AN ASSESSMENT ON THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PRODUCTIVE SAFETY NET PROGRAM (PSNP) ON BENEFICIARIES: (THE CASE OF HABRU WOREDA, AMHARA REGION)

Abstract

Social safety net programs can be a critical elements of effective hunger reduction and poverty prevention strategy especially in developing countries. Also, many studies have come out for the last decades that supports the argument that social protection program like PSNP has a paramount impact on local communities and economies to increase and diversify their food consumption, child and maternal welfare as well as fosters more investment in the education and health of children, reduces child labor and ultimately improve life standards. Ethiopia is one of the countries where PSNP has been given due consideration as tool/a safety net to help the poor household asset depletion, overcome food insecurity and create community asset. The core activities of PSNP have been designed to bring positive impacts on beneficiary’s household asset accumulation, household income, public participation, financial inclusion, and consumption pattern. This study evaluates the socio-economic impact of PSNP on beneficiaries in Habru Woreda. For quantitative analysis both treatment and control respondents were drawn with 220 (100 treatments and 120 controls) beneficairies using simple random sampling techniques in Habru. Descriptive statistics and econometric model were applied for analyzing quantitative data. PSM method was employed to analyze the socio-economic impact of PSNP on beneficairies. Subsequently the objective of this study is to find out the socio-economic impact of PSNP on beneficairies with a particular reference of Habru Woreda. keeping above objectives in mind, the study employed questionnaires, key informants, and focus group discussions to obtain primary data. The social and economic impact of PSNP is analyzed based on income, consumption pattern, asset accumulation, acquisition of home equipment’s, infrastructure, access to finance, women decision making and economic empowerment. The finding indicates that PSNP have made a positive impact to the social and economic aspect of the beneficairies life. Despite the efforts put on to bring the desired impacts, the study also revealed that there is still area of improvements that government and development partners must work on in terms of getting full access to finance, asset accumulation, consumption pattern, and wage rate increment/income.