Project description / objective
The PRIME programme worked with traditional pastoralists, and those transitioning out of pastoralism, in Ethiopia’s drylands to reduce chronic poverty and food insecurity.
Through market linkages PRIME sought to increase household incomes and enhance resilience to climate change.
Livestock plays a central role in the livelihoods of Ethiopia’s diverse pastoralists (15 per cent of the population). It supports household nutrition, provides transportation, informal social status and self-esteem. PRIME’s overarching market systems focus was on livestock, livestock products and strengthening alternative livelihoods. However, it also carried out important work on:
- Natural resource management - working to enhance adaptation to climate change and diminishing access to resources and rangelands
- Knowledge management - with support for inclusive financial services, inclusivity for the disabled, agri-sensitive nutrition, and pastoral development
- Dietary diversity - through nutritional education and increased financial security
Market system focus
Livestock & livestock products
Improved productivity and competitiveness of livestock and livestock products
The majority of pastoralists derive limited financial return from their livestock assets. However, financial benefit from livestock is an increasingly important source of resilience to recurring shock, reducing the risk of total loss of household assets, and to cope with declining terms of trade.
Despite the challenges, significant opportunities exist for growth in demand for livestock and livestock products on both the domestic and international markets.
Alternative livelihood
Strengthened alternative livelihoods for households transitioning out of pastoralism
Families often send youth to peri-urban areas to diversify risk but lack of jobs and income-generating opportunities pose additional challenges, especially for women.
Poor access to financial services, in particular savings and credit, result in the reduced ability of households to cope with external shocks and quickly recover their livelihoods when conditions improve.
Programme interventions
Livestock & livestock products
- Strengthening networks of private veterinary providers
- Promoting dairy production via milk collection groups
- Linkages with processes and business expansion grants to processors through an Innovation Investment Fund
- Promoting meat production via an export-quality slaughterhouse
- Live animal export
Alternative Livelihoods
- Improving access to agricultural inputs
- Improving access to financial services
- Renewable energy projects
- Vocation training & job fairs: support for people augmenting or transitioning out of pastoralism, including vocational training scholarships, online job platforms, entrepreneur networks and job fairs
Notable results (systemic change, poverty impact)
- 2,252,404 marginalised people have enhanced resilience to withstand shocks and stresses from climate change through market linkages.
- Families have more income to help them through shocks. PRIME's systems facilitation approach helped household nominal income in target areas increase by 78 per cent (equivalent to $2,287 annually over the baseline of $1,589) giving families greater financial security and more ability to diversify their diet.
- PRIME mainstreamed nutritional education across components to help to increase the number of households where children ate four or more food groups (from 1 per cent at baseline to 6 per cent at endline).
- Communities are better organised to adopt natural resource management practices. 42,008 hectares of rangeland improved through NRM and 180,422 individuals increased capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change.
- Prime increased resilience to shocks. Midway through implementation, Ethiopia was hit with two of their worst droughts in more than 50 years. During the drought, PRIME participants had:
- 1.4 times higher asset values than a comparison group
- 4 per cent less likelihood of risk of being under the poverty line
- reported up to 20 per cent less livestock mortality rates
- increased borrowing from friends and family, reducing reliance on risky borrowing mechanisms
Livestock & livestock products
PRIME interventions helped increase the use of animal health services from private veterinary pharmacies to 22 per cent of households.
Animal health is important for pastoralists because healthy animals fetch higher prices at market, have less chance of unexpected death in a shock and more food for the family to eat and sell. Use of community health workers also increased.
Alternative Livelihoods
Businesses in livestock and dairy sectors received critical investments to grow:
- $18 million in private investments were leveraged with $6 million in business investments
- 5,668 full-time equivalent jobs created
Financial service access expanded to pastoral communities and households transitioning out of pastoralism:
- 341,316 individuals obtained direct access to financial services and products
- 301,578 individuals opened savings accounts
- 37,838 individuals obtained business loans.
Supported Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) created more appropriate and accessible financial services, backed by modern technology for the poorest and most vulnerable.
PRIME facilitated the development of 11 enabling policies to support inclusive financial services, inclusivity for the disabled, agri-sensitive nutrition and pastoral development.
[updated January 2020]