Project profile — Productive Safety Net Program 2013-2017

• Ethiopia (100.00%)

• Education, Level Unspecified: Education facilities and training (11120) (5.00%)
• Basic Health: Basic health infrastructure (12230) (5.00%)
• Agricultural policy and administrative management:
Agricultural policy and administrative management (31110) (5.00%)
Agricultural development (31120) (10.00%)
Agricultural land resources (31130) (10.00%)
Agricultural water resources (31140) (10.00%)
• Forestry: Forestry development (31220) (5.00%)
• Developmental Food Aid/Food Security Assistance: Food aid/food security programs (52010) (50.00%)

• Gender equality (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (significant objective)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project represents Canada's continuing support for Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program. This national program addresses some of the underlying factors that leave many poor people in rural Ethiopia unable to meet their daily food requirements on a year-round basis. Led by the Government of Ethiopia, with the support of Canada and other donors, the program aims to reduce the chronic vulnerability these people experience and enable them to progress towards self-sufficiency. The program is designed to provide timely transfers of food or cash to beneficiaries during certain periods of the year when food is not readily available. As a result, the beneficiaries do not have to sell their limited assets (livestock, farm implements) in order to survive until the next growing season. The beneficiaries receive the food or cash in exchange for their labour on small, community-based, public works projects that contribute to the well-being of the community involved. These projects are chosen by the communities and may include activities such as: (i) terracing and planting trees to improve soil conservation and restore degraded watersheds, so that more land can become agriculturally productive; (ii) small-scale water collection and irrigation initiatives to provide water sources during the growing season, thus decreasing the chance of losing crops due to limited rainfall; or (iii) the construction of community infrastructure such as rural roads to enable farmers to go to and from markets, schools for children to enhance their future economic opportunities, or health centres so that people can become and remain healthy in order to be contributing members in their community. Food is also provided directly to eligible beneficiaries who, due to personal circumstances, are unable to provide labour for public works. These include orphans, pregnant and lactating women, households with only elderly residents, young children and mothers in female-headed households, and people living with HIV/AIDS. Canada's support to this program is provided through the United Nations World Food Programme and the World Bank.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: increased food sufficiency for female and male household members in chronically food insecure regions.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (June 2015) include: (1) 7 million of chronically food insecure people from 319 districts across eight regions of Ethiopia received food or cash transfers; (2) the average food gap (i.e. the number of months during which the family does not have enough to eat) for the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) beneficiaries dropped from about 3.0 months in 2010 to 2.04 months in 2012 and to 1.75 months in 2014. We can therefore state that food security has been increased; (3) PSNP public works participants have constructed over 39,000 km of road and have maintained an additional 83,000 km, thereby linking rural communities to small towns where they can get access to inputs, markets, and services. Public works have also contributed to improved access to education and health services through the construction of over 500 health posts and construction or rehabilitation of 4,300 school rooms; (4) public works have supported livelihoods through the development of water infrastructure for household and agricultural use through the construction or rehabilitation of over 208,000 ponds, the development of 8,100 springs, the construction of over 55,000 hand-dug wells, and the construction or rehabilitation of 8,300 km of canals; and (5) public works have also greatly contributed to climate change adaptation, through results achieved such as 49,440 hectares of land covered with improved water management techniques, leading to improved water retention and decreased flooding, and planting over 75 million seedlings. Some public works sites following “climate-smart” principles have mitigated the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration, with an average of 5.7 tonnes per hectare of CO2 sequestered per year. These results have contributed to enhanced livelihoods and resilience to shocks of rural households.

• Proactive disclosure