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By Pankaj Kumar
Selecting beneficiaries for any resilience project is always difficult. But one of the basic principles is that women, children, orphans and the elderly should be near the top of the queue. In Ethiopia, with its high population density, land shortages and rain failure, Concern Worldwide started to tackle food insecurity in Amhara region back in December 2011. Among those it targeted were women and members of female-headed households.
One of the project objectives was to reduce vulnerability to future disasters like the Horn of Africa Crisis by providing seeds for cultivation and sale at market. Crop seeds and potato tubers were distributed on the basis that beneficiaries would return the same amount to the co-operative at the end of the harvest so that seed could be distributed to other beneficiaries. Potatoes are particularly useful because they can be harvested early by families suffering from hunger. They also mature during the food shortage time, thus filling the “hunger gap”.
Tafetu Belay, who lives in a small straw roofed hut with four family members, had resisted growing potatoes because the practice was not traditional in her area of Chewkutir. It’s high land which has the potential to grow potatoes, wheat, lentils and barley. She’s poor and her household has no male head. Tafetu tills her small plot but production is low due to erratic rainfall. She had no livestock and had to work as a daily labourer for better off farmers to survive when her food ran out. Concern gave her 50 kg of improved potato tubers and basic agricultural advice. When a Concern project worker visited her later she told him. “The potatoes are lovely and big! I sold some at the local market nearby my village and used the money to buy a ewe and four chickens. In addition, I covered the schooling expenses for my child. There was no food shortage in my family this year because we were able to eat the premature potatoes. I stored some potato seed for the coming production season and three farmers also bought seed from my harvest.”
Female-headed households are often very poor in Ethiopia. Belaynesh Mamuye has no husband and is the head of a household of 5 people. That’s why she was one of 100 households in her area selected by Concern Worldwide in collaboration with local government officials to receive potato seeds. Belaynesh says, “They called me for two days training on potato production and pest management before the seed distribution at Ayna town.”
As with Tafetu Belay, the potato harvest has closed the hunger gap for Belaynesh Mamuye. “My whole family used to stay days in hunger”, she says, “and I was forced to borrow money and grain which I had to pay back at harvest time. Now, my family is not hungry any more and I can send my children to school having eaten their potatoes.”
The project ended in December 2012 but Concern Worldwide workers report high demand from those who were not part of the initial project to buy potatoes from the project beneficiaries. The quality of nutrition and household assets has improved as communities buy livestock with the proceeds of their potato harvests.
The experience of Tafetu Belay and Belaynesh Mamuye illustrates why resilience programming always needs to go beyond simply treating the symptoms of vulnerability.
Pankaj Kumar is Assistant Country Director with Concern Worldwide Ethiopia
Concern Worldwide is implementing resilience programmes across Ethiopia including in the SNNP region in Ethiopia, which is supported by the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO).
