The effects of COVID-19 on livelihoods of rural households: South Wollo and Oromia Zones, Ethiopia

Abstract

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is a global phenomenon that is heavily affecting the lives, livelihoods, and wellbeing of the entire population, the degree and severity of its effects are different among groups and sectors. In developing countries, where there is poor infrastructure coupled with a low level of education and a high incidence of poverty, the pandemic would result in increased unemployment, decreased income for daily labor, increased food insecurity, depletion of saving and relief measures, and disrupted the marketing system, among others. Recently, some studies have been conducted in Ethiopia regarding the impact of the pandemic on the people and the country as a whole by reviewing the literature and mobile call surveys. However, those studies fail to capture the representative sample and empirical data to forward informed decisions. To this end, the present study has investigated the effect of COVID-19 on the livelihood activities of smallholder farm households in South Wollo and Oromia administrative Zones, Ethiopia. A multistage random sampling procedure was employed to draw 275 respondents out of 32,214 household heads. Data were collected through interview schedules, key informants and case studies from September to November 2020. Descriptive statistics, econometric analysis and qualitative approaches were employed to analyze the data. The major livelihood activities in the study area are crop production (97.4%), livestock rearing (77.4%), daily work (47%), small business (31.4%), livestock trading (30.7%), remittance (24.8%), labor migration (14.8%), sale of firewood (11.1%) and income from Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) (17%). The study shows that the livelihoods of 88.89% of the households were affected by the pandemic. The pandemic significantly affected and forced households to cease their livelihood activities such as daily labor (34.82%), small business trade (26.3%), livestock trading (23.7%), income from remittance (21.49%) and labor migration (11.48%). This implies that the pandemic particularly affected non-farm and off-farm livelihood diversification strategies. Therefore, the government and other rural development partners should focus on immediate and long-term intervention strategies to recover the most affected households through social security programs, creating market linkage and revolve funding mechanisms.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Effect of Covid-19 on households welfare in Afar Regional State, Ethiopia

“…The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have argumentative effects on agrarian households in Ethiopia. Smallholder farmers are one of the exposed groups who might be delayed from working on their land, getting into markets to sell their products, or buying seeds and other vital inputs [ 10 ]. In afar regional, state the first COVID-19 virus confirmed case was recorded on April 22, 2020.…”

“…Many studies [ 2 , 10 , 12 – 20 ] and so on a study on the macroeconomic impact of epidemic disease. Notwithstanding, most of the papers, including the above one were mainly focused on the macroeconomic effect of epidemic disease (like COVID-19), they did not give insight on the effect of COVID-19 on social and microeconomics effect (in general on social welfare), in addition, no studies addressed the regional wise social welfare effect of COVID-19.…”

Spatial exploration of non-resilience to food insecurity, its association with COVID-19 and household coping strategies in East Gojjam districts, Northwest Ethiopia, 2020

“…Another similar study in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda also found that 77% of the population lives in households were lost income as a result of this pandemic and public emergency 27 . Despite the lack of reporting on spatial distribution, one pocket study in Ethiopia also found that nearly 90% of households experienced non-resilience to food insecurity immediately after the occurrence of this pandemic disease and public emergency 5 , which was significantly higher prior to the occurrence of this pandemic and public emergency disease 28 – 37 . After COVID-19 was declared by WHO as a global health emergency and a pandemic disease, the efforts of humanitarian and food security organizations seeking to reverse food insecurity, resilience, and coping strategies were undermined 25 .…”

“…However, the case fatality rate varies regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or health status 3 . COVID-19 has now become a critical issue, exposing numerous associated problems such as panic and public anxiety throughout the population 4 , livelihood insecurity 5 , particularly food insecurity, and food crisis 6 . Food insecurity, in particular, is explained by the quantity and quality of available food, uncertainty about food accessibility, and personal experiences with going hungry during a public emergency 7 .…”

Data-Driven Evaluation and Optimisation of Livelihood Improvement Efficiency

“…However, owing to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID- 19), livelihood security has been severely threatened in some countries [11][12][13][14]. For example, some people in Europe are losing access to their rightful education [13,15]; the pandemic has slowed economic development in many countries [16], incomes are declining, and employment has become precarious, with unemployment rates increasing in many countries and regions, including the EU28 and the US [17][18][19][20].…”