Productive Safety Nets Program and Household Level Graduation in Drought-Prone Areas of the Amhara Region of Ethiopia: A Case Study in Lay Gaint District

Even though the governments of Ethiopia in successive eras had implemented different policies, strategies and programs to alleviate poverty and food insecurity, still millions of people are dependent on food handouts for many decades. The general objective of the study was therefore; to identify the constraints faced the safety net beneficiaries by using Lay Gaint district as a case study site. Questionnaire survey, key informants interview and focus group discussions were employed to collect the primary data. A total of 201 households were covered by the questionnaire survey. The study revealed that 56% of the sample households were safety nets beneficiaries. About 82% of the sample households were disappointed for the criteria used in the selection of the beneficiaries because of inclusion and exclusion errors. The majority of the poor (61.1% of respondents) who is the subject of the program were not clear to the selection criteria employed. Almost all the sample households informed that there was blurred information about graduation in general and the time of graduation in particular. The binary logistic regression results showed that households total income, livestock owned, total crop production, kilocalorie intake and geographical location were significant variables used to predict households’ graduation from safety nets. These call upon government officials to put considerable efforts in creating awareness to the benchmark used and the time of graduation from the safety nets.Keywords: FSP, PSNP, targeting, graduation, Lay Gaint, Ethiopi

Legume breeding and seed systems for improved livelihoods and impact

The Tropical Legumes III project aims to reduce food insecurity in drought-prone areas of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA), through improved productivity and production of four major grain legumes – chickpea, common bean, cowpea and groundnut. This is being sone by conducting research under three complementary research and delivery pillars: support for the development and release of farmer-preferred varieties; strengthening of the legume breeding capacity of partner CGIAR centers (ICRISAT, IITA and CIAT), and national partners Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda; and establishment of sustainable seed delivery systems that service the needs of small-holderfarmers. Significant achievements have been recorded. Breeding program assessments have been completed in all countries and improvement plans developed for execution. New seed varieties (163) have been released and are fast replacing the old ruling seed varieties in all target countries. Thirty seven national partners were trained at MSc and PhD levels. As a result of the enhanced skills and knowledge of seed value chain actors, seed production significantly increased by 221% (from 139,048 to 446,359 tons) in seven years. Since 2007, improved varieties have been adopted on at least 2 million hectares and more than $448 million has been generated from the project funding and nearly$976 million from the project and investment partners. For each dollar invested, the project generated $9 with direct project investment or$20 with partnership’s investment, and again $20 when using adoption rate based estimate. These achievements and implementation challenges will be discussed

Assessment of Quality of Diabetic Care in Teaching Hospitals in Ethiopia: In Comparison to International Guidelines

Mengesh Akale,1 Tirhas Tadesse,2 Balew Arega1 1Department of Internal Medicine, Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 2Department of Public Health, Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College, Addis Ababa, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Mengesh Akale, Email [email protected]: Comprehensive high quality of care is critical in preventing diabetic complications and improving quality of life. This needs compliance with guidelines and focused therapy. There is no data in Ethiopia evaluating the quality of diabetes care using standard guidelines (American diabetic association and international diabetic federation) as a reference.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College (YHMC) to assess the process and outcome quality indicators of diabetic patients. Data were collected from outpatient clinics between May and July 2022 over a period of 3 months. Diabetic patients with at least one year since diagnosis were selected using systematic random sampling. Both the process and outcome of diabetic quality care indicators were measured and compared with standard guidelines (ADA and IDF). Both descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used for data analysis. The P-value < 0.05 was used as statistical significance.Results: About 250 diabetic patients with a mean age of 53± 15 were included. The majority were type 2 diabetes mellitus (83.2%). HbA1c was determined for 128 (51.2%) patients with the recent mean value of 8± 1.6. Only 52 (40.6%) of patients achieved target HbA1c. Annual comprehensive feet examination, urine albuminuria test, and retinal examination were done for 54 (21.6%), 52 (20.8%), and 122 (48.8%), respectively. Single marital status (AOR = 5.76; 95% CI; 1.02– 32.36) P = 0.047, determining HbA1c level at least twice a year (AOR = 6.27; 95% CI; 2.18– 17.73) P = 0.001, and medication adherence (AOR = 7.1; 95% CI; 2.61– 19.01)P = 0.001, were significantly associated with good glycemic control.Conclusion: The overall quality of diabetic care was found suboptimal both in process and outcome quality indicators. Thus, awareness creation about quality indicators for caregivers, compliance with guidelines, wise resource utilization, and cooperation with different stakeholders like hospital management teams, and government officials is needed.Keywords: quality care, process and outcome indicators, diabetes mellitus, glycemic contro

Modelling algal dynamics in eutrophic coastal waters

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Drought-induced agricultural livelihood vulnerability: Livelihood-based comparative analysis in Northeast highlands of Ethiopia

