Building resilience and ensuring food security in Ethiopia amid multiple shocks

This thesis examines household resilience, shock exposure, and food security in Ethiopia under overlapping climatic, economic, health, and political shocks. Using nationally representative panel data from the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey (ESPS/LSMS–ISA) for 2018/19 and 2021/22, the study analyzes how resilience is constructed, how it relates to food security outcomes, and whether its effects vary across rural and urban contexts. The analysis is grounded in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA-II) framework and conceptualizes resilience as a multidimensional capacity shaped by access to basic services, assets, social safety nets, and adaptive capacity. The first part of the thesis develops a multidimensional Resilience Capacity Index (RCI) for Ethiopia using structural equation modeling and related multivariate techniques. The findings show that household resilience during prolonged crises is driven primarily by structural factors, especially material assets and access to basic services. By contrast, informal and community-based social safety nets weakened substantially under covariate shocks such as drought, conflict, and pandemic-related disruptions. Adaptive capacity shows mixed and, in some cases, negative associations with resilience, suggesting that diversification, technology adoption, and engagement with extension services may often reflect distress-driven responses rather than proactive adaptation. The results also reveal marked regional disparities, with households in Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz exhibiting significantly lower resilience than households in other regions. The second part of the thesis examines the relationship between resilience capacity, shock exposure, and food security outcomes. Multiple food security indicators are considered, including food expenditure share, household dietary diversity, daily caloric adequacy, food insecurity experiences, and household hunger. The results show that higher resilience capacity is generally associated with better food security outcomes, particularly lower food budget pressure, more diverse diets, and fewer food insecurity experiences. At the same time, shocks such as drought, health shocks, and food price increases are strongly associated with worsening food insecurity and hunger, especially during the 2021/22 survey wave, which reflects a substantially harsher food security environment. Interaction estimates suggest that the buffering role of resilience is present but limited and highly shock specific. Drought, input-price inflation, and political shocks weaken some of the protective advantages associated with resilience. The third part of the thesis introduces a spatially disaggregated analysis of urban–rural heterogeneity in resilience and food security. The results show that resilience is both context-specific and multidimensional. Rural households are more exposed to climatic and production-related shocks, while urban households are more vulnerable to market- and income-related shocks. The structure of resilience also differs across settings: in rural areas, resilience is driven more strongly by adaptive capacity, access to basic services, and productive assets, whereas in urban areas assets and social safety nets play a larger role. Resilience improves food security in both contexts, but the channels through which it operates differ. In rural areas, resilience works mainly through production stabilization and asset protection, while in urban areas it operates more strongly through income stability, service access, and market participation. Overall, the thesis demonstrates that resilience is not a fixed household trait but a context-dependent capacity whose determinants and effects vary across shock environments, livelihood systems, and institutional settings. The findings underscore the importance of multidimensional and shock-aware approaches to resilience measurement and suggest that improving food security in Ethiopia requires spatially differentiated strategies that combine household-level resilience building with responsive social protection, climate adaptation, market stabilization, and stronger institutional support.

Author dc:creator

• Ejegu, Etaferahu Kassa

• Household resilience
• Food security
• Shock exposure
• Panel data
• Ethiopia
• Urban–rural heterogeneity

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2097/47314

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/47314