Access to improved water source and satisfaction with services: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

In recent years access to safe and reliable water supplies has received increased government attention in Ethiopia. As a result, the national coverage rate for this service has gradually improved. Yet millions of people in rural areas still do not get drinking water from an improved water source. While expanding improved water source schemes is generally essential, it is equally important to ensure that the schemes have increased users' satisfaction with water quality and availability for everyday use. Using household survey data and employing univariate and bivariate probit models, this paper attempts to investigate the effect of access to an improved water source on users' satisfaction with both quality and availability of water. The study findings suggest that access to an improved water source significantly raised household satisfaction with both quality and availability of water. However, the effect of the improved water source on users' satisfaction was slightly lower for water availability than for water quality.drinking water, users' satisfaction, bivariate probit,

Women's Participation in Agricultural Cooperatives in Ethiopia

Agricultural cooperatives hold much potential to enable economically weak farmers, in developing countries, to increase their collective bargaining power and so enhance their incomes. They provide input services and create market opportunities to their members’ products. In most developing countries, female farmers are marginalized from participating and benefiting from such groups. This paper uses a rich dataset from a survey undertaken by the Ethiopian Economic Association and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in eight woredas in seven regions of Ethiopia with a sample of 1,117 households and 73 agricultural cooperatives. Using descriptive statistics and econometric analysis under a critical gender lens, the paper identifies which cooperative, household, and individual level characteristics influence women’s participation in agricultural cooperatives. The findings suggest that a major barrier to women’s access are gender biases within households, communities, and cooperatives themselves that favor educated male household heads and land owners over resource-poor women

Urbanization and Fertility Rates in Ethiopia

Fertility rates are important determinants of both overall population growth and demographic transitions from high to low age dependency ratios, which in turn have important consequences for economic growth, poverty reduction, and improved health and nutrition outcomes. Ethiopia currently has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, although there are marked differences between rural and urban fertility rates. This paper explores the drivers of rural and urban fertility rates, including systematic tests of differences in key determinants. This further allows us to project fertility rates into the future based on alternative urbanization, economic growth, and education scenarios. Finally, we link these alternative projections with existing estimates of the benefits of fertility reductions on economic growth, nutrition, and poverty reductio

Quality Matters and Not Quantity: Evidence on Productivity Impacts of Extension Service Provision in Ethiopia

This paper contributes new empirical evidence and nuanced analysis on the gender difference in access to extension services and how this translates to observed differences in technology adoption and agricultural productivity. We employ a cross-sectional instrumental-variable regression method using a regionally-representative dataset of more than 7,500 households and 32,000 plots in four major regions in Ethiopia that was collected during the 2010 main season. Results suggest that female heads of households and plot managers are less likely to get extension services and less likely to access quality services than their male counterparts after controlling for plot, household, and village level characteristics. Receiving advice from development agents (DAs) is strongly and positively related to adoption of improved seed and fertilizer for both females and males, as hypothesized. However, beyond their influence through fertilizer and improved seed use, visits by or advice from DAs are not significant in all productivity models estimated for females and males, which is in contrast to past studies. In some crop-specific productivity models estimated, it is the perceived quality of DA visits and access to radio that appear to be strongly and positively significant in explaining productivity levels for both female and male farmers. Our results highlight the need for productivity models that are stratified by gender and crop

Urbanization and fertility rates in Ethiopia

Fertility rates are important determinants of overall population growth and demographic transitions from high to low age dependency ratios. These in turn have important consequences for economic growth, poverty reduction, and improved health and nutrition outcomes. Ethiopia currently has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, although there are marked differences between rural and urban fertility rates. This paper explores the drivers of rural and urban fertility rates, including systematic tests of differences in key determinants. These further allow us to project fertility rates into the future based on alternative urbanization, economic growth, and education scenarios. Finally, we link these alternative projections with existing estimates of the benefits of fertility reduction on economic growth, nutrition, and poverty reduction.Non-PRIFPRI2; Subtheme 6.2; GRP32; ESSP IIDSG