In Praise of Safety net program

Since 1958 the Irob woreda (North Eastern Tigray) has been a recipient of food aid with some interruptions.

That is not a proud testament to self-sufficiency. To find oneself “on the steep slopes of the Rift Valley” means drought is imminent and more often, your annual rainfall is less than 400 mm. In short, you are the victim of climate and geography. Until some minerals are discovered people think they are justified to blame Summe, the Irob ancestor, and the early settler, for his weak geographical imagination. Perhaps he was hiding from someone and he meant to choose a strategic location.

When your ancestor inherits you a land made of rugged mountains and valleys, one hopes to make a living out of livestock production. But then livestock feed is hard to find and you can’t be a pastoralist. Then one tries its luck in agriculture and yet again, you have no land to plow and even if the land exists there is poor rainfall. Here again to extract a livelihood from engagement in agriculture becomes hopeless. The best year it will feed a family for two or three months. Now that pastoralist nor agriculturalist lifestyle is possible what is one supposed to live on? Urban lifestyle in a rural setting? This goes against the definition of urban life. Or go back to cursing the ancestor for leaving you on goddamned land? Not at all. Cursing has never been an answer and one must use his ingenuity to change his circumstances.

Despite several initiatives, the economic circumstances in the Irob have never been easy. Early records, mostly by the missionaries and their aids (e.g. the Catechist Dillibis), indicate that famine and internal displacement were common phenomena: in the year so and so “crops failed; animals perished; people starved” were common reportage. The battle between man and nature has been fought over the years on the rugged terrain of the Irob land mostly concluded by the triumph of the latter. For hundreds of years, flush flood pushed its fertile soil to the Danakil Desert in the Afar to be wasted.

Faced with a continuous food insecurity crisis, the religious leaders such as Yohannes Weldegiorgis (Bishop) in the late 1960’s proposed the idea of a full migration to more fertile land. But the request couldn’t be granted by the political class of the time. As a result, the plan of improving the economic situation at home become a preferred scheme. In order to support the local community, engaging in water and soil management and creating road access to major town become a priority. More importantly, it was hoped that engaging people in public works would lead to job opportunities.

Then came the intervention of Caritas Switzerland and Catholic Church in the construction of the Zalanbesa -Alitiena gravel road, with some support from Ras Mengesha Seyoum. Most notably the arrival of Bruno Strebel, a Swiss Hydrologist, helped introduce the projects of soil and water conservation in the woreda. Burno, in collaboration with the Catholic Church, is largely known for engineering and supervising the mighty Assabol dam construction, whose idea took 30 years to be realized.

The dam, intended for flood water harvesting is 42 meters high and perhaps one of the  “tallest storage dams in the country”. According to reports, the lake behind the dam has a length of 2 km and a surface area of 7 hectares. While the full economic and environmental effect of the dam is still to be seen in the future, the completion of the dam fuses some optimism about the possibilities of local development. In addition, the accomplishment indicates that Bruno and his family are truly friends of the Irob people and they deserve recognition.

According to Keven O’mahoney (2008), the year 1971 show the birth of food for work program in the Irob. In 2018 it is still the primary source of livelihood for the people even though it has changed its name to Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). PSNP is “aimed at enabling the rural poor facing chronic food insecurity to resist shocks, create assets and become food self-sufficient”.

Though the safety net program receives little coverage from the notorious social media and mainstream channels, it is a large scale social protection effort by the Government and its development partners targeting food insecure woredas in the country. Some observers criticize the safety net as a political tool to maintain and strengthen power, but here in the villages of ‘Amomeet’ in the Irob, Abreht tells me it is the only survival tool. “Thanks to the safety net, I am not worried about what to feed my children,” she says, wiping dust from her face.

Adhanom, PSNP beneficiary, on the other hand, thinks while the safety net has been helpful in improving infrastructure and food security, he is threatened by the new social relations the program has created. “Since my wife started engaging in the safety net, she no longer respects me. So are my children. These days as women’s dependence on men reduced, divorce has become a common phenomenon and children no more listen to their parents” he protests.

Despite complaints about political capture or gender relations, the safety net program is assisting households to cope with food insecurity. On closer examination, however, the program suffers from a graduation problem. Generally, “clients are expected to graduate from the program when they gain sufficient assets” but in the case of the Irob, food aid has become an addiction. What is to be done is a billion Birr question and neither Abreht nor the leaders know what to do. In the meantime, however, Adhanom is worried about the late distribution schedule of the safety net based food ration.

For now, the early settler, Summe, can rest in peace

(photo- from the net)