Background of the study
Ethiopia is one of the most extreme examples of the countries in Africa which is highly vulnerable to climate change variability (Declan Conway, 2011). The country has been affected by a series of drought and flood disasters which are claimed to be induced by climatic factors such as weather variability. Although, Ethiopia has been achieving quite well in its economic development by registering an average annual growth of 11 percent since the last eight years and eventually targeting to increase the economic growth through the second Growth and Transformation Plan which was initiated in 2013, it is clearly understood that the impact of disasters can hold back the development outcomes (DRMFSS, 2011) which may affect 90 million people who depend their sustenance agriculture and around 70 million of the farmers; smallholder, who grow enough quantity of crops and keep up their families (Hassam, 2016),
A decrease in crop productivity; food production has an impact on a household’s or community’s food security and its cause is often linked to climate change variation (Climate Change and Food Security, 2005, pp. Gregory, P.). Similarly, in Ethiopia the cause of food insecurity is attributed to several factors such as population pressure, drought, shortage of farmland, lack of oxen, deterioration of food production capacity, outbreak of plant and animal disease, poor soil fertility, forest attack, shortage of cash income, poor farming technologies, weak extension services, high labor wastage, poor social and infrastructural facilities, and pre and post-harvest crop loss. (Bisrat Endalew, 2015)
Similarly, the causes, intensity and severity of food insecurity differ widely in different region of Ethiopia. For example, Tigray region is among the regions in Ethiopia mostly hit by recurrent drought and food security problems, since the last 1984 famine. Many people live in conditions of chronic hunger with a low average energy supply (Devereux 2000a). The combined problematic factors of environmental degradation, irregular rainfall, high population pressure, recurrent cycle of drought, lack of diversification in economic activities, and institutional factors threaten food security in the region. (Van der Veen, Effect of Policy interventions on Food Security in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, 2011). In fact Gulomekada Woreda, the focal area of this research work, which is located in the Eastern part of the region is one amongst the know areas of the region in which the above mentioned combination of factors are the causes of food insecurity.
Since 2004, recognizing the need to address the impact of climate risks on food security, the Government of Ethiopia established the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) and other social protection programs such as household asset building program, as part of its comprehensive National Food Security Programme. The PSNP is a national social protection system which provides predictable, multi-year assistance to millions of chronically food-insecure rural households throughout the regions of the country, to help the transition away from depending on chronic emergency food assistance. Through the PSNP, households participate in community disaster risk reduction and asset-building works in exchange for food and/ or cash transfers. (WFP, 2016)
In-spite of the above mentioned social protection initiative, drought exacerbated by El Niño, combined with extensive flooding, disease outbreaks and the disruption of basic public services, is having a negative impact on the lives and livelihoods of 9.7 million Ethiopians. Food security and agricultural production are severely affected, with cascading effects on livelihoods, nutrition, health, water, sanitation, education and other sectors. Food insecurity and malnutrition rates remain high with the number of people requiring humanitarian assistance having tripled since early 2015. (DRMFSS, 2016)
Despite investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance, there is scant evidence of which approaches to building resilience represent the best ‘value for money’. (Tim Frankenberger, 2012). Resilience has become one of the keywords in the recent scholarly and policy debates on food security. However, household resilience to food insecurity is unobservable ex ante.
As climate change drives an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural hazards, the challenges faced by food-insecure communities struggling to improve their lives and livelihoods will also increase. The question of how to build rural resilience for climate change adaptation is critical for addressing global poverty. (UNFCCC, 2012)
Is then with this purpose in mind that the researcher want to conduct the study in order to minimize the impact of climate/weather related shocks by analyzing household’s resilience to food insecurity to determine if a household is resilient or not resilient, and finally identify the critical determining factor for such state and come up with some long term sustainable development that helps ensure food security of the household in the study area.
