Since 2013, Feed the Future has worked in the following regional states: Afar; Amhara; Oromia; Sidama; Somali; Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’; Southwest Ethiopia; Tigray.
Number of people living in Ethiopia (World Bank, 2019)
Annual GDP growth; agriculture accounts for 12.7 percent of added value (World Bank, 2019)
Percentage of population living in rural Ethiopia (World Bank, 2019)
Percentage of people living in poverty in Feed the Future target regions in 2018 (GFSS ZOI Survey, 2018)
Producers using new technologies and practices with Feed the Future’s help in FY20
Number of children under 5 reached with nutrition help in FY20
Hectares tended with improved technologies or management practices with Feed the Future’s help in FY20
New private investment leveraged by Feed the Future in FY20
Despite Ethiopia’s expanding economy and potential for agriculture-led growth, challenges persist. These include: disruption from conflict spillover in the north of the country, low crop yields, lack of access to credit and land, limited use of improved seeds and fertilizers and weak connections between farms and markets. Agriculture-led economic growth, accompanied by improvements in people’s livelihoods and nutrition, can build farmers’ ability to withstand recurring shocks and provide a long-lasting solution to Ethiopia’s chronic poverty and food insecurity challenges. To achieve this, Feed the Future connects families and marginalized communities to economic opportunities, unlocks financial services and strengthens agriculture, nutrition and resilience. Feed the Future integrates agriculture and nutrition investments to enhance cognitive and physical development, increase economic productivity, strengthen resilience and advance global development. For more information, please view the Nutrition Priority Countries.
In 2020, Feed the Future strengthened inclusive and sustainable economic growth by supporting over 800,000 smallholder producers to improve the production and sale of agricultural products and by unlocking access to financing and markets for underserved communities. By partnering with Feed the Future, farms and firms gained access to over $15 million in financing to buy quality agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizer and to expand operations; this resulted in more than $173 million in sales in 2020.
Results from the Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain activity demonstrate significant progress, including:
To help Ethiopia’s most vulnerable farming and pastoralist families weather various shocks, Feed the Future trained hundreds of experts in early warning systems, crop and livestock remote-sensing, market price modeling and rainfall estimating. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Feed the Future helped to improve the coordination and emergency management skills of federal and regional institutions to strengthen emergency preparedness, response and recovery activities.
In Ethiopia’s highlands, Feed the Future resilience programming supported 1.6 million vulnerable people in 72 districts to: improve the management of 53,000 hectares of farmlands and degraded communal lands; establish over 1,200 new village economic and social associations (VESAs); and access $6.7 million in loans from VESAs. This assistance is leading to impressive results. Supported households increased their assets and incomes between 2017 and 2020; households in the Amhara region increased their assets by 53 percent and their incomes by 59 percent; in the Sidama region these increased by 66 percent and 12 percent; and in the Southern Regions, these increased by 220 percent and 114 percent. Over the same period, household savings increased eightfold in Amhara and Sidama and fivefold in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region.
To promote nutrition – especially among Ethiopia’s women and children – Feed the Future works with government and community systems to address malnutrition, promote large-scale education and link nutrition, water, livelihood and food security efforts.
For example, Feed the Future’s nutrition work is complemented by investments in water, sanitation and hygiene, which promote sustainable water and sanitation services and optimal hygiene practices. As a result, consumption of a diverse diet increased from 31 to 63 percent among the 97,000 women engaged in Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activity’s nutrition-sensitive agriculture activities.
The results shown reflect data from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Peace Corps and the Department of Treasury (through the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program), reported into Feed the Future’s central monitoring system for fiscal year 2020 (FY20). Impact data for poverty statistics are derived from the 2018 Feed the Future Ethiopia Population-Based Survey Report. For more information on the indicators above, please view our Feed the Future Indicator Handbook. All dollar amounts are listed in U.S. dollars
Feed the Future funds the following programs, partnerships and organizations in Ethiopia.
September 26, 2018
March 8, 2018
Current Dataset
April 2019
“The training provided by Feed the Future enabled me to produce high-quality milk, diversify products, and maintain the health and good feeding program for my cows.”
Hirut Yohannes Darare, Founder, Rut & Hut
