Livelihood strategies in the context of population pressure: A case study in the Hararghe Highlands, Eastern Ethiopia
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Date
2003-08
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The thesis presented the results of an investigation into livelihood strategies of rural
households in the Hararghe Highlands in the context of population pressure. The
human welfare and respurce outcomes of rural livelihood strategies were assessed,
accounting for the 'mediating' factors . The study enriches the current policy debate
on how to create an enabling environment to strengthen sustainable rural livelihoods
and mitigate adverse welfare and resource consequences of unsustainable rural
livelihood strategies.The sustainable livelihood framework for analysing rural livelihoods in the context of
population pressure was modified in the thesis to guide the analyses. Primary data
was obtained from 197 randomly selected households from three representative sites
in the Hararghe Highlands . Whilst verbal des cription, interpretation and appreciation
of facts, and case studies were used for the qualitative data analysis , multivariate
techniques and logistic regression were employed to analyse the quantitative data.The study showed that subdivision and fragmentation of agricultural land and reemergence
of landlessness have accompanied the unprecedented population growth
in the Hararghe Highlands. The pace of demographic change of the area is so fast
that it has caused failure of indigenous countervailing and adaptations. Sufficient
effective demand for sustainable intensification of smallholder farms has, however,
not been created due to uncertain right to the land and inadequate market incentives.
Furthermore, the technology generation and dissemination systems have failed to
build the capacity of smallholder farmers to respond to the demographic pressure in
a sustainable way. This has generally resulted in negative welfare and resource
outcomes.
Nonetheless, rural households pursue heterogeneous livelihood strategies due to
differential access to livelihood assets, and heterogeneous constraints and
incentives. The nature and the extent of welfare and resource outcomes of rural
livelihood strategies are different across sites and among different households. A
livelihood strategy that integrates cash crop production with high external input-based
staple crops production and trade was found to be more successful. Overall, the
findings challenge the current untargeted and uniform intervention that implicitly
assumes that only farming and the intensification of staple crop production for food
self-sufficiency is important to all households. Furthermore, the findings challenge the
over simplified generalisations regarding the human welfare and resource effects of
rural population growth in Ethiopia as if the interactions between them were taking
place in a political, an institutional and an agro-climatic vacuum and as if rural
households in a district, a sUb-district or a village were a 'homogeneous' group.
What is thus needed is decentralisation of rural development planning and building of
the capacity of local institutions so that they may be able to understand rural
livelihoods and design innovative and locally specific integrated interventions to
support sustainable rural livelihoods. The specific recommendations include ensuring
land tenure security, improving farmers' access to the market and appropriate
technologies, creating conducive environment for commercialisation and livelihood
diversification , institutionalised safety net, resettlement and family planning
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Keywords
context of population pressure