Over the last two decades, Ethiopia achieved rapid and substantial economic growth and development and maintained relative stability within the volatile Horn of Africa region. However, more recently, Ethiopia continue to face major challenges arising from internal conflicts and related shocks. A recent conflict that broke out in November 2020 in Tigray resulted in major displacement and loss of life. The war quickly spelled over to neighboring regions in northern Ethiopia (including Afar and Amhara).[1] These armed conflicts and related shocks have resulted in over 4.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs), and over 21 million individuals require humanitarian assistance (OCHA, 2024). However, widespread conflict persists in other parts of the country, particularly in the Amhara and Oromia regions. Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of different types of conflict events before and after the war broke out in Tigray. While protests and riots were dominant conflict events in the period preceding the first-round survey, battles appear to dominate those conflict events in the three years preceding the second-round survey.
(a) Conflict events between 2016 - 2019 (b) Conflict events between 2020 - 2023
Figure 1: Distribution of conflict events. Source: Authors’ compilation based on ACLED data.
The signing of the Pretoria peace agreement offers a unique opportunity to begin the rebuilding and rehabilitation of conflict-affected areas. A critical input for this process is rigorous research and evidence to assess the economic, social, and psychological impacts of the conflict. Furthermore, such rebuilding processes require effective interventions to promote and sustain post-conflict recovery. To this end, and through the CGIAR Research Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS) (CGIAR, 2023), the International Livestock Research Institute and the International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a comprehensive follow-up survey as part of the project titled “Actionable Research to Inform Rehabilitation and Rebuilding of Livelihoods in Conflict-Affected Communities in Ethiopia”. This second-round data collection builds upon a first-round survey conducted in 2019, approximately one year before the outbreak of the Tigray War.
[1] The war ended through a permanent cessation of hostilities in November 2022 between the Federal government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Figure 2: Face-to-face interview
The second-round survey follows a sampling strategy similar to that of the first-round survey. The first-round survey employed a multi-stage, random sampling design. The sampling targeted districts (woredas) and households falling within the Feed the Future (FtF) zone of influence (ZOI), which covers several regions in Ethiopia (Bachewe et al., 19). The sampling frame was stratified by districts to create 132 districts. Two enumeration areas (EAs) were then selected from each district based on probability proportional to size, with 20 households randomly selected for interviews from each EA. This resulted in an initial sample size of 5,280 households, of which 5,189 households were successfully interviewed.
The modules for the 2019 survey included household identification and demographics, migration and dwelling characteristics, food and non-food expenditures, food security, agriculture productivity and input use, women’s empowerment, nutrition, crop marketing and utilization, livestock, shock, non-farm and off-farm incomes, trust, agency, aspiration, and infrastructure. The second-round survey, conducted between December 23, 2023, and January 22, 2024, consists of two types of questionnaires: a household and a community questionnaire. The household questionnaire, designed by IFPRI and ILRI captured information on consumption, women’s empowerment, women’s dietary diversity, agriculture productivity, and input use, livestock ownership and income, well-being, trust and agency, and shocks.
Table 1. Modules included in the second-round household survey
The second-round survey aimed to track households interviewed in 2019. However, some districts and enumeration areas were excluded due to security concerns. In the second-round survey, a total of 180 Enumeration Areas located in 94 districts were covered, with the surveyed districts distributed across the regions of Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, and Southern Nations and Nationalities (SNNP), and the chartered city of Dire Dawa. Following the restructuring of SNNP, the study areas previously within this region are now part of the newly established Southwest and Sidama regions. Figure 3 illustrates the distribution of households in the second-round survey.
Figure 3: Distribution of Sample household
Using the 2019 data as a baseline data, the second-round survey targeted 3,600 households, successfully contacting 3,257 of them. Of these, 3,081 households consented and completed the survey while the remaining 176 households refused to be interviewed. Table 2 shows the number of households interviewed during the first and second rounds by region.
In addition to the household survey, the second round also included a community survey and community-based targeting and cash transfer experiment. The community-based targeting and cash transfer program involved experimental one-time unconditional cash transfers to the neediest households using alternative targeting rules and transfer sizes. The cash transfer program aimed to examine the potential role of humanitarian interventions in the rehabilitation and rebuilding of livelihoods in conflict-affected communities.
The community survey captures detailed information on community infrastructure, market access, agricultural services, marketing, perceived changes over the past three years, exposure to conflict, and the role of community leaders in targeting for social assistance. Conducting the second-round survey has been instrumental in constructing a panel dataset by building on the data collected during the first round.
Several research papers are currently in progress addressing the objectives outlined during the planning of the data collection. Some of these papers have been published as working papers or are currently under review in peer-reviewed journals, including Abay et al., (2024), which evaluates the effectiveness of alternative community-based cash transfer experiments, and Nigus and Abay (2024), which analyzes the impact of conflict on cooperation. Other ongoing research focuses on examining the impacts of conflict on mental health, psychological traits, trust in local governance, social cohesion, tenure security, and crop choice and exploring the role of cash transfers in cushioning the adverse effects of armed conflicts.
To date, two research and policy workshops have been conducted: (i) Rebuilding Livelihoods in Conflict-Affected Communities in Ethiopia and (ii) Livestock, Gender, and Agency Amid Conflict in Ethiopia. We expect to share the data with the public soon.