The Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP) is a collaborative program undertaken by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). Based on the successful program reviews of ESSP Phase I (which operated over the period September 2004 to June 2008), IFPRI, EDRI and the consortium of donors funding ESSP agreed to extend the program by a second phase (ESSP II) thus continuing the program’s activities over the period July 2008 to December 2012.
ESSP II differs from ESSP Phase I in two major ways. First, ESSP II places a greater emphasis on capacity strengthening of local institutions, including the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). Second, ESSP Phase I provided extensive technical and analytical support towards the establishment of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX). With the successful launching of the ECX in early 2008, the ECX has functioned as an independent agency.
ESSP II is more focused on capacity strengthening, on strategic and actionable research, and on policy impact.
ESSP II receives funding support from a consortium of donors: the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the UK Department for International Development (DfID), and Irish Aid-Government of Ireland.
A key feature of the program design is that the structure is flexible as well as dynamic. The action research topics are identified and updated annually through the participation of a National Advisory Committee (NAC).
The NAC members are:
- H.E. Ato Newai Gebre-Ab – Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister and Executive Director of the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), Chairman
- H.E. Ato Wondirad Mandefro – State Minister, Ministry of Agriculture (MoA)
- H.E. Dr. Abraham Tekeste – State Minister, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED)
- W/ro Samia Zekaria – Director General, Central Statistical Agency (CSA)
- Dr. Solomon Assefa – Director General, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)
- Ato Bulbula Tulle – Private Sector
- Dr. Bart Minten – Program Leader, Ethiopia Strategy Support Program II (ESSP II). Non-voting, ex-officio member
In order to respond to Ethiopia’s growing development challenges, IFPRI ESSP II and its advisory committee identified four key activities:
- Collaborative research with the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) with a focus on promoting poverty reduction and economic development in Ethiopia.
- Robust knowledge-management to contribute to policy dialogue, strategic priority setting, and evidence-based policy analysis.
- Capacity strengthening and increased knowledge dissemination within the academic and policy research community.
- Enhancing communications and institutional linkages between policy makers, policy analysts, civil society, and other policy and research actors through joint seminars and other dissemination events
Current activities of ESSP II:
- Agricultural productivity: performance and constraints
- Pro-poor public spending: efficiency and accountability
- Rural non-farm economy
- Synthesis edited volume of Ethiopian Agriculture and Food Policy
- Cereal Price Determination in Ethiopia
- Analysis of the Rural-Urban Transformation
- Weather Index Insurance Survey
- Consumption, savings and Investment Behaviors of Successful Farmers
- Livestock markets
- Aspirations, risk and household investment behaviour
- Investments in watersheds
- Accelerating Agricultural Market Transformation in Ethiopia: Processes, Potentials, and Challenges
- The Teff Value Chain
- Understanding and Improving Agricultural Extension Delivery in Ethiopia
A quote from Dr. Paul Dorosh, Division Director of the Development Strategy and Governance Division of International Food Policy Research Institute
| "In Ethiopia, IFPRI’s Ethiopia Strategy Support Program provided analysis and support for implementation of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), established in mid-2008 with a goal of improving efficiency of agricultural markets. Working with Ethiopia’s Central Statistical Agency (CSA), IFPRI has also conducted several evaluations and analyses of the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) (which began in 2005) that have helped improve implementation of the program through information on timeliness of delivery, effectiveness of targeting and impacts on food consumption and welfare of participants. Since 2008, as part of the second phase of ESSP, IFPRI has collaborated with the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI) in research and analysis that has provided timely inputs to exchange rate and wheat price stabilization policy formulation. Analysis of growth and poverty implications of agricultural investments contributed to the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development (CAADP) process. In addition, ESSP II has undertaken significant capacity building at the Central Statistical Agency (through training in Geographic Information Systems and joint-production of a population atlas) and at EDRI and national universities (agricultural market and economy-wide analysis)." |
Research projects
- Agricultural Productivity: Performance and Constraints.
Team: Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse (ESSP II-IFPRI), John Hoddinott (IFPRI), Alejandro Nin-Pratt (IFPRI), Bingxin Yu (IFPRI), Fantu Nirsane (IFPRI), Guush Berhane (IFPRI), and CSA team.
