Institute of Development Research (IDR)

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Browsing Institute of Development Research (IDR) by Author ". Bavaiah, M.D. (PhD)"

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    The Role of Microfinance in Strengthening Pastoral Household Food Security A Comparative Study between Beneficiaries and Non-Beneficiaries of Microfinance Services in Dollo Ado and Filtu Districts of Somali Region
    (Addis Ababa University, 2006-06) Abdi, Nur; . Bavaiah, M.D. (PhD)
    Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low income households and self-employed clients (Ledgerwood, 1999). Pro viding microfinance services to pastoral households is one aspect of promoting food security. It contributes for income generation and smoothing consumption. This study investigated whether there are sigmficant differences in income, expenditures on food and non-food items, food consumption, child schooling and coping strategies between microfinance service beneficiary and nonbeneficiary households in Filtu and 00110 Ado districts of Somali region. Equal numbers of beneficiary and non-beneficiary households (57 households each) were included in the sample. The research findings indicated that, microfinance beneficiaries have more diversified incomes than the non-beneficiaries. Furthermore, these households had more income relative to non-beneficiaries. As a result, households' access to microfinance services had higher monthly food and non-food expenditures than non-service users. This indicates that, the former households have better purchasing power than the later. Thus, they have shown better calorie consumption. Access to microfinance services enabled beneficiary households to increase their incomes. The increased income helped beneficiaries to spend more on child education than non-beneficiaries. More importantly, the beneficiary households have employed less coping strategies during food shortages, which imp01 that, adequate food at their disposal. The result also shows that, the severity of responses on the ufllization of coping mechanisms has more pronounced to non-beneficiary households. Finally, pastoralist oriented microfinance service reduces vulnerablltty and minimizes the risk of becoming food insecure. Key words: Microfinance, Food security, Coping strategies, Household income, Food expenditure, and Food consumption