Social protection and resilience

The case of the productive safety net program in Ethiopia

Bibliographic Data

ID11928604
AuthorsKibrom A Abay (0000-0003-1451-2421, corresponding author), Mehari Hiluf Abay (0000-0001-7872-5835), Guush Berhane (0000-0002-6306-2415, International Food Policy Research Institute), Judith Chamberlin (0000-0001-9522-3001, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center)
Year2022
Volume112
Pages102367-102367
Publication date2022-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFood Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-9192 • E-ISSN: 1873-5657
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102367
OpenAlexW4306852071
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited59

Improving household resilience is becoming one of the key focus and target of social protection programs in Africa. However, there is surprisingly little direct evidence of the impacts of social protection programs on household resilience measures. We use five rounds of panel data to examine rural households’ resilience outcomes associated with participation in Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets Program (PSNP). Following Cissé and Barrett (2018), we employ a probabilistic moment-based approach for measuring resilience and evaluate the role of PSNP transfers and duration of participation on households’ resilience. We document four important findings. First, although PSNP transfers are positively associated with resilience, PSNP transfers below the median are less likely to generate meaningful improvements in resilience. Second, continuous participation in the PSNP is associated with higher resilience. Third, combining safety nets with income generating or asset building initiatives may be particularly efficacious at building poor households’ resilience. Fourth, our evaluation of both short-term welfare (consumption) and longer-term outcomes (resilience) suggests that these outcomes are likely to be driven by different factors, suggesting that optimizing intervention designs for improving short term welfare impacts may not necessarily improve households’ resilience, and vice versa. Together, our findings imply that effectively boosting household resilience may require significant transfers over multiple years. National safety nets programs that transfer small amounts to beneficiaries over limited time horizons may not be very effective

Business · Consumption (sociology · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Psychological resilience · Public economics · Resilience (materials science · Safety net · Social protection · Sociology · Welfare · Agricultural risk and resilience · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Medicine · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access