/ Ethiopia) developed an agreement with USAID’s relief agency to allow implementing agencies to quickly and seamlessly get more funds when the crisis modifier was triggered. The Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative’s “relief” strategy went beyond the normal approach to relief by protecting livelihoods— not just lives. The relief included emergency destocking and slaughter, provision of feed and water (including improved feeds to support animal milk production and child nutrition during drought), and emergency veterinary care. Like the Productive Safety Net Program, the Pastoralist Livelihoods Initiative also con- tained a strong focus on evaluation and adjustment. Evaluations revealed that some interventions were far more cost-effective and sustainable than others.


Sources: Personal interviews with John Graham, USAID, and Matthew Hobson, World Bank. For academic discussions of these issues, see Gilligan, Hoddinott, and Taffesse (2009) and Berhane et al. (2011) for impact evaluations of the Productive Safety Net Program and House- hold Asset Building Program. See Lybbert et al. (2004) for a discussion of pastoralist herd dynamics, as well as Headey, Taffesse, and You (2012, forthcoming) for a review of pastoral- ist livelihood issues in the Horn of Africa.


2013 Global Hunger Index | Chapter 03 | Understanding Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security


25


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66