ADDIS ABABA, March 30, 2009 – Close to 9000 people in the Silte zone of Ethiopia’s Southern region are participating in a project that is at once lifting them out of extreme poverty and hunger, enhancing the environment and building community assets.
The project, the Productive Safety Net Project, or PSNP, initially launched in 2005 and scaled up in 2006, supports a large-scale public works initiative which pays wages to food insecure, but able-bodied, citizens, who in turn develop small-scale projects to sustainably rehabilitate highly degraded environments – one of the main causes of food-insecurity.
The program provides direct grants, along with wages, to those physically unable to work and is reaching an estimated seven and a half million people in Ethiopia. I mplemented throughout the country, the multi-donor program is su pported by the World Bank, World Food Program, the Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands and the United States, as well as by the European Union.
Kuru Tekle, a single mother of eight, is a recent graduate of the PSNP program. She says she is highly indebted to the program because it has allowed her, not only to have enough food to feed her family, but also to send her children to school.
Kemal Shukre, a father of seven, has also benefited from the program.
“Prior to participating in the PSNP I had nothing,” Kemal said. “But now I am earning extra cash from growing fruits and vegetables and from selling milk and butter from the cows that I got as part of the household package.”
The PSNP was initially created after the New Coalition for Food Security – a coalition comprised of the Government of Ethiopia, its development partners, and key NGOs – pushed for more sustainable alternatives to the annual provision of large amounts of humanitarian food aid to prevent starvation.
As a result of the program, thousands of kilometers of different soil conservation structures were undertaken; close to 730 km of rural feeder roads were constructed, communal ponds were built with a capacity of over 64,000 cubic meters; and several small bridges have been constructed using local materials to facilitate mobility between villages. Close to eight million seedlings have also been planted.
In addition, 250 classrooms, 35 farmer training centers, one animal health post and 38 human health posts have been constructed to improve asset building at the communal level. This has provided members of the community easy access to schools and health posts and other crucially needed facilities.
“We are starting to see evidence that by taking a long-term developmental approach, and by working together with the other investments Government is making in the sector, the PSNP can have a significant impact on the problems of food security in Ethiopia,” William Wiseman, the project’s team leader, said.
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