A Sub-National Food Security Index for Ethiopia: Assessing Progress in Region-Level Outcomes

ETHIOPIAN DEVELOPMENT

RESEARCH INSTITUTE

A Sub-National Food Security Index for Ethiopia: Assessing Progress in Region-Level Outcomes

Emily Schmidt and Paul DoroshESSP – II ConferenceOctober 22-24, 2009

• Access to sufficient food and nutrients is essential for household welfare, as well as for accomplishing other development objectives.

• Households with insufficient access to food often face other challenges related to food insecurity including poor health and declines in productivity.

• With the goal of providing a transparent and more straight-forward database on food insecurity, IFPRI developed a Global Hunger Index (GHI) in 2006 that allowed for easy comparison across countries.

• National averages can mask important regional differences, thus we calculate a Sub-National Food Security Index for Ethiopia using data from 1999-2000 and 2004-05 household surveys

Assessing Food Insecurity and Measuring Progress

INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE – ETHIOPIA STRATEGY SUPPORT PROGRAM


Measuring Food Insecurity

• Recognizing the various dimensions of food insecurity, the Global Hunger Index equally weights:

• Proportion of people who are food energy deficient (FAO estimates are based on a cross-country regression:undernourishment as a function of per capita food availability and other factors)

• Prevalence of underweight children under the age of five (WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition)

• Mortality rate among children less than five years of age (UNICEF’s The state of the world’s children 2009 )


Measuring Food Insecurity

• The Ethiopia Food Security Index uses this same weighting system, but uses nationally collected data

• Household Income Consumption Expenditure Survey, and the Demographic and Health Survey from 2000 and 2005

• Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for 1999-2000, and 2004-2005.

• The Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index is an analysis of past trends and not the present situation


Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index: 2000 - 2005

• The Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index is calculated for 10 of the 11 regions

• Representative at the regional level, and are disaggregated by rural and urban areas

• We analyze differences among administrative regions and between rural and urban areas within the country

• Proportion of people who are food energy deficient (undernourished) • Prevalence of underweight children under the age of five • Mortality rate among children less than five years of age


Undernourished population based on calorie consumption

• The HICE household level food consumption data were converted to calories using food-to-calorie conversion factors compared against the Ethiopia food composition tables produced by the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI).

• The GHI for 2009 calculated calorie-based undernutrition for Ethiopia to be 46%, based on the undernourishment cutoff of 1,820 kilocalories

• A national undernourishment rate using the FAO recommended 1,820 calorie cutoff yielded a 38% undernutrition rate

• To ensure comparability of the Ethiopia Index with the GHI 2009, we adjusted the calorie intake cutoff to 1,990 kilocalories per day, which yielded a national calorie undernourishment rate of 46%. (we use this cut-off for the remainder of the analysis)


Underweight children and child mortality

• The first Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in Ethiopia was conducted in 2000, which provided regional and rural / urban estimates of:

• Proportion of underweight children less than five years of age (weight-for-age was less than two standard deviations)

•Mortality rate among children less than five years of age (percentage of children born alive who die before the age of five)

•Another round of the DHS was conducted in 2005, which provided the same series of estimates with a similar sample design


Results: Food Security Index 2000 - 2005

Improvements in Undernourishment Rates

• This analysis indicates substantial reductions in prevalence of undernourishment – by 20 % points or more in each region over the five year period.

• Addis Ababa, Harari, Oromia, Afar, and SNNPR decreased undernourishment prevalence by at least 30 % points

• SNNPR showed the most improvement with a 39 % point difference.

• High rates of calorie undernourishment in comparison to the other indicators remain serious: The prevalence of undernourishment in 6 of 10 regions is greater than 50% of population


Improvements in Child Underweight and Mortality

• Most regions experienced progress in underweight and mortality rates , but to a lesser extent.

• SNNPR experienced the most improvement in underweight prevalence of 19% points

• Afar region decreased the child mortality rate by 11% points

• The child underweight prevalence is quite high in seven regions ( at least 34%)



Table 1: Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index and its Underlying Components

Prevalence of Calorie

Undernourishment (%)

Prevalence of underweight

among children < 5 years (%)

Under 5 mortality rate

(%)National Food Security Index

Region 2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005

Addis Ababa 83.4 53.3 14.1 11.0 11.4 7.2 36.3 23.8

Harari 77.2 47.6 27.1 26.7 19.1 10.3 41.1 28.2

Oromia 72.5 42.3 42.4 34.4 19.4 12.2 44.8 29.6

SNNPR 84.6 45.5 53.7 34.7 19.2 14.2 52.5 31.5

Dire Dawa 79.4 51.3 30.8 29.6 17.6 13.6 42.6 31.5Afar 84.9 52.7 50.5 34.1 22.9 12.3 52.8 33.0

Amhara 71.7 47.1 51.8 48.9 18.3 15.4 47.3 37.1

Tigray 83.0 59.3 47.9 41.9 16.9 10.6 49.3 37.3

Somali 77.9 53.0 44.3 50.9 18.4 9.3 46.9 37.7Benishangul-Gumuz 73.2 53.6 42.3 44.6 19.8 15.7 45.1 38.0

Ethiopia 65.9 46.0 10.5 10.5 18.8 13.2 31.7 25.1

• Nationally, food security improved approximately 6 percentage points• Afar and SNNPR show the most improvement over time, progressing 20 and 21 percentage points respectively

Results: Ethiopia Food Security Index 2000 - 2005


Ethiopia Food Security Index: 2000 and 2005• Addis Ababa and Harari remain the top performers in the ERHI ranking and have progressed out of the very serious category.

