Beyond Food Security: Transforming the Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia for the Well-being of Children [Working Paper No. 83]

This paper investigates the possible impacts of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) on children’s well-being and recommends child-focused social protection that goes beyond the PSNP. It draws on data from the Young Lives survey of 569 rural households and qualitative case studies of 32 households and children living in four rural communities in 2006 and 2009. The quantitative analysis finds that, despite an increase in the incidence of economic shocks (such as drought and food-price inflation) and idiosyncratic family-related events such as the illness or death of family members, the value of cash and food transfers in real terms from the PSNP did not improve from 2006 to 2009, and even declined. Though it protects many children from hunger, the PSNP fails to ensure food security, contributes little to poverty reduction and does not guarantee that children attend school. The paper concludes that, amid limited resources and contexts of vulnerability to protracted shocks, there is a need for child-focused social protection