Food and nutrition security impacts of resilience capacity: Evidence from rural Ethiopia

Abstract

Resilience analysis framed on a twin-track approach of harmonizing humanitarian and development interventions is a nascent paradigm to food and nutrition security. This study contributes to the limited empirical literature that assesses the effect of resilience on food and nutrition insecurity modeled as separate variables for policy uptake in Ethiopia. The panel data comes from the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey. We estimated the resilience capacity index by combining factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The study employed kilocalories, food poverty, dietary diversity, food consumption, and multidimensional food security perspectives. Assets ownership, access to social services, and adaptive capacity are the core elements of resilience. We evidenced that resilience capacity enhanced food and nutrition security outcomes. Alternative food and nutrition insecurity measures complement but could not serve as a proxy to each other. The regression results revealed that resilience reduces household food and nutrition insecurity. Nevertheless, the food insecure possesses fewer resources, attributes, and farm assets face extreme poverty and thus benefit less from resilience. Complimentary food and nutrition insecurity measures give a more nuanced description and improve the targeting efficiency of interventions. Farming is no longer the merely or even the principal source of subsistence for many rural households. Issues that require more attention in policies to reinforce resilience capacities in ensuring food and nutrition security include fostering the rural non-farm economy, human capital formation, access to productive assets, and commercialization. Besides, the role of broader agri-food systems change is of utmost importance. Policy measures that enhance growth from below would also go a long way in building resilience for food and nutrition security and break the deeply entrenched cycle of subsistence and vulnerability of smallholder farming.

Keywords

• Resilience capacity
• Structural equation modeling
• Food insecurity
• Rural Ethiopia