Targeting Food Security Interventions When 'Everyone is Poor' : The Case of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme

This paper assesses the targeting performance of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP) – a large scale social safety net program that reaches more than one million rural Ethiopian households. Most beneficiary households do public works while a small proportion receive unconditional transfers called Direct Support. We find that the PSNP is targeted towards households that are both food insecure and poor in terms of total household resources. Public works projects were targeted towards the poor, rather than necessarily food insecure households, but as poverty is highly correlated with food insecurity, food insecure households were targeted as well. Direct support was targeted towards households with limited labor endowments. Over time, community understanding of targeting criteria improved across most of the regions where PSNP was applied. Households' identification of poverty-related factors as a reason why households are selected for Public Works improved in most regions, while for most regions it is well-understood that the elderly and disabled are the intended recipients of Direct Support. Family or friendship connections were not reported as major factors in a household's likelihood to receive Public Works or Direct Support except in Oromiya. From an international perspective, the PSNP is well-targeted. Based on the Coady-Grosh-Hoddinott indices calculated for this sample, targeting is progressive in general. The PSNP also scored better than the median global value of this index and the PSNP is better targeted than any of the African safety net programs reported in Coady, Grosh and Hoddinott (2004)