Ethiopia
Both household-level and systemic changes are needed to ensure that households in Ethiopia are able to withstand frequent, prolonged shocks such as drought.

Overview
Ethiopia has experienced significant poverty reduction in recent years, but is home to one of the most shock-prone areas of the world. Household, community, and systemic changes are all necessary to increase resilience.
Complex Risk Environment
Ethiopia is vulnerable to severe, recurring droughts as well as increasing rainfall variability and rising temperatures, conflict, invasive species, and environmental degradation. Prolonged drought from 2015 to 2017 followed by heavy rain and flooding in 2018 left many households facing significant food insecurity. These prolonged and recurrent natural disasters put development gains made in recent years at risk and place a significant burden on the national government and the international humanitarian community.
Resilience Approach
The Government of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), to which USAID is the largest bilateral donor, is one of the largest safety net programs in the world. The program has a target caseload of more than six million beneficiaries and aims to prevent the depletion of household assets, stimulate markets and improve access to services, and rehabilitate and enhance the natural environment through labor-based public works.
In addition, international organizations work in Ethiopia to increase food security, build sustainable livelihoods, and improve vulnerable households’ ability to withstand shocks. Ethiopia’s drylands are particularly vulnerable to weather-related shocks, so activities that improve market linkages, increase access to key livestock inputs and better livestock health services, help construct water harvesting schemes, and support livelihood diversification are particularly important for building resilience.
Opportunities for Strengthening Resilience
The 2015-17 drought demonstrated a number of factors that help boost households’ recovery from shocks in Ethiopia. These include increased pastoralist access to fodder and water, markets, and veterinary services; livelihood opportunities; investing in human and social capital; and increasing access to hazard insurance and correctly timed food and cash transfers. However, limited livelihood diversification, coupled with a lack of off-farm income and an increasing number of landless youth, poses significant challenges to the country. Systemic factors that currently hinder community resilience must be addressed through programming that complements household-level interventions.
Featured Resources
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The Recurrent Monitoring Survey 2 (RMS-2) was launched in October 2015 to collect real-time data during the drought’s progression to provide key...
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This synthesis paper reviews 20 years of research and focuses on the increasing socioeconomic differentiation in selected pastoralist areas, and...
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The workshop was intended to build the capacity of resilience program and M&E staff from USAID and implementing partners (IPs) to use...
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This profile provides an overview of climate risk issues, including how climate change will potentially impact agriculture production, livestock, water resources and human health. The brief includes an overview of Ethiopia, the climate and projected changes. Also included is information on...
Climate Change AdaptationEthiopia -
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The workshop was intended to build the capacity of resilience program and M&E staff from USAID and implementing partners (IPs) to use resilience data to inform programming decisions and to adaptively manage their projects.
Evidence and AnalysisEthiopiaSomaliaKenyaUganda -
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In late 2018, the Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) ...
Climate Change AdaptationAgricultureEcosystems and Natural Resource ManagementEthiopiaKenya -
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Join REAL and team members from USAID-funded programs in Uganda, Nepal, and Ethiopia for an interactive discussion on successes and challenges of implementing integrated resilience programming in food security activities.
Collaboration and Collective ImpactAgricultureNepalUgandaEthiopia -
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REAL partners, USAID staff, implementing organizations, analysts and policy makers gathered in a day-long workshop to discuss unique resilience evidence emerging from the Horn of Africa and how the findings can be applied for programming.
Evidence and AnalysisDiversify Livelihood RisksKenyaEthiopia -
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Using baseline data (December 2013) and Recurrent Monitoring Survey data (collected monthly from Oct 2014-March 2015), the study examines which resilience capacities enabled households in two areas of Ethiopia to recover from the 2014-15 drought in ways that can help inform future...
Evidence and AnalysisAccess to MarketsEthiopia -
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The Recurrent Monitoring Survey 2 (RMS-2) was launched in October 2015 to collect real-time data during the drought’s progression to provide key information for understanding household resilience dynamics.
Ethiopia -
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Livestock—the principal store of wealth and source of livelihood for pastoralists living in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) of the Horn of Africa— face tremendous risk from the frequent and catastrophic droughts that plague the region.
Social ProtectionKenyaEthiopia -
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Health intersects with resilience and sustained poverty escapes in at least three ways. Poor health reduces well-being and can be a shock or stressor at the individual, household, community or systems level. It can also act as an important form of human capital, a resilience capacity that...
Sustainable Poverty EscapesHealthTanzaniaNigerMalawiEthiopiaUgandaKenyaPhilippinesNepalCambodiaBangladesh -
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The Strategy serves as a common framework for developing national and regional programmes that will be designed to enhance drought resilience through building sustainability in the IGAD region.
Collaboration and Collective ImpactKenyaEthiopiaUgandaSomaliaSouth Sudan