Food and cash for work in Ethiopia: experiences during famine and macroeconomic reform.

Abstract

nationwide famine that left up to a million people dead, the escalation and culmination of Africa's longest civil war, experiments in the wholesale relocation of villagers, a reversal in government policy from centralization to decentralization, and, on top of all that, the recent implementation of structural adjustment. These upheavals have contributed to a depletion of household wealth on a massive scale and a growing food deficit. At no time during this 10-year period has the structural deficit between food supply and demand been less than 500,000 tons. As a result, as many as 5 million individuals (10 percent of the total population) were considered to be acutely food insecure in 1993 (World Bank 1993; USAID 1993). Throughout this decade of crisis, the Ethiopian government and donors have relied heavily on labor-intensive public works. This paper examines the experiences of a number of large and small public works programs implemented in Ethiopia during the past decade and is divided into three sections. The first briefly outlines the changing design characteristics of programs as they have been adapted to perceptions of prevailing need. The second section examines targeting issues and the impact of participation on poor households. This analysis is based on the results of surveys at eight project sites around the country. The last section draws a number of conclusions from the Ethiopian case study. The Changing Scale and Focus of Public Works Ethiopia generally receives between 20 and 30 percent of all food aid arriving in Sub-Saharan Africa, the annual amount depending on the severity of prevailing drought or famine conditions. Figure 8.1 indicates that aid deliveries ranged between 200,000 and 300,000 tons until the

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