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Impact Evaluation of Landscape Programs in Ethiopia
PROGRAM SUMMARY
The overarching goal of this project is to assess the impact of landscape programs on livelihood and resilience outcomes in Ethiopia and inform the future design of the programs. Overall, the study seeks to understand the effects of the landscape programs on the outcomes such as household livelihoods, diversification of income generating activities, agricultural productivity and resilience to extreme events.
CHALLENGE
The World Bank has been investing for landscape programs in Ethiopia. Despite of the large investments in this area of work, there is little evidence to understand the impact of the landscape projects financed by the World Bank on household livelihoods and resilience. Further understanding and evaluation of impacts of the landscape programs is important for the design of the future investments in Ethiopia and other countries.
Furthermore, an in-depth analysis on the landscape approach is timely given that PROGREEN, the Global Partnership for Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes launched on September 23, 2019. PROGREEN is a World Bank Multi-Donor Trust Fund that supports countries’ efforts to improve livelihoods while tackling declining biodiversity, loss of forests, deteriorating land fertility and increasing risks such as uncontrolled forest fires, which are exacerbated by a changing climate. Through an integrated landscape approach, PROGREEN helps countries meet their national and global sustainable development goals and commitments, including poverty reduction, in a cost-effective manner. In addition, the theme of the fourth Forum on Natural Capital Accounting for Better Policy held in November 18-19, 2019 was “Measuring and valuing natural capital for improved landscape management”.
APPROACH
In order to comprehensively assess the impact of the Ethiopia landscape program from both economic and physical aspects, this study is composed of three research topics below.
- Research Topic 1: Estimating impacts of the land restoration program on livelihoods and resilience in Ethiopia
- Research Topic 2: Impacts of land restoration program on agricultural productivity and production diversity during and after the 2015/16 severe droughts in Ethiopia
- Research Topic 3: Use of satellite remote sensing SIF observations to estimate the effects of land restoration programs on land productivity and resilience
The main program outputs will be the following:
- Main report for policy-makers and general audience
- Supporting technical report
FINDINGS AND RESULTS
The activity has successfully:
- Collected and cleaned key datasets required to assess the impact of the Ethiopia landscape program from both economic and physical aspects
- Developed robust econometric and scientific approaches to measure the program impact
- Established the key collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to carry out the study. This collaboration is extremely useful as we conduct the impact evaluation of landscape programs in other countries, utilizing the experience and methodology established through this activity.
The preliminary findings from this activity are as follows. First, the landscape project increased household livelihoods, agricultural productivity and resilience to extreme events. Second, the study shows Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) remote sensing data could be used as proxy for near-real-time crop growth. The activity has not yet informed/influenced investments, policies, practices, institutions or behaviors of clients, partners or others, but it is planned to do so as it will be disseminated under the umbrella project
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Last Updated : 06-09-2020
