Impact of Productive Safety Net Programme on Household Food Security: Case of Graduates in Adami Tullu Jido Kombolcha District of Oromia N ationai Regional State.
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Date
2021-06
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AAU
Abstract
This paper attempts to evaluate the contribution of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net
Program (PSNP) on household food security in general and the graduation process in
particular. The PSNP operates as a safety net, targeting transfers to poor households in two
ways, through public works (PW) and direct support (DS). The program is to provide food
insecure people public work for five days a month pays 10 birr/day for their labor on labor intensive projects designed to build community assets during the agricultural slack season
and thereby enable households to smooth consumption and prevent them from selling
productive assets to overcome food shortages. The public work is also intended to create
valuable public goods, and reduce seasonal liquidity constraints and thereby stimulate
investments. Direct support, in the form of cash transfers, is provided to labor-scarce
households, including those whose primary income earners are elderly or disabled in order
to maintain the safety net for the poorest households who cannot participate in public works.
Primary data was collected from 43clients of PSNP and 30 graduated households selected
randomly from three kebeles namely Dodicha, Warja Washgula and Bochessa from Adami
Tulu Jido Kombolcha woreda of Oromia National Regional State. Thirty two non-beneficiary
households were selected purposively only from Dodicha kebele. The sustainable livelihood
framework was adopted to identify the outcome of the program and food insecurity as
disaster model is applied as theory to identify whether disaster was the cause of food
insecurity or not. Household food insecurity access scale was used as a tool to measure the
status of household food security. The study revealed that the PSNP is already having an
impact, that several important changes have taken place in terms of smoothening
consumption, asset protection, asset building. Households graduate from the PSNP when
they are able to fill the food gap they had prior to their entry to the program and have
additional resources to protect themselves from the modest shocks. The subjective assessment
of the households' perception on food self sufficiency are not uniform throughout
households. The concept of modest shock was not fully defined in the graduation guide note.
Unless the definition is agreed or explicitly stated it is difficult to establish what level of
resource equates to food sufficiency and graduation in general. The study identified that
PSNP is showing positive trends to hit its objectives. However, PSNP on its own may not
allow large numbers to graduate from food insecurity, unless it is combined with the other
fo od security programs, and especially the extension packages, loans. The restructuring of
Oromia's Food Security Office institutional framework arrangement several times in
mandate, structure, and scope in the recent years and rapid turnover of staff at Woreda level
are big challenges which seeks immediate solution for the effective implementation of the
program. In AT JK Woreda vast majority of rural households are heavily reliant on rain-fed
agriculture and, hence any irregularity in weather conditions has adverse welfare
implications. The result suggests that, agricultural performance must improve if the food
security of the majority of A TJK 's Woredafarming households is to be enhanced. But more
attention must be given to stabilizing yields, disseminating drought-resistant varieties to
farmers in this drought prone woreda, rather than high-yielding but riskier varieties and
access to inputs must be provided on time and more reasonable terms.