Revisiting pastoralist Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia

Studies of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in the Afar and Somali regions in the Ethiopian lowlands suggest that the PSNP is beset with difficulties. This is deeply concerning, as these predominantly pastoral and agropastoral areas have some of the country’s highest levels of poverty and food insecurity and it is difficult to find viable sources of livelihood outside of pastoralism in these areas. The paper “Targeting social transfers in pastoralist societies: Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme revisited” (2018, 18pp) by Jeremy Lind et al draws on three rounds of household survey data from 2012, 2014 and 2016. It shows that there has been no meaningful improvement in targeting performance since 2010.

The authors assess five explanations for this – resources and undercoverage, involvement of traditional learders in targeting, insufficient training, attitudes of programme implementers, and transparency – and consider the norms regarding fairness and a lack of transparency as the most likely explanations for continued poor targeting. The PSNP experience in Ethiopia calls into question the effectiveness of technocratic fixes as well as the appropriateness of targeting social transfers in pastoralist societies.

Posted on 10 June 2019 in Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition