Prior to USAID establishing the Livelihoods Integration Unit (LIU) in 2006, the Early Warning System of Ethiopia was considered to have well developed technical tools for its regular monitoring system forming the basis for its annual emergency need assessment. However, it did not have a clear and transparent methodology for estimating number of affected population and emergency needs. The monitoring effectively recorded availability, but did not provide any information on how different people could access available resources. Monitoring data could highlight deficits in production but not explain how these deficits might impact different types of households in a transparent manner.

The main goal of the LIU was to improve the accuracy and objectiveness of the seasonal and annual needs assessments in Ethiopia while building capacity, with an objective of handing over its core functions to the Ethiopian government. The project was designed to contribute to the USAID's Integrated Strategic Plan (ISP) for 2004-2008 and specifically to contribute to USAID's Strategic Objective (SO13), SO13: “Capacity to anticipate and manage ….. shocks increased”.  SO13 commits USAID to working together with the Ethiopian government to incorporate access into a livelihood framework and support the government to develop “nationwide livelihood baselines against which the impact of shocks will be measured”.

The methodology used by the LIU is the Household Economy Approach, a systems based approach to food security analysis that looks at all the components that make up the local economy (crops including cash crops, livestock, labor, remittances) and enables the impact of a hazard on each component to be evaluated when combined with appropriately collected monitoring data, collected either monthly or seasonally.

LIU Accomplishments to Date

The LIU is located within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) as part of the Early Warning and Response Directorate within the Disaster Management and Food Security Section. Considerable effort has been made to introduce the HEA framework and data outputs to a wider audience to encourage a greater understanding and use of both the baseline profiles, database, and livelihoods impact analysis tools not only for early warning, but also for emergency response planning, disaster risk reduction, social protection (including development, monitoring, and impact evaluations of social safety nets), and nutritional surveillance.

The Atlas of Ethiopian Livelihoods draws on data assembled by the LIU that has up until now been absent; data that makes it possible to piece together a comprehensive and holistic picture of how rural households in Ethiopia make their living, and how they get by from year to year. This atlas is the culmination of an intensive multi-year effort that aimed to structure the local knowledge of tens of thousands of Ethiopians, and resulted in a unique set of detailed information about household economic operations. The original intent of this campaign was to provide a basis for improved national early warning, the premise being that it is possible to better predict the variable localized impacts of drought, market shocks, and other transient hazards on households’ economic well-being if we first understand the extent to which households in different areas of the country depend upon their own production, local and regional markets, and informal sources of income.

By mapping this data, important new insights can be gained about a wide range of subjects beyond the remit of early warning. In this atlas a fresh look is taken at the geography of production on which rural households depend - from food crops and cash crops to cattle, camels and honey; along with the multiple systems of market exchange through which goods flow - including food, livestock, and labor, among others. This atlas has been put together in order to share these emerging insights and the messages they convey about what it means to be poor in different parts of Ethiopia; and more importantly how an informed understanding can contribute to appropriate development initiatives, emergency responses, and economic growth.