Drought, Resilience, and Long-term

Development

Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse

International Food Policy Research Institute

The Future of Ethiopia’s Agriculture: Towards a Resilient System to

End Hunger and Undernutrition

Addis Ababa Hilton

December 15, 2017

Addis Ababa

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Outline

Drought

incidence and short-term impact

response: Relief, PSNP (Address short-term impact)

Resilience

Definition

PSNP

Log-term development

Premise – some long-term impact occur, vulnerabilities remain

(food gap, stunting), progress,

Long term development – systems innovation;

* Source: Authors’ calculation using data on daily rainfall in millimetres (mm) extracted from the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website

(http://power.larc.nasa.gov/cgi.bin/cgiwrap/solar/hirestimeser.cgi?email=daily@larc.nasa.gov)

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Incidence and Impact of Drought

*Source: EM-DAT: The Emergency Events Database - Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL) - CRED, D.

Guha-Sapir - www.emdat.be, Brussels, Belgium (Created on: December 03, 2017)

Notes: Affected - People requiring immediate assistance during a period of emergency, i.e. requiring basic

survival needs such as food, water, shelter, sanitation and immediate medical assistance.

Year Total affected

1965 1,500,000

1969 1,700,000

1973 3,000,000

1983 7,750,000

1987 7,000,000

1989 6,500,000

1997 986,200

1998

1999 4,900,000

2003 12,600,000

2005 2,600,000

2008 6,400,000

2009 6,200,000

2011 4,805,679

2012 1,000,000

2015 10,200,000

Incidence of Drought in Ethiopia (1965-2015)*

Drought:

Recurrent;

Some widespread, others local;

Appear to increase in frequency

(particularly in some parts of

the country);

There are:

other weather shocks –

flooding;

non-weather shocks – pests,

human and animal health,

economic;

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Incidence and Impact of Drought

Source: Authors’ calculation using PSNP Surveys (2010-2016) data.

PSNP Woredas (2008-20016)

Shocks Incidence Impact

"Low-

lands"

"High-

lands"

"Low-

lands"

"High-

lands"

Drought 56.3 45.8

Loss of household income 25.7 34.9

Reduction in household consumption 25.4 32.8

Pests or diseases that affected livestock 23.2 8.4

Loss of household income 22.0 32.6

Reduction in household consumption 23.7 12.6

Drought shocks have transitory and long-term impact;

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Incidence and Impact of Drought

Evidence of longer-term effects based on the 1984/85 drought/famine -Dercon (2004), Dercon and Porter (2014), Tafere (2017);

10% lower rainfall today associated with 1 percentage point decline

in growth about 4–5 years later;

Greater severity associated with worse outcomes – about 16

percentage points lower growth;

(Note: average CV of rainfall for the last 30 years in PSNP woredas

has been 1.35)* ;

affected children aged 12-36 months are significantly shorter, by at

least 5 cm, as adults (20 years later);

Second generation - Mothers’ exposure to famine in early childhood

has a negative effect on their children’s health (height-for-age z-

score), cognitive (number of years of schooling) and non-cognitive

(locus of control) human capital;

* Source: Authors’ calculation using data on daily rainfall in millimetres (mm) extracted from the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website

(http://power.larc.nasa.gov/cgi.bin/cgiwrap/solar/hirestimeser.cgi?email=daily@larc.nasa.gov)

Response to drought shocks

Response has evolved over time, still is;

Relief – annual appeals system, shortcomings (delay, lack

of predictability);

PSNP – coordinated, multi-year, predictable, ‘productive’

John’s and Kalle’s presentation on the nature and

impact of PSNP

Part of comprehensive development planning;

Broad social protection agenda;

Resilience

Multiple conceptualisations of resilience and vulnerability;

Resilience

a recovery trajectory following a specific shock.

an ex-post approach (study reported below):

Impact of PSNP

beneficiaries recover after no more than 2 years, rather

than taking up to four years) – resilience;

Considerable food gap remains;

PSNP, vulnerability, and resilience Findings – PSNP transfers reduce vulnerability and improve

resilience (2006-2014)

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Vulnerabilities remain

Source: Authors’ calculation using DHS (2005-2016) data. AEZ classification as earlier presentations.

Stunting Incidence among Children Under 5

(%)

2005 2016

AEZ zone Non-PSNP PSNP Non-PSNP PSNP

Drought prone 46 47 37 33

Pastoralist 50 60 35 34

Humid moisture reliable – Lowland 49 61 34 38

Moisture reliable – Cereal 50 55 38 25

Moisture reliable – Enset 55 42 38 40

Two examples:

Up to 75% more vulnerable people in drylands in 2030 (2010=100, medium

fertility scenario)

Child Stunting;

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Long-term development

Premise

Progress - rapid agricultural growth, diversification into non-agriculture;

Accelerating agricultural transformation still necessary, doing so gets

harder given the achievements so far;

There are compounding factors – environmental degradation, climate

change, population growth;

Degradation:

o Loss of top soil – over 14 million hectares of top soil have less than 50

cm depth, making it susceptible to drought.

o Soil nutrient depletion – equivalent of 30 kg/ha of Nitrogen (N), and 15

to 20 kg/ha of phosphorous (P) are lost annually through erosion on

cultivated lands.

o the average annual on-site cost of soil erosion has been estimated

between 2 and 6.7 % of AGDP’ (see Yusef et al. (2005) )

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Degradation

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Long-term development

Focus – drought-prone or drylands (AI of 0.05-0.65)

System perspective – challenges and opportunities should

be viewed from a single economic space perspective –

interlinked parts;

More integrated economy – greater integration is the most

feasible avenue with the potential to generate

enduring/sustainable solutions to the development

challenge;

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Long-term development

Radical system-wide innovations necessary;

A 20-25 year programme to transform and integrate the drylands;

Food and nutrition security as an outcome of an integrated

economy

An idea:

Degraded highlands – encourage a shift into tree crops and semi-modern dairy farming (with fodder production as a new and

growing activity);

Lowlands – encourage expansion of cereal production, mobilelivestock rearing;

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Long-term development

Some implications:

Invest on human capital – mobile schools and clinics;

Invest on water management in all areas – irrigation, better water

use arrangements;

Invest on disease (human and animal) control and in less moisture

reliable low lands;

Enhance the role of the private sector in agricultural inputprovision;

Promote well-defined and focused cooperatives, particularly in

dairy production and development;

Potential - there appear to be considerable potential yet to be deployed

productively in parts of the country;

Land – (next slide)

Water – renewable internal freshwater resources

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Cropped Land by AEZ (2004-2016)

Source: Authors’ calculation using CSA’s AgSS (2004-2016) data. AEZ classification as earlier presentations.

AEZ

share in

total

surface

area

(%)

AEZ

cropped area

in total

cropped area

(%)

Cropped area

share in total

AEZ surface

area (%)

Number of

woreda

Drought prone, Highland 11.4 23.2 23.5 146

Drought prone, lowland; Pastoralist 50.9 3.5 0.8 139

Humid moisture reliable, lowland 11.9 4.4 4.3 52

Moisture reliable, highland - Cereal 20.1 57.5 32.9 264

Moisture reliable, highland - Enset 5.8 11.4 22.7 126

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Thank You