Statement of the problem
Tigray is one of the most drought-prone areas of Ethiopia, and faces recurrent droughts and food shortages. Most smallholder farmers face sizeable food deficits every year and are vulnerable to recurrent drought shocks. Poverty reduction and ensuring food security is Tigray’s most significant development challenges. (Tagel Gebrehiwot, 2015)
Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of some disasters such as droughts, floods and storms. This has an adverse impact on livelihoods and food security. Climate-related disasters have the potential to destroy crops, critical infrastructure, and key community assets, therefore deteriorating livelihoods and exacerbating poverty. Changes in climatic conditions have already affected the production of some staple crops, and for the most vulnerable people, lower agricultural output means lower income where most of the poorest people who already use most of their income on food also sacrifice additional income and other assets to meet their nutritional requirements. This condition could also create a vicious cycle of disease and hunger. Besides, climate variability can also upset the stability of individuals’ and government food security strategies, creating fluctuations in food availability, access and utilization. (WFP, Climate Impacts on Food Security, 2016)
Gulomakeda is one of the Woredas in the Eastern Zone of Tigray Region of Ethiopia. In this Woreda, climate change and variability is severely affecting the rural livelihoods and agricultural productivity. As a farming community, the village relies heavily on the rainy season from July to September. This rain water is used to water fields and crops, ensuring a good harvest in October.
However, in 2015/2015, insufficient rainfall during the rainy season has resulted in farmers struggling to grow crops; meaning farmers have suffered from failed harvests. According to Woreda’s Disaster prevention and Food Security office’s monitoring and evaluation report of the year 2015/2016, the crop yield is very low in almost all tabias due to the erratic and insufficient rain fall. The rainfall has been very week in both the ‘belg’ and ‘kiremt’ season which resulted in low productivity and yield. Moreover, erratic rainfall which caused flooding has damaged crops in some tabias of the Woreda.
According to the Woreda report to regional DRMFSS, 437,059.35 Quintals of crop yield was expected to be harvested but it was possible to harvest only 23% of it, which is 103,478.6 Quintal. 2249 hectares was planned to be cultivated but it was possible to only cultivate 952.4 hectars of land which is 42.35%. As a result the prices of cereals and vegetables have double, for-example, the price of pepper which was 40 Birr per Kilo before 12 months but now the price has gone up to 170 Birr/Kilo, and the price of decreased from 8000 Birr to 4000 Birr due to the failure of overall agricultural productivity and lack of green pasture; fodder or vegetation. Potable water springs have almost dried up in some tabias and there is high shortage of drinking water that and it has been observed that there are long lines of people queued up to get water. The Woreda Administration is giving emergency response such as safety net program, other social protection mechanisms such as engaging capable individuals in the integrated watershed management and other communal construction works at a payment of 180 Birr/day for the Masonry and 80 Birr/day to daily manual laborers. It has been reported that food security conditions especially in some particular tibias have sharply deteriorated and 14,153 people need urgent emergency response out of the entire 96,060 population, and more are expected to need emergency responses. (DRMFSS G. W., 2016; Bisrat Endalew, 2015)
Most previous studies conducted particularly in Gulomekada Woreda mainly focus on food security and nutrition, HIV, rural household poverty dynamics, climate change adaptation, etc. So far no studies on household resilience to food insecurity have been undertaken by anybody at any level. Therefore, this study will contribute its part by analyzing the determining factors of household resilience to food insecurity and recommend policy measure resilience oriented development interventions on the basis of the finding of the research study. To do so, the researcher will conduct this study to analyses how people absorb, adapt and transform the food insecurity shocks and find out if the food insecurity shock is truly due to climate change variability.
Research Question
1. What are determining factors the household resilience to food insecurity shocks
2. What are the features of the least and most resilient sample households?
3. What are the food insecurity shocks that affect the livelihood of the people in the study area?
4. What does the estimate of resilience tell about the food insecurity shocks
5. What are the reasons behind the different level or order of resilience?
Research Objectives
General Objective
The general objective of this study is to analyze the household’s resilience to food insecurity shocks and determine the determinants of the household resilience to food insecurity
