Impacts of government flagship programmes: Evidence from Ethiopia

Ethiopia continues to face persistent rural development challenges despite periods of rapid macroeconomic growth. More than 80% of the population depends on smallholder agriculture, yet productivity remains low due to severe land degradation, recurrent climate shocks, and limited access to finance and extension services – leading to widespread and chronic food insecurity. These structural constraints have motivated the Government of Ethiopia and development partners to invest heavily in large-scale rural development programmes, with the dual aims of boosting agricultural growth and strengthening household resilience to climate and livelihood shocks.

Ethiopia’s three flagship programmes – the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP), the Sustainable Land Management Project (SLMP), and the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) – have been the cornerstone of these efforts for nearly two decades. Together they represent more than US$ 5 billion in public investment and reach millions of rural households.

We evaluate the impacts of these three programmes. We exploit variation in programme implementation at woreda, kebele, and household levels, combining household fixed effects with differential trends and staggered difference-in-differences estimation to identify causal effects on agricultural productivity, vegetation, dietary diversity, and household resilience.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.55158/DEEPWP37