Impact Evaluation

This report assesses the impact of the Productive Safety Net, Other Food Security and Household Asset Building Programs on food security, assets, and agricultural production. It also examines whether these have led to investments in new nonfarm business activities and whether they have had disincentive effects. Chapter 2 describes the methods used in this study. It explains the rationale behind our use of double-difference impact estimates and how dose-response estimators are used to construct these. Chapter 3 provides contextual information.

Ethiopia's Food Security Programme provides income transfers through public works in its Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) as well as targeted services provided through the Other Food Security Programme (OFSP) and, later, the Household Asset Building Programme (HABP) designed to improve agricultural productivity. There is a trade-off in these two types of transfers between short-term improvements in food security and longer term food security achieved through increased agricultural productivity.

This report documents progress in the implementation of the Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP) and the Household Assets Building Programme (HABP) and assesses trends in perceptions of the effectiveness and transparency of the PSNP and HABP among different groups of clients. It also describes how living standards are evolving in PSNP and non-PSNP beneficiary households.