The impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets and Household Asset Building Programme: 2006-2010

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. It emphasizes that the external environment in which the PSNP operates has been challenging. Chapter 4 considers the impact of the duration of participation in the Public Works component of the PSNP on food security and asset outcomes. It also considers whether participation duration has unintended consequences such as reducing private transfers or providing a disincentive to start nonfarm businesses. Chapter 5 examines the joint impacts of payments for Public Works and the Other Food Security (OFSP) and Household Asset Building Programs (HABP) for the period 2006–2010. Direct Support payments are an important component of the PSNP (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 considers the impact of the level of Public Works transfers on food security in the HVFB woredas of the PSNP.