ADOPTION OF SMALL-SCALE IRRIGATION AND ITS LIVELIHOOD IMPACTS IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

摘要

The potential of smallholder-irrigated agriculture to enhance food security and improve livelihoods has led the government of Ethiopia to invest significantly in irrigation establishment. This article aims to investigate the impact of small-scale irrigation on households' livelihood. To deal with the problems of purposive targeting and self-selection which are likely to occur for this type of intervention, we use a sophisticated econometric technique called 'propensity score matching' to study this impact. Our findings confirm the presence of a statistically significant difference in income, overall expenditure, asset accumulation and expenditures on agricultural inputs between the treated and control households. In contrast, no statistically significant differences in livestock resources, food consumption, and expenditure on education and health were found. Furthermore, the proportion of poor is respectively 20 and 30% for the treated and control households. So, overall it can be concluded that participation in the small-scale irrigation has robust and positive effect on most of the livelihood indices and that an expansion of irrigation schemes is a good strategy in the water-stressed and drought-prone areas of Ethiopia. Copyright (C) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.