The study explores the life situation of children who come from rural areas to work in Addis Ababa. It discusses their migration, work, relationships, and their economic contributions using data from 30 children. Findings indicate that poverty is a major push factor for migration, while a strong network of relatives living in Addis Ababa is a pull factor. In Addis Ababa, the children live in a challenging environment, drawing on their personal and social resources to persevere in the face of difficulties. Though they work hard and sometimes manage without basic necessities, they appreciate the opportunities available to help families, and for most to go to school, which reflects agency in action. Interventions need to consider not only vulnerability, but also the agency and resilience of children and the factors behind these.

 

 

This paper examines the sources of real exchange rate fluctuations in Sudan using Structure Vector Autoregressive technique, over the period 1979–2010. The analysis has focused on the impact of three macroeconomics shocks on fluctuations of real exchange rate, namely, supply, real demand and nominal shocks. The result shows that the real demand shocks play a significant role in explaining the variations in real exchange rate. This implies that the real demand factors such as, government spending and money supply are the major sources of depreciation of real exchange rate. By contrast,  supply shocks and nominal shocks have small impact of real exchange rate.

 

The main objective of this article is to assess the contributions in sustaining the livelihoods of smallholder farmers of rainfall-deficit-index-based crop insurance pilot project based on haricot beans implemented in Ethiopia in 2009. Based on crosssectional data, assessment results revealed that crop insurance has a potential in sustaining the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, but that there was a problem of information flow, belated payout and inadequate consideration of farmers’ preferences. Scaling-up crop insurance scheme in the future increasingly depends upon building farmers’ knowledge on how the scheme works, through proper agricultural extension services and farmers’ active participation. Signifying crop insurance as an appropriate risk management strategy, the article underlines the importance of public extension services besides appreciating farmers’ motivations to take over the management and leadership of their own affairs when existing structures are not responsive in the context of practicing crop insurance.

 

 

 

People affected by HIV and AIDS face risks which secure livelihood can enable them to avoid. At-risk groups and the type of risks differ between locations and over time. Opportunities to (re)build livelihoods are also diverse and context-specific. Supportive policies and programmes must therefore be responsive to these differences and to people’s and communities’ innovative capacities. This study

assesses how five Ethiopian NGOs: one AIDS service organisation, one PLHIV network, one microfinance institution (MFI), one development NGO, and one faithbased NGO engaged in strengthening livelihoods in communities confronting HIV and AIDS identified at-risk groups, priorities for livelihood support, and responded to needs. Interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with purposefully

selected beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries, and key informants. Findings show that the organisations support livelihoods in very different ways and have adopted different approaches in the way they organise, provide and attempt to ensure the sustainability of the support. However, support is often based on limited experience since there are no guidelines and proper monitoring and evaluation and feedback mechanisms are absent. All of the organisations did not conduct meaningful needs assessments, leading to the proliferation of stereotyped responses targeting stereotyped populations while other groups at significant risk of HIV are ignored. The organisations have also largely failed to keep AIDS in perspective since groups facing other challenges are rarely supported. Local innovations and suggestions from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries are given little attention. This failure to draw on local innovation means that less effective activities are supported and productive relationships between organisations and communities are undermined. Nevertheless, there is an immense opportunity for evaluation and learning from these diverse practices.

 

 

 

This research aimed at identifying the major livelihood diversification activities, reasons for diversification and the main challenges of livelihood diversification and assessing the effect of livelihood diversification on food security at household level. A blended approach that involved quantitative and qualitative research methods was used. Quantitative data were collected through household survey using questionnaire, while focus group discussions, key informant interview and direct observation were used to generate the relevant qualitative data. The data were analysed using appropriate methods and the results revealed that the insufficient endowment of households with the major livelihood assets (the tiny landholding being the prominent one) hampered their efforts to produce sufficient food for their household requirement. Diversification was widespread in the study area and it was the poor and the destitute households who diversified their livelihood most. The research also found out that livelihood diversification, despite its being taken up as a food security strategy mostly by the poor and the destitute who have limited access to livelihood assets, could not enable the households to feel food secure.

 

 

 

This study analyses land use and land cover changes that occurred in the commercial farming region of Chiredzi district in Zimbabwe between 1989 and 2012. It analysed the current arrangement of land use and land cover and the changes in land use and land cover over the 23 years along with the extent of changes that have occurred as well as the causes and impacts of the changes detected. Land use and land cover changes were determined from maximum likelihood supervised classification and interpretation of 1989, 1999, 2007 and 2012 Landsat TM satellite imagery while the drivers and impacts were noted using observations and secondary data. The results showed that cultivated land had expanded at the expense of bushland. Cultivated fields and bush land areas generally concentrated in the same locality and this was assumed to be a result of the arid conditions within the district. These changes in land use pattern and spread were mainly attributed to encroachment and expansion of agriculture; bush land clearance for firewood collection and construction, population increase due to resettlement and to a lesser extent the general arid conditions associated with climate change. The study recommends that further studies be undertaken to establish the consequences of sugarcane production on natural carbon sequestration processes such that further bushland losses will not

pose detrimental environmental effects.