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What We Do Services: Monitoring / Evaluation: Changes in wealth breakdown in Dabano, Tigray between 1970/71 and 2001/01

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Changes in wealth breakdown in Dabano, Tigray between 1970/71 and 2001/01

by Stephen Browne — last modified 02/05/2008 14:25

HEA can also be used to assess whether there has been a shift in asset ownership or in the membership of wealth groups. It can also help to identify the causes of observed shifts. This is important as it helps to distinguish between changes in wealth patterns that are slow and structural, and those that are rapid and linked to a recent disaster.

The figure on the right compares HEA data from 2000 with data from M&E Case study 2 graphic 1970 in one part of Tigray, Ethiopia, and shows a trend towards impoverishment over those thirty years. But the livelihoods data showed that this did not mean that the villages had become more vulnerable to crop failure. Rather, in 2000 the poor were sustained in their villages not by local transfers as in the past - when wealth was produced locally - but by capital from outside the area. This capital came mainly from migrant laborers working in neighboring regions, and also from food aid paid out to laborers on public work schemes or food for work.

Using HEA for Monitoring and Evaluation: The holistic view of household economy that HEA offers lends itself to use for monitoring program impact and evaluating outcomes. In most cases it is difficult to measure outcomes rather than tracking distribution of inputs. This is especially true to programs which have an explicit objective to support and promote livelihoods. Monitoring using HEA baselines provides a snap shot of how households lived before the project was initiated and details how their lives have changed since. It provides quantified information on which sectors of the population were directly or indirectly impacted and how their access to food, non-food and income opportunities have increased or decreased as a result of an intervention.

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