Objective: The agricultural productivity study includes several components designed to provide a better understanding of the constraints on agricultural productivity in Ethiopia. Specific tasks towards this objective include: (1) Estimation of total factor productivity (TFP) and decomposition of its changes - technical efficiency, technical change, and allocation efficiency; (2) Decomposition of output growth – levels of factor use (including area expansion, increasing fertilizer use, and capital accumulation) versus TFP, changes in cropping patterns; (3) Measurement of input use, input relationships and partial factor productivity - Changes in the relative use of inputs: labor/land ratio; use of inputs per hectare and worker; changes in labor and land productivity; (4) Examination of changes in the quality of inputs - land degradation, use of improved seeds, types of fertilizer used, water and irrigation; (5) Identification of the determinants of efficiency changes – household-specific factors (including access to extension services) and supra-household (community-, regional-, and country-level) factors (e.g. access to infrastructure); (6) Exploration of the spatial dimension of production and productivity changes – the significance of spatial differences to agricultural productivity and its changes; and (7) Formulation of specific policy implications of the findings. - Synthesis Book on Ethiopian Food and Agricultural Policy
Team: Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Shahidur Rashid (IFPRI).
Objective: This edited book will cover key aspects of food and agricultural policy in Ethiopia. Book chapters will draw on ESSP-I and ESSP-II research, as well as analysis undertaken by other researchers. The purpose of the book is to provide a synthesis of existing research accessible to policy-makers, civil society, university students and the broader development community. The proposed chapters include: Introduction, Agricultural Development Domains, Crop Production, Agricultural Input Systems, Cereal Markets, The Livestock Economy, Household Food Consumption, Rural Development Strategy, Safety Nets, Disaster Response and Risk Management, and Conclusions. - Determination of Cereal and Food Prices in Ethiopia
Team: Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Shahidur Rashid (IFPRI), Bart Minten (ESSP II-IFPRI), Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse (ESSP II-IFPRI), Derek Headey (IFPRI), EEA, and EDRI staff.
Objective: In the last several years, cereal prices in Ethiopia have fluctuated dramatically in both real and nominal terms. There is a need to understand food price volatility and to see what appropriate policy responses might be. Research on the determination of cereal prices in Ethiopia will tentatively include a background paper describing price movements, summarizing available information on the structure of cereal markets, look at margins within cereal and food markets and their evolution over time, spatial and temporal market integration, the impact of price volatility on agricultural wage formation, the impact of price controls, and determinants of urban and rural food price formation. It is also intended that a seasonal (meher and belg) operational multi-market model capable of analyzing supply and demand shifts, international trade, quantitative restrictions and implications of increased commercialization will be constructed. - The Rural-Urban Transformation
Team: Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse (ESSP II-IFPRI), Valerie Mueller (IFPRI), Emily Schmidt (IFPRI), James Thurlow (IFPRI), Getnet Alemu (AAU), EDRI staff and others.
Objective: About 85 percent of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas where the bulk of economic activity takes place. Typical patterns of economic development involve not only greater industrialization (as envisaged by the Agriculture Development Led Industrialization, ADLI) strategy, but also greater urbanization. This study will cover several aspects of the rural-urban transformation, including analysis of the implications of migration (urbanization), spatial analysis of development across Ethiopia, impacts of investments in roads and other infrastructure and modeling of the outcomes of various investment strategies for economic growth on poverty reduction in the medium term. - Determinants of Adoption and Impacts of Sustainable Land and Watershed Management
Team: Emily Schmidt (IFPRI); Tassew Woldehanna (AAU/EDRI).
Objective: This study will assess the determinants of adoption and the impacts of a variety of sustainable land and watershed management interventions such as those included in these and other various government programs in order to assess the degree, to which these interventions enhance agricultural production, improve watershed quality and effectiveness and boost overall welfare of beneficiaries. The study will focus in the Blue Nile (EBay) Basin, a key basin with important implications both within Ethiopia and in neighboring countries. In addition, we will evaluate actual versus perceived benefits at the village level, and explore policy options for incentivizing local investment and up-scaling of sustainable land management activities. The study’s focus is determinants of households’ adoption of sustainable watershed management practices and the impacts of these practices. The proposed work on the socio-economics of household adoption of technology will be linked with planned work by IWMI and MoARD on hydrology measurement. The socio-economic survey will also link with the survey on the forthcoming CSA-IFPRI evaluation of the PSNP, by adding several questions on adoption of land management technologies to that survey. - Dynamic Implications of Production Shocks and Policy on Livestock Markets and Household Welfare: A Sectoral and Economy-Wide Analysis
Team: Derek Headey (IFPRI), Stefano Caria (MoARD), Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Ayele Gelan (ILRI), The SAM team (EDRI), Alebel Bayrou (EDRI).
