Evaluating the impact of productive safety net program on rural household food security achievement: Endogenous switching regression modeling approach

Abstract

The Ethiopian government, together with other organizational partners, developed the Rural Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) to combat food insecurity. Therefore, this article aimed to examine the impact of a rural PSNP on household food security in the market district. By the probability sampling technique, 380 sample households and two rural PSNP technicians used as the primary data source, while secondary data were collected from the national report. The analysis was carried out with the help of descriptive analysis and econometric models. The study used Endogenous Switching Model (ESM) to analyze and examine the impacts of a rural PSNP on food security and identify factors that affect household participation in rural PSNP. Ten explanatory variables were included in the model to identify the determinant variable, of which seven are significant. The significant variable found to determine households’ participation in rural PSNP is age, livestock unit, labor force, cultivated land, off-farm income, and credit access by a level of confidence of 5% and 1%, respectively. The study findings showed that participation in rural PSNP only increases current consumption smoothing rather than future consumption, after graduating member households turn back into their previous living standards. Currently, food insecurity is one of the main challenges in the study area that requires immediate intervention to alleviate the problem. The PSNP is one of the integrated programs with the aim of helping food-insecure rural households become food-secure ones. Based on the finding, the study recommends that the program cash transfer should be increased and complementary community investment should be introduced. The limitation of some targeting criteria is an observed problem of the program in the study area. Due to certain criteria, poor households were excluded. Therefore, an adjustment of the criteria that had been taken to exclude poor households is necessary.