The Impact of Public Works Programme on Child Labour in Ethiopia

Given the conventional wisdom that poverty and associated income shocks are the fundamental causes of child labour, from a policy perspective, there is a perception that social safety net programmes can play a vital role in reducing child labour. While there is extensive evidence that shows the prevalence of child labour is low among beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programmes, the impact of workfare programs on child labour has been rarely investigated in the economics literature. This paper addresses the issue by evaluating the impact of the public works component of the Productive Safety Net Programme implemented in Ethiopia in 2005. The programme aims to help poor households to build assets and develop resilience to shocks through employment in public projects. Results from child fixed effects estimations show that children in programme beneficiary households are significantly less likely than their counterparts in non‐beneficiary households to be involved in child labour. The findings suggest that, if well targeted, even safety net programmes that do not primarily target child outcomes can be useful in addressing child labour problems.     

Risk aversion,cooperative membership,and path dependences of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers in Sub‐Saharan Africa often mitigate production risks through cooperative membership: institutionalized arrangements where they pool resources and collectively manage production and marketing chains. Cooperative membership has a significant advantage: it cushions detrimental effects of external forces, placing a premium on a risk‐seeking attitude (experimenting and innovating), which can yield greater accumulation. However, cooperatives are self‐selective institutions: relatively better‐endowed farmers, who are usually less risk‐avoidant than poorer ones (a consequence of their broader material bases), tend to be overrepresented. These two realities complicate the causal assessment of the relationships between risk attitudes, farmers’ socioeconomic status, and cooperative membership that is essential to comprehend the role of cooperatives in local capital accumulation. To help resolve this thorny analytical problem, an experimental study was carried out in eastern Ethiopia—a risky production environment where cooperatives feature prominently and relatively affluent farmers exist alongside poorer ones. It unveils the working of specific path dependences: poorer cooperative members are less risk seeking than nonmembers, but at an interval much less than that observed for affluent farmers. For development policies, this suggests that a greater payoff can be expected from investing in farmers’ material bases than from further improving cooperative membership.     

Home country institutional impediments and international expansion of developing country SMEs

Though institutional contexts are critical drivers of firms’ international expansion, very limited research efforts have focused on how and when these factors facilitate developing country firms’ outward market activities. This study derives insights from the institution-based view and activity theory to test how perceived environmental uncertainty mediates the link between institutional impediments and international expansion. Using data from small and medium-sized firms from Ghana (N = 222) and Ethiopia (N = 203), the findings suggest that high levels of perceived regulatory and cognitive impediments amplify the mediation effect of perceived environmental uncertainty on the degree of SME’s international expansion. Additionally, the findings suggest that, when political connections are well-developed and deployed, the potency of perceived environmental uncertainty as a driver of international expansion is attenuated. Moreover, the study finds that varying levels of home-country industry competition moderate the relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty and the degree of international expansion. Implications relating to theory and practice are discussed.     

Community conversations as a strategy to change harmful traditional practices against women

This article conducts a series of list experiments to detect whether community conversations contribute to a change in thinking about harmful traditional practices in Ethiopia. While our findings are mixed, we provide evidence that community conversations are indeed a valuable instrument to induce a change in social values in order to empower women.     

Peer effects and the choice of adaptation strategies

This paper analyzes the impact of peer choices on the decision to adapt to climate change in rural Ethiopia. Two IVs are employed (peer-of-peer choices and peer-of-peer information sources) in order to tackle the issue of endogeneity. Through the use of a 3-year panel of farmers in the Nile Basin region, we find that peer choices positively affect the uptake of different adaptation strategies. A 10 percentage point increase in the share of peers using a specific strategy translates to an increase in the likelihood of adaptation between approximately 7% and 14%. This emphasizes the importance of social networks to achieve adaptation to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Open access post-harvest grazing and farmers’ preferences for forage production incentives in Ethiopia

Open access post-harvest in situ grazing is widespread in areas where a mixed crop-livestock system is common. Where this is not discouraged, because livestock is important, conservation agriculture, which depends on keeping the soil surface covered with crop residues is unlikely to be implemented. One way to reduce open access grazing is through restricting communal grazing access to allow rights of exclusion, while simultaneously improving the production of livestock feeds. This paper analyzes farmers’ perceptions about post-harvest free grazing on agricultural lands and identifies incentives that motivate forage production, to help inform forage development and policy. We collected data from randomly selected farm households in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia and used a choice experiment method. We found that a majority of farmers would prefer post-harvest grazing restrictions to the existing reciprocal post-harvest grazing. Farmers also had strong preferences for forage production policy incentives, but the results reveal considerable preference heterogeneity. The study provides policy makers with needed information in formulating policy incentives for smallholder forage production systems.     