AbstractThe main objective of this study was to analyze drought-induced agricultural livelihood vulnerability through a comprehensive assessment of agro-meteorological, biophysical, and socioeconomic variables in North Wollo. The study area has four main livelihood zones, namely, Abay Tekeze watershed (ATW), North Wollo east plain (NWEP), North Wollo highland belg (NWHB), and Northeast woina-dega mixed cereal (NEWMC). A total of 274 sample households were selected from all the livelihood zones by considering wealth rankings. A Survey questionnaire, supplemented with focus group discussions and key informant interviews, was used to collect the data. Principal component analysis was applied to determine the indicators and assign weights. Consequently, from 66 indicators 32 were prioritized to measure the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of the system. Both the livelihood vulnerability framework (LVI) and vulnerability sourcebook approach (LVIVSBA) were applied to assess livelihood vulnerability. The results revealed that the entire study area was characterized by higher exposure (0.653) and higher sensitivity (0.632) scores to drought impacts, while it exhibited a lower adaptive capacity (0.37). In both approaches, NWHB obtained the highest vulnerability score (0.681/0.715) followed by NWEP (0.634/0.619), whilst ATW revealed the lowest (0.583/0.555) in LVI and LVIVSBA, respectively. Similarly, the poor (0.671/0.670), medium (0.589/0.593), and better-off (0.554/0.537) were relatively ordered from the highest to the lowest. In conclusion, differential livelihood vulnerability does exist across the livelihood zones and wealth groups. The major sub-components which worsen household’s vulnerability were access to irrigation, food self-sufficiency problem, scarcity of livestock fodder, poor access to basic infrastructure, lower livelihood diversification, inadequate economic resources, low educational status, lack of training and support. Hence, the study calls for decision-makers and development partners to develop context-specific planning and interventions that strengthen the farmers’ adaptive capacity and minimize their exposure and sensitivity to the issue

Characterization of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms) biomass in Lake Tana, Ethiopia

This study aimed at assessing the characteristics of water hyacinth biomass in Lake Tana. Explanatory research design was used based on biomass samples and satellite images acquired along with field observation and literature reviews. The results showed that high amount of N and P nutrients, shallow nature of the Lake and suitable climatic conditions of the area are the causes for the weeds’ proliferation. The mean NDVI values were −0.542 to 0.828 and −0.628 to 0.877 in the dry and wet seasons, respectively. The spatial distribution of the weed was 2126.9 ha and 592.4 ha during the wet and dry seasons. The weed has recorded a mean leaf length of 9.3 cm, petiole length of 28.1 cm, root shoot ratio of 3.3, leaf blade area of 55.6 cm2 and leaf area index of 11343.9 cm2. In addition, a mean of 10.9 leaves per plant and 18.6 plants per 0.25m2 was found. Furthermore, the biomass analysis revealed 1,990,787.8 tons of wet and 554,523.8 tons of dry water hyacinth biomass can be harvested from the Lake per year. Stakeholders shall work on control of water hyacinth biomass as a short-term measure and reduction of nutrient inflow into the Lake as a long-term measure

Baseline study of Striga control using Imazapyr Resistant (IR) maize in Western Kenya

This report presents the results of the baseline study undertaken to assess the status of Striga damage, the general livelihoods and livelihood strategies of the rural poor in western Kenya. A stratified random sampling method led to the selection of 8 districts, 16 sub-locations, 32 villages and 800 households. A combination of techniques for data collection was used, including literature review, GPS recordings, focus group discussions and interview of individual households. Various econometric m odels were also developed and estimated for data analyses. A stochastic frontier production function was used to measure the technical efficiency of maize production. A logistic regression model of poverty was estimated to examine the determinants and correlates of poverty in western Kenya. The study revealed that households are small in size and the dependency ratio is high. There were about 26% of households headed by females. The level of education is low for the heads of households and all members of farm families. Households are endowed with a multitude of assets for their livelihoods. However, the level of assets was found to be low or of very poor quality. Maize is the major food crop and a so urce of cash income. Farmers grow both local and improved (hybrid) maize varieties, but the productivity is low. There is a considerable gap between potential and actual maize yields. Major factors constraining crop production include Striga infestation on maize, low soil fe rtility, drought and erratic rainfall. Striga is the major threat to livelihoods of smallholders and its economic importance has increased over the past three decades. Traditional methods of Striga control include uprooting, burning and manuring, which have proved to be ineffective. Alternative technologies exist but they have not been adopted and used as they should because the level of awareness is very low. Analysis of the determinants of poverty reveal ed that the poverty status of a household in western Kenya is significantly related to Striga damage, Striga control, dependency ratio, age, education, technology adoption, land per capita, farm assets, off-farm work, cash crop production, and location. More than 70% of the sampled households experi ence food shortage lasting as long as five months every year. Coping strategies include off-fa rm short-term jobs, disposal of assets, and informal safety nets especially through remittances received from relatives. The anthropometric Z scores calculated on children indicate that about 30% were wasting, 50% were underweight and 48% were stunted. Simila rly, the results on body mass index (BMI) on women showed that 36% were underweight while 18% were overweight. One of the possible strategies to reduce poverty and vulnerability is to increase the efficiency in maize production. Considerable variation in maize production efficiency was found among the sample maize farmers. The results point to the possibility of increasing maize production through improved efficiency and best local practic es adopted by the most efficient farmers in the sample, such as integrated Striga control. While technical efficiency increases with educational attainment, it has a significant non-li near relationship with farm size where it first increases but eventually declines with farm size. The direct farm size-efficiency relationship for smaller holdings coupled with the fact that most farmers in western Kenya cultivate tiny plots of land suggests that re-allocation of more land to maize would enhance farmer efficiency. Increased efficiency could be achieved through, for instance, more optimal application of inputs and greater intensity of ad option of improved maize varieties. Therefore, efforts must be made to enhance adoption of both hybrid maize and Striga control technologies to help increase maize production. Maize yields in Kenya have continued to decline despite increased use of new maize varieties, largely due to lack of effective Striga 7 control technologies. Promoting both high-yielding varieties and Striga control technologies should thus be an important goal for research and extension in Kenya