Adugna Lemi

Rainfall Probability and Agricultural Yield in Ethiopia

Yield variability in Ethiopian agriculture can be partly explained by rainfall. The degree of yield variability over time is changed not only by the amount of rainfall, but also by the pattern and frequency of the rainfall cycle. Mean annual rainfall is often the only index of rainfall quoted for a place for the purpose of rainfall-yield relationship analysis. For agriculture, however, the critical question is how often a place receives too little, enough or too much rain for a particular form of crop production to be carried out successfully. Using station level rainfall data from 1954-1994 and agricultural production data of major cereal crops from 1980-1994 for four provinces of Ethiopia, this study attempts to show patterns of rainfall and provide insight into the preparation of an early warning system in the country. Time series analysis techniques, Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) and Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) models are used to see the pattern of rainfall and response of yield to rainfall as well as to previous yield shocks. The results of this study show that rainfall cycle can be determined only for BELG rain in Gojjam (thirty-five years) and total rain in Harar (eleven years) and Jima (seventeen years). All other series have no cyclical component; however, drought-prone provinces show some deterministic component in the rainfall process. Results from estimation of VAR show that current levels of yield respond to previous levels of yield even more than responses to rainfall in most provinces.

The Dynamics of Livelihood Diversification in Ethiopia Revisited: Evidence from Panel data

Block and Webb (2001) in food policy address the issue of the dynamics of livelihood diversification in Ethiopia using ratio of per capita income derived from crops to all other sources as a measure of livelihood diversification for the years 1989 and 1994. Their study uses small sample and focuses only on areas affected by famine during the survey years. The present study explores further the demographic, ecological and economic determinants of the dynamics of livelihood diversification using rural household data, which covers lager and representative sample, colleted in Ethiopia in 1994 and 1997. The present study analysis not only the determinants of participation and intensity of off-farm activities but also the determinants of the dynamics between the years 1994 and 1997. The results of this study answer the question that to what extent initial conditions (for instance, asset holdings, income level, demographics) prompts households to diversify to off-farm activities overtime. The results show that participation in off-farm activities is mainly driven by demographic factors, where as land and other asset ownership as well as crop income, together with demographic factors, affect intensity of off-farm activities. The dynamic model result shows that initially female headed households and households with more land holdings subsequently realized less diversification into off-farm activities. On the other land, families with larger initial crop income from main harvest season realized greater income share from off-farm activities. As opposed to the static model, the dynamic model implies that off-farm activities are not substitute for farm activities, at least during the main harvest season.

Multilateral agreements and trade in education services: implications for Ethiopia

Driven by ease of communication, universities attempt to expand their reach to international students using various modes of education service delivery. The decision to expand is, however, not easy since many factors are in play. This study attempts to understand, mainly, the external factors that affect one of the four modes of education service delivery. Using the USA and the UK as destination countries, the study identifies national and multilateral factors that may hinder, or promote, students from various countries to choose consumption abroad as a means to satisfy their educational needs. The results show that for the USA, although GDP per capita and education service commitments of a country had negative effects, US educational aid and total education market commitment of a country associated positively with education service consumption. In the case of the UK, unlike the USA, a countrys cross-border and commercial presence commitments discouraged students from travelling to study in the UK. The study also draws implications for Ethiopia as the country tries to exploit the global education market.

Anatomy of Foreign Aid in Ethiopia

This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of aid flows to Ethiopia over the period 1960–2014, focusing on major donors, sectors where aid has been disbursed, and the types of aid given. The analysis shows that, in recent years aid flow has increased significantly with ODA loans taking the place of ODA grants. It also reveals that there have been changes in the interests of donors as well as the amount and type of aid they have provided. The implication is that Ethiopia needs to develop strategic aid policies that reflect the changing circumstances and promote inclusive growth and development.

Trade Measures of OECD Countries and the Decline in Exports of AfricanCountries: Is Murky Protectionism Responsible?

Since the onset of the recent global financial crisis and the resulting trade downturn, there have been efforts to understand the channels through which financial crisis has been affecting global trade and to explain the overall welfare impact of the crisis. Most previous studies focus on finding the key factors that link the financial crisis to the trade crisis. Specifically, the role of limited access to trade credit, murky protectionism, behind-the-border measures, and fluctuations in demand components are implicated as the leading contributors to the downturn. The purpose of this study is to investigate the significance of two of these factors, namely, murky protectionism and demand components, in the context of trade among OECD and African countries during the crisis years. Author has drawn commodity-level data on bilateral trade flow and trade measures from the OECD and GTA databases, respectively, to empirically investigate the impacts of OECD countries’ demand components and murky protectionisms on imports from African countries. The results confirm that OECD countries’ demand components played a relatively lesser role in the downturn of imports from African countries, whereas trade measures, especially tariffs, quotas, and the so-called ‘trade defense measures’ had significant negative effects on OECD imports from African countries. GTA’s evaluation of the trade measures, in terms of the nature of their likely impacts on trade flows, is, however, not confirmed in this study.

Trade Liberalization and Change in Poverty Status in Rural Ethiopia: What are the Links?

The impacts of trade liberalization on poverty status of farm households in Africa often come through its effects on prices, government revenues, and employment, among other things. For the case of Ethiopia, the main channel through which trade liberalization affects farm households is changes in the prices of inputs and outputs. The aim of this study is to empirically examine the impacts of trade reform on poverty status in rural Ethiopia. The results show that, although households’ resource endowment had consistent and significant improvement impacts, trade liberalization had mixed effects on change in poverty status. As a result of trade liberalization, contrary to expectation, changes in the prices of cash crops (i.e. chat and coffee) had increased the probability of remaining poor and falling into poverty. On the other hand, changes in the relative prices of staple food crops (i.e. teff and wheat), together with access to credit and schools, had increased the probability of escaping poverty and remaining above the poverty line.

Do Official Development Aid and Foreign Direct Investment Promote Good Governance in Africa

Africa needs capital inflows more than any other region in the world to support its development initiatives and provide its basic emergency needs. In its 2006 report, the Economic Commission for Africa reiterated that the continent needs capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign aid. The report indicated that total official development aid (ODA) to Africa had recovered from a decline experienced between 1990 and 2000, in that in 2004 official development assistance increased to US

Factors affecting entry and intensity in informal rental land markets in Southern Ethiopian highlands

26.5 billion from US

Foreign Direct Investment and Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from Africa

15.7 billion in 2000. The report further stated that to achieve and sustain higher levels of GDP growth rates and to accelerate poverty reduction, Africa will need higher volumes of aid in the coming years. The flow of FDI was also encouraged given the meager levels that Africa usually receives compared to other developing regions (ECA, 2006).