A study on financial opportunity costs of growing local varieties of sorghum in Ethiopia: Implications for on-farm conservation policy

The increasing interest in on-farm conservation is driven by its diverse attractive features — its participatory nature and its flexible and dynamic features; its capacity to maintain not only crop diversity but the knowledge that evolves with it; and the chance it offers to link conservation with utilization and farmers' livelihoods. To implement this strategy on a sustainable basis, policy incentives are crucial. This paper argues that opportunity costs farmers face have a role to play to design sound policy incentives. Taking sorghum as an example, opportunity costs have been examined in this paper using data collected from 198 farmers in Eastern Ethiopia. The average opportunity costs suggest the size of the required policy incentives and they are the basis to estimate the national conservation costs for on-farm conservation. The regression analysis shows that opportunity costs increase with access to output markets and extension, output price, access to input supply, experience in growing improved varieties, and the relative importance of the crop. On the contrary, plot quality, input price, and oxen ownership are reducing the opportunity costs. The paper then concludes outlining the policy implications of the empirical findings to incentive design for on-farm conservation.     

Productivity and Land Enhancing Technologies in Northern Ethiopia: Health, Public Investments, and Sequential Adoption

The adoption of more efficient farming practices and technologies that enhance agricultural productivity and improve environmental sustainability is instrumental for achieving economic growth, food security, and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Our research examines the interaction between public investments, community health, and adoption of productivity and land enhancing technologies by households in the northern Ethiopian state of Tigray. Agricultural technology adoption decisions are modeled as a sequential process where the timing of choices can matter. We find that time spent sick and opportunity costs of caring for sick family members are significant factors in adoption. Sickness, through its impact on household income and labor allocation decisions for healthcare and other activities, significantly reduces the likelihood of technology adoption. Our findings suggest that agencies working to improve agricultural productivity and land resource conservation should consider not only the financial status of potential adopters, but also their related health situation.     

Soil and water conservation technologies: a buffer against production risk in the face of climate change? Insights from the Nile basin in Ethiopia

This study investigates the impact of different soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies on the variance of crop production in Ethiopia to determine the risk implications of the different technologies in different regions and rainfall zones. Given the production risks posed by climate change, such information can be used by decision makers to identify appropriate agricultural practices that act as a buffer against climate change. Results show that SWC investments perform differently in different rainfall areas and regions of Ethiopia and that the effectiveness of technologies such as irrigation, fertilizer, and improved seeds often depends on whether these investments are coupled with SWC measures. These results underscore the importance of the selection of appropriate combinations of technologies and careful geographical targeting when promoting and scaling up SWC technologies for adaptation to climate change.     

Developers and farmers intertwining interventions: the case of rainwater harvesting and food-for-work in Degua Temben,Tigray, Ethiopia

Understanding the objectives, strategies and actions of the different actors that play a role in the implementation of rural development programmes is a key to explaining the latter's success and sustainability. Based on in-depth anthropological fieldwork and from an actor perspective this paper shows how the Rainwater Harvesting Pond Programme (RHPP) and the public work component of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) work out in practice in one district of the Tigray region in Ethiopia. Developers and farmers turn the two essentially unrelated rural development programmes into practically intertwined interventions, which leads to an undesirable set of outcomes. The RHPP's participants, who are conceived of as willing to improve, are favoured above other candidates for employment in the PSNP, which farmers compete for. Developers' and farmers' moves and countermoves result in targeting errors in the PSNP and in farmers massively constructing rainwater harvesting ponds, the large majority of which fail because farmers do not aspire to make them succeed, but merely see them as a stepping stone to employment in the PSNP. In addition both groups' perception of each other is affected. Our observations challenge prevailing interpretations of the effects of development interventions on Tigrayan people's livelihoods.