Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) Integrating Disaster And Climate Risk Management

Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) is a large national social safety net (SSN) program that responds not only to chronic food insecurity among Ethiopia's poor, but also to shorter-term shocks, mainly droughts. It targets a highly climate-vulnerable population, offering a practical model of how SSNs can be designed to meet the social protection needs of the most vulnerable, while simultaneously reducing the risks from disaster and climate-related impacts. The PSNP incorporates a number of interesting features, such as: public works activities geared towards improving climate resiliency; a risk financing facility to help poor households and communities to better cope with transitory shocks, including households outside of the core program; and the use of targeting methods that assist the most climate-vulnerable community members to obtain the full benefits of consumption smoothing and asset protection. The program also works through, and focuses on strengthening, existing government institutional systems at all levels – rather than creating separate systems.