Impacts of productive safety net program (PSNP) on soil and water conservation in Southern Tigray region, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study assesses the impact of PSNP on soil and water conservation (SWC) practices in southern Tigray, Ethiopia. The propensity score matching technique was used to assess the impact of PSNP on soil and water conservation practices. The Nearest neighbor (4) matching estimator was selected as the best matching algorithm which has a large matched size, good balancing test, and low pseudo R2. 204 respondents from treated and 130 from control group matched respondents were used to come up with the final result. The estimated result of the nearest neighbor (4) matching estimator indicates that participation in PSNP did not bring any significant impact on SWC practices on the program beneficiaries. This might be due to the fact that a full targeting problem of beneficiaries by kebele food security force focuses on consumption smoothing rather than engaging in livelihood improvement, dependency seeing as supportive relief aid rather than productive and implementing SWC activities on communal lands public work transfer rather than doing at their private farm lands. Policymakers, governments, and donors are responsible for further improvement and should reconsider the implementation and design of the PIM of the program to bring a positive impact on beneficiaries.

Keywords

• Impact assessment
• productive safety net program
• propensity score matching
• soil and water conservation
• Robert Read, Economics, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK
• Landscape and Sustainability