Objective: This study was initiated in response to many comments and suggestions that ESSP II should undertake more work on the livestock sector. The proposed study will investigate the implications of production shocks and policy measures on livestock markets and household welfare in Ethiopia. The study will be based on several analytical approaches including (1) geographic information system (GIS) analysis of livestock production; (2) statistical analysis of livestock market prices; (3) econometric estimation of livestock product demand parameters; and simulations from (4) a partial equilibrium model of livestock stocks and flows, (5) a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model; and (6) synthesis and policy implications. - Consumption, Savings and Investment Behavior of Successful Farmers
Team: Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Tassew Woldehanna (EDRI), Gebrehiwot Ageba (AAU), Guush Berhane (ESSP II-IFPRI), Alebel Bayrou (EDRI).
Objective: To motivate farm households’ to build assets and encourage micro-investments through adoption of and participation in the extension program, and promote entrepreneurship across farm communities, the Ethiopian government has been honoring those that it considered best performing farm households in the last few years. This project is designed to study the consumption, saving and investment behavior of successful farmers recognized by local governments in Ethiopia. The primary aim is to characterize the economic characteristics of these farmers designated as successful compared to their non-designated neighbors. The study therefore involves primary data collection from both groups of farm households. The study is taking place in five major regional states of Ethiopia, mainly Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, SNNPR and Benshangul-Gumuz. Randomized by different agro-ecological and socio-economic characteristics across regions and districts, 1800 farm households are selected from 60 districts of these five regions. The survey also included qualitative survey and focused group discussions with district- and kebele-level officers who undertake the screening of these successful farmers. - SAM/CGE Analysis
Team: Paul Dorosh (IFPRI), Sherman Robinson (IFPRI), Dario Debowicz (IFPRI), David Stifel (ESSP II-IFPRI /Lafayette College), EDRI staff and others.
Objective: Economy-wide modeling is a powerful method to understand the impact of investments and policy choices on economic as well as welfare outcomes. An updated Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is created that will then be used for analyzing the impact of different policy experiments. - Aspirations, Risk and Household Investment Behavior
Team: Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse (ESSP II-IFPRI), Guush Berhane (ESSP II-IFPRI), Ruth Hill (IFPRI), Tanguy Bernard (IFPRI), Stefan Dercon (Oxford University), and Buusa Gonofaa (MFI).
Objective: In collaboration with Oxford University, the project aims to measure aspirations; explore the formation of aspirations and their significance to household investment on education, adoption of new technologies, and entrepreneurial behavior. In a second initiative under this theme, we implemented a randomized set-up as to better understand the potential of micro-insurance for farmers towards better risk management and household investment behavior. This latter theme is largely funded with additional funds from the Oxford University-IFPRI collaborative project funded by the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative (I4). - Accelerating Agricultural Market Transformation In Ethiopia: Processes, Potentials, And Challenges
Team: Bart Minten (IFPRI), David Stifel (Lafayette College), Tadesse Kuma (EDRI), Ermias Dessie (EDRI) and Tsehaye Eyassu Ermias (EDRI)
Objective: Little systematic, solid, and updated analytical knowledge exists on the functioning and changes in agricultural markets. The planned study by ESSP II would address this inadequacy and provide policy makers with better information/analyses on the functioning of agricultural markets, the transformation process, the determinants of transformation, and on the impacts of transformation. To do so, we will use relevant existing and newly collected information in Ethiopia to better understand the ongoing processes as well as the constraints and potentials. The ultimate objective of the research is to identify efficient instruments of accelerating of market transformation and improving the benefit of the poor thereof. - The Teff Value Chain
Team: Tadesse Kuma (EDRI) and Bart Minten (IFPRI)
Objective: Teff is estimated to be the most valued commercial commodity chain in the country (using CSA price retail data and commercial surplus data). Given the high revenues that are generated from teff commercialization in the country, it is important to have a good understanding of the black box that currently exists between consumers and producers. This will help to better evaluate constraints and opportunities in the commercial sector as well as the potential policy interventions. - Understanding and Improving Agricultural Extension Delivery in Ethiopia
Team: Guush Berhane (IFPRI), Tewodaj Mogues (IFPRI), Bart Minten (IFPRI) and Degnet Abebaw (EEA)
Objective:The Ethiopian government has invested heavily in improving agricultural extension. However, the effects of these investments are not well understood. In this theme, we will draw on analysis of recent primary data as to better understand these investments.