Specific Objective
1. Analyze the determinants of household resilience to food insecurity shocks
2. Characterize shocks/stresses that are most frequent/severe in the study area
3. Estimate the resilience of households to shocks
4. Assess (compare and contrast) the features of least and most resilient sample households
5. Investigate the determinants of households’ resilience to shocks in their respective order.
Significance of the study
In a time where global warming is increasing, climate change causing disasters that badly affects agriculture and its production is costing too much money for humanitarian aid and no significant change is observed as a result of it. Resilience and livelihood sustainability is very crucial in the face of protracted crises, where people exposed to different hazards can adapt, cope and transform them for a better but challenging future. This study is significant for these reasons; mostly it is significant to analyze the existing households’ resilience to shocks so as to devise best approach to helping the poor people who are food insecure as a result of different integrated and complicated shocks and, therefore, to recommend appropriate development interventions to policy makers. Besides, the research is important for the scientific community in contributing possible new experiences and knowledge as a result of this research.
Scope of the study
The study is designed to have thematic and geographically scope. Thematically the study will analyze households’ resilience to shocks in a community of more or less 3,000 populations. It will analyze in greater detail if the research targeted community is resilient or non-resilient to shocks; such as drought, flood, and increase to market price, epidemic diseases and other related prevalent shocks. Geographically the study will be conducted in Eastern Tigray Region Gulomekada Woreda, Tabia Sebeya which is located in the northern part of Ethiopia 5kms away from the border of Eritrea.
Scope and delimitation
The study will be limited internally on its own as it may not fully represent the factors or variables that represent households’ resilience; may be due to lack of proper metrics to measure them. The researcher hopes to include more factors with better and updated econometric measures but other future or current parallel researchers may go one step ahead. As I tried to reflect in the problem statement, most of the empirical works are done by a team of professional experts’ minimum of three people, and by Universities or big institutions with all the expertise and resources. I as individual may face resource limitation; specifically financial resource and human resource during data collection. This is most likely true because I am based in Addis Ababa and the research that I have intended to conduct is more or less 1000 Kms away and therefore I will have to prepare myself for time, budget and other resources constraints. Other unforeseen limitations will be brought forward to your acknowledgement during the process of the research, mostly at the completion period.
Review of related literature:
Introduction
Resilience has become a hot issue of interest in the eyes of multilateral, developmental, government and non-governmental organizations as it is a new concept that helps to understand how households manage to overcome shocks and stresses. It also provides a new direction for sustainable development intervention rather than deploying huge amount of resources to crises without even lessening the intensity of other future potential disaster that may cause social, environmental and economic catastrophe. That is why development practitioners are interested to intervene with development projects and programs which can create and strengthen households or communities resilience to shocks; which is a more reliable problem solving development approach, especially in solving the food security and general wellbeing of the most affected poor people by disasters. Referring to UN frameworks for disaster risk reduction such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, Paris Agreement on Framework convention on Climate Change 2015, and Sustainable development Goals, the center of interest and emphasis is resilience approach; resilience to disaster or shocks or stresses or crises.
In this chapter, the researcher will provide a both theoretical, Conceptual and empirical literature review focusing on resilience; particularly household resilience which is the basic unit of analysis. On the theoretical aspect of the literature, various definitions adopted by several multilateral and international development agencies , historical process of resilience and its role in sustaining livelihoods, and the Ethiopian DRMFSS approach to resilience will be discussed. Moreover, recent literatures and empirical works are subjected to review.
Theoretical Literature Review
Concept of Resilience
The term ‘Resilience’ is originally developed from the Latin word ‘resilio’, which means ‘to jump back’ (Klein, 2003). The concept and its application is now being applied in different field of social and natural sciences increasingly in the urban economy and rural livelihood, and it is influencing the national policy. (Lauren Andres, 2014). In the field of disaster risk management and climate change, has been used and expressed as ‘resilient communities’, ‘resilience livelihoods’, ‘building community resilience’, ‘disaster resilience’ and ‘resilient nations’ and have been written down and included in documents as central elements (DCS/QG, 2009a; Twigg, 2007; UN/ISDR, 2007). Thus, as Norris et al. affirm (2008, p. 128), ‘‘the term is probably here to stay’’.