THE IMPACT OF RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM ON FOOD SECURITY OF PASTORAL AND AGRO-PASTORAL HOUSEHOLDS IN GODE DISTRICT OF SOMALI REGION, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Centuries have gone with pastoralists surviving on livestock and using mobility as a strategy to navigate the intriguing vagaries of climate variability and arid environments where sedentary life became untenable. As such the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia paid a deep attention to tackle this problem through resettlement programs. This study evaluated the impact of resettlement program on household food security by considering households’ daily total calorie intake per adult equivalent using 2015-year cross-sectional survey data. Three stage sampling method has been used to choose appropriate sampling size and finally one hundred and sixty respondents were randomly drawn from both program participants and non-program participants from rural areas of Gode district with similar pre-intervention characteristics. The major analytical concern of the study is to estimate the impact of resettlement program on pastoral and agro pastoral households’ food security using propensity score matching technique. After controlling for differences in demographic, socioeconomic and institutional characteristics of the sampled households. It was found that the program has increased participating households’ calorie intake by 20% (i.e., 453 calories) compared to that of non-participating households. However, the impact of the program on calorie intake was not uniform across the participating households. It was found that family size of household and livestock death number were found to have strong and positive relationship with propensity of program participation. On the contrary, livestock feed shortage appears to have a less calorie intake on households, ceteris paribus. Beside to the resettlement program, the achieved result has been insignificant compared to the budget raised for it. Based on these results, the study suggests a better implication for policy makers and development to revise the implementation of program interventions aiming on food insecurity issues among pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. This study also derives some issues such as lack of awareness among pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, so as to make them capable of participating in the program.