The Bang for the Birr: Public Expenditures and Rural Welfare in Ethiopia

This article explores the impact of different types of public spending on rural household welfare in Ethiopia. The analysis reveals that public spending on road infrastructure is characterised by relatively high, but regionally strongly concentrated, returns in terms of rural household welfare. This is quite in contrast to the returns to public expenditures in education, which have attributes of much wider reach but less intensity. Public investments in agriculture show results that are low in magnitude and in statistical significance, mostly due to a poor link between public expenditures in agriculture and productivity in the sector.     

‘Moving in place’: Drought and poverty dynamics in South Wollo,Ethiopia

This article discusses the impact of drought on poverty dynamics in the South Wollo area of northeastern Ethiopia. Using both survey and anthropological/qualitative data covering a six-year period, the paper assesses which households were able to hold on to assets and recover from the 1999–2000 drought and which were not. It suggests that while the incidence of poverty changed very little during 1997 to 2003 despite the occurrence of a major drought, the fortunes of the poorest improved, but not enough to keep them from poverty. The study concludes by asking how current policies affect patterns of poverty and inequality and what might be done to improve welfare in South Wollo.