Relief to development - a blueprint for tackling rural poverty

For years, the subsistence farmers of Sekota have depended on food aid, regardless of severe droughts or famines. Even in good years they are barely able to produce enough to see them through four months of the year, and they survive on occasional international food aid handouts. But a new pilot project – Relief to Development, or R2D - is attracting plaudits worldwide. Its aim is to prise these rural communities out of their life of dependency. Sekota – in northern Ethiopia - was the epicentre of the 1984 famine which claimed 1 million lives. Twenty years on, the area has still not recovered from the tragedy. Perched among the hills of Amhara Regional State, barren and isolated, it has one of the largest food-dependent and poorest populations in an already impoverished country. Dry, dusty and strewn with fist-size rocks, the soil has suffered years of erosion as a booming population struggles to grow enough. But the US $30-million R2D scheme, which was launched in January, is being billed as a potential blueprint for tackling this kind of deeply engrained rural poverty. The pilot - funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – guarantees farmers full food rations for the next three years. In doing so, it hopes to encourage farmers to take risks, to diversify and to try different crops, by ensuring they will still have enough food for the long-term. It means that even if farmers try a different crop or a different type of work like rearing chickens, and it fails, their families will still be able to eat. Mulugeta Said, the head of the food security unit in the Amhara regional government, believes the pilot project could potentially double incomes in three years. "This scheme is very important to us," Mulugeta told IRIN. "The people are being encouraged to adapt to new ideas because they will have the support of food aid. Traditionally the farmers opt for their old ways of doing things because they cannot afford to gamble with what little food they have." The targeted 'woredas' (districts) – Sekota and Gubulafto - are two of the poorest in the entire country. Ethiopian government officials estimate that income per head is just $0.40 cents a day. By the end of the project they hope to boost it to more than $1 a day. "They cannot keep their families on this income," Mulugeta said. "By the end of the project we hope they can feed themselves for almost all the year." Under R2D, families are given the international standard of 15 kg of food per person per month, rather than the current 12.5 kg food aid ration. After providing them with a long-term food commitment, farmers are then shown new techniques for water harvesting, growing different crops or diversifying their incomes. The programme also builds on existing ways of earning a living, such as goat or sheep-rearing, so people are not so reliant on weather-dependent crops. In addition, it is looking at introducing new crops: one called Triticale, a mixture of barley and wheat, is drought-resistant and has a higher yield. Experts are working with farmers to see what they need, whether it be seeds or oxen, or providing credit so they can buy livestock or fertiliser. For their part, the farmers must help develop terracing to prevent soil erosion, and water conservation. "I hope this scheme works because then we will be able to provide food for our families," Worku Endershaw, a 41-year-old subsistence farmer, told IRIN. Endershaw said that a growing population, and ever-dwindling parcels of land, were making life harder each year. "At the moment life is very difficult," the father of five said. The scheme is particularly pertinent this year, when once again Ethiopia is reeling from a serious drought, and one in five people are dependent on food aid. In Amhara - one of 11 regions in Ethiopia - more than 3 million people need food aid. R2D aims to ensure farmers have enough to see themselves through such droughts. Even during bumper harvests, almost half of Amhara's 113 'woredas' fail to produce enough food for people to survive. Farmers depend on rainfall of around 500 mm a year, which is barely enough to grow crops. Water conservation is critical. As in many parts of Ethiopia, erratic food aid and the culture of dependency it has created have had dire results in Amhara. When insufficient food arrives, or arrives late as is often the case, families face what aid agencies describe as 'asset-stripping'. Families are forced to sell their livestock, or possessions, sometimes even their tin roofs, to make ends meet. For subsistence farmers already living a hand-to-mouth existence, asset-stripping deepens their vulnerability to future drought or harvest failures. As a result, they become more dependent on food handouts because they have nothing to fall back on – they have no assets left to help them struggle through lean years. According to some academics, asset-stripping means many families never recovered from the 1984 famine. Stephen Devereux, from the UK’s Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK, argues that in places like Amhara, the poor are actually getting poorer despite more than 20 years of aid. He says asset-stripping is generally acknowledged as the cause. R2D is also trying to reverse the ever greater destitution in the highlands of Ethiopia by protecting – and boosting - the assets families already own. "The whole objective of this project is to turn that around – from increasing destitution to decreasing destitution," said John Graham, the head of Save the Children UK, which is implementing the project on behalf of USAID. Aid agencies also believe a crucial step is to break the reliance on the annual January food aid emergency appeal made by the Ethiopian government. Donors now recognise that the January appeal acts as a constraint on the effective use of food aid to do longer-term development work. They argue that each year, some five million people lack sufficient food, which is a predictable number that can be tackled through long-term development, not emergencies. "The emergency mentality has been our biggest handicap," acknowledged Graham. "If you want to make proper use of your food resource you have to give it on a long-term basis and plan it properly and be methodical about it." R2D is also the first time that the US has guaranteed food to a community for three years; usually an annual pledge is made in line with government emergency appeals. Although it is too early to see any results, other international donors are already adopting the idea. The Ethiopian Government has a similar programme – the Transitional Asset Protection System (TAPS), which is also being piloted. Donors such as the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) have expressed an interest. The EU is also looking at starting up its own project. While the overall scheme is attracting widespread support among humanitarian organisations, some say the project needs fine-tuning. Some experts argue that three years is not long enough to make a real change. Other development agencies, including Save the Children, argue that it might be better to give cash rather than food aid. Even so, for the impoverished farmers of Sekota, the scheme is offering a much-welcomed lifeline. "Everybody wants to learn better ways of how to improve the land and not have to live on food aid," said Worku Endershaw. "This is offering us a glimpse of hope."