• Afar region moved from index rate of 53 in 2000 to placing 6th

in 2005 with a score of 33.

• SNNPR dramatically improved its score from 2000 to 2005, and is currently 4th in the ERHI ranking.

•Although much progress is seen, still serious situation



Percentage Point Change Improvement of the ERHI from 2000 to 2005

Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index 2005


Results: Rural – Urban Dynamics in Food Security 2000 - 2005


Large Cities and Population Density in Ethiopia• The rural and urban indicators of the Index have drastically improved

• Large urban areas (Addis and Dire Dawa) undernourishment rates fell 19 % points

• The rural areas decreased from 63% to 45% undernourished.

•Undernourishment rates fell 33% points in small urban areas between 2000 and 2005

Ethiopia Food Security Index - Rural and Urban Areas: 2000-2005

Prevalence of Calorie

Undernourishment

Prevalence of

underweight among

children < 5 years

Under 5 mortality

rate

Ethiopia Food

Security Index

Residence 2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005

Large Urban 72.4 53.1 16.0 12.8 12.1 7.8 33.5 24.6

Small Urban 85.4 51.9 41.4 27.1 16.1 10.6 47.6 29.9

Rural 63.4 45.0 48.5 39.5 19.0 13.3 43.6 32.6


• Large urban: improved 10% points and 2005

• Rural areas : improved 11 % points on the Ethiopia index

• Urban areas have 10 % points higher prevalence of undernourishment than rural

• Child mortality rates are twice as high in rural areas than in large cities

• Rural areas have a 17% points higher proportion of underweight children than large cities

Ethiopia Regional Food Security Index and Underlying Components: Rural and Urban Areas

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005 2000 2005

Prevalence of Calorie Undernourishment

Prevalence of underweight among

children < 5 years

Under 5 mortality rate

Ethiopia Food Security Index

Results: Rural – Urban Dynamics in Food Security 2000 - 2005

Past Studies on Food Security in Ethiopia


•Previous studies have identified interventions that may help to improve the overall condition of high risk households:

• A study completed in 2002 in North Wello modeled different development interventions and their effects on household food insecurity (Ramakrishna, G. and Assefa Demeke 2002)

• Increase in education of one person within the household would decrease the probability of food insecurity by 31.5 percent in the household

• Livestock holdings (increased by one unit) diminish food insecurity by 24.38 percent

• Conversely, an increase in family size resulted in more vulnerability to food insecurity

• Christiaensen and Alderman (2003) attribute parental education as a main determinant of child nutrition in Ethiopia

Conclusions


• Disaggregating the Ethiopia Food Security Index provides greater insight into the unique socio-economic conditions that communities confront

• Undernourishment (measured in terms of calorie consumption) contributes more to regional ratings than the other underlying variables to the Ethiopia Index in 2005

•The prevalence of child underweight and mortality in Ethiopia is higher than most Sub Saharan African countries.

• 7 of the 10 regions have a child underweight prevalence of at least 34%

• Access to sanitation and healthcare services among rural households is vital to reducing child underweight and mortality rates.

• Pneumonia (28 percent) and diarrhea (24 percent) are major contributors to child underweight and mortality rates (World Bank, 2004)

Conclusions


• Considerable progress has been made in food insecurity in Ethiopia:

• Ethiopia finalized a Poverty Strategy Plan in 2002

• Ethiopia is very involved in The Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which outlines priorities, action steps and evaluation mechanisms in order to monitor current food security throughout the country

• The Food Security Program: to improve the food security status of up to 15 million rural Ethiopians

• The Food Security Program

•Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP)• PSNP assistance are provided to the four major regions at the Kebeleadministrative level• Currently, a total of 7.5 million chronically food insecure people receive PSNP assistance

• Other Food Security Programs: agricultural extension, water and soil conservation schemes, etc.

• Resettlement Program: move rural populations voluntarily to more agriculturally viable areas

Conclusions


• Nationally, much improvement was experienced between 2000 and 2005:• Undernourishment Rates: Decrease of 20% points (66% to 46%)• Prevalence of Child Mortality: Decrease of 6% points (19% to 13%)• Child Underweight: Remained the same, but improvements occurred within the regions (between 3 and 11% point improvement)

• Regionally, improvement was experienced in all regions but to varying degrees• SNNPR and Afar regions improved 20% and 21% in the overall index• All regions improved at least 7% in the overall index

• Ethiopia has made progress in addressing these indicators through key government programs, and continued development in key sectors

• It will be interesting to evaluate current progress on these indicators once new survey data become available for 2010.

Conclusions


A Sub-National Food Security Index for Ethiopia: Assessing Progress in Region-Level Outcomes

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