Targeting food security interventions when “everyone is poor”: The case of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme

Coll-Black, Sarah; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hoddinott, John F.; Kumar, Neha; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; Wiseman, William

Targeting food security interventions when “everyone is poor”: The case of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme

Autores

Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum

Wiseman, William

Editor

International Food Policy Research Institute
Ethiopian Development Research Institute

Descripción

In Ethiopia, as in many other African countries, there is a pressing need to improve household food security. An emerging consensus suggests that this is most easily accomplished through two development strategies with two complementary dimensions: investments that facilitate income generation and asset accumulation (infrastructure development, improved technologies for agriculture, etc.), and interventions that protect the poorest from hunger, prevent asset depletion and provide a platform on which the growth interventions can take place. Given limited resources for the latter, there needs to be an allocation mechanism. But in a country like Ethiopia, where poverty is widespread and income distribution relatively equal, how does targeting work? (Woldehanna et al. 2008); literally, when “everyone is poor".