Impact of productive safety net program on food security of beneficiary households in western Ethiopia: A matching estimator approach

Abstract

From various Ethiopian government food security strategies, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) is one of the strategies to improve households' consumption. As a result, the government needs to know the outcome of the program intervention for further decisions in similar poverty reduction strategies. This study examined the impact of Productive Safety Net Program intervention on food security of rural households in rural western Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey data were gathered from a total of randomly selected 188 beneficiary and non-beneficiary sample households. Key informants interviews and focus group discussions were employed to triangulate household survey results. A Chi-square test was employed to compare the households' food security status. The propensity score matching method was used to evaluate the impact of a Productive safety net on beneficiary households' food security status. In this study, the Productive Safety net program has significantly increased households' calorie intake. The beneficiaries' households were more food secure than non-beneficiary households by 68% and54% respectively. The mean energy available for the beneficiary and non-beneficiary households is 2488.500 and 2153.394 kcal, respectively. Estimates of the average treatment effect of the treated indicated that a Productive safety net program can impact households food security by 2519.29348 kilocalories, higher in the kernel matching method. This is an encouraging indicator for Programme implementers and funding agents. Therefore, channeling further efforts on this indicator is important for a more pronounced impact of the Programme. Given a certain level of variations of different program impact studies, this study recommends further research with greater scope and at different locations on the impact of PSNP and related Food Security Programs on households' food security status.