Social Capital, Assets and Responses to Drought: Preliminary Observations from Interviews, South Wello and Oromiya Zones, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

"The BASIS-CRSP Greater Horn of Africa Program, in collaboration with the Institute for Development Research (IDR) at Addis Ababa University, has been carrying out an integrated study of the causes and consequences of food insecurity at the regional to intra-household level in South Wello and Oromiya Zones. The project is using a multi-methods approach, including a large-scale household survey, rapid community assessments, and case studies to investigate the role of such key variables as livelihood strategies, income entitlement, social capital, gender, market linkages, agro-ecological zonation, and drought. The BASIS/IDR research team has been also able to examine processes of asset deaccumulation and, more recently, reaccumulation in the wake of the severe food crisis of 1999. This report continues the qualitative research on the differential experience of drought and recovery among households in South Wello and Oromiya Zones of Amhara Region, Ethiopia, initiated by Priscilla Stone and Mengistu Dessalegn Debela in May 2002. They had interviewed 15 households at that time. As with their original fieldwork, this round of interviews sought to: (1) complement the quantitative information already collected by the BASIS/IDR project household survey; (2) gather more detailed and diachronic data on the differential experience of drought and recovery; (3) better understand the nature and behavior of female headed households. We implemented these goals by carrying out qualitative interviews with 27 households in South Wello and Oromiya Zones, almost all (25) of them participants in the BASIS/IDR survey. We largely followed the sampling methods and interview guidelines developed by Stone and Mengistu. The few differences in our approaches are discussed below."