Pathways out of the Productive Safety Net Programme: Lessons from a Graduation Pilot in Ethiopia

Anasuya Sengupta

ABSTRACT

In 2006 CGAP and Ford Foundation launched the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program, a global effort to understand how safety nets, livelihoods and microfinance can be sequenced to create pathways for the poorest out of extreme poverty, adapting a methodology developed by BRAC in Bangladesh. The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is helping to implement ten Graduation Pilots in eight countries including in Ethiopia, in partnership with local organizations. Impact assessments and/or qualitative research are being implemented in all sites. This paper presents findings from the Graduation Pilot in Ethiopia1 through a narrative of participants’ life stories. Faced with severe food insecurity and scarce livelihood opportunities, much of the rural population depends on the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) administered by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), for indeterminate periods of time. In response, Relief Society of Tigray (REST) is implementing the pilot in partnership with Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution (DECSI). Overall, REST’s intervention is a cost effective, easily scalable programme that has been very successful in creating credit worthy micro-entrepreneurs. Based on the results of a self evaluation exercise and participant evaluations by field staff, 3 types of respondents are identified: fast, slow and intermediate climbers. An in-depth qualitative analysis reveals that while participants’ pre-existing circumstances are predictive of their livelihood performance, it is the programme’s capacity to respond to peculiarities of each household which finally determines whether there is a story of change, or not.