Ethiopia: Project Selection Process
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Reconciliation of Kebele ASNPs It is important to ensure that the various ASNPs within a given woreda are in alignment. Performance on this indicator has shown progress in 2011 compared to 2008. Table 9.4 shows that a high percentage of woredas have either a “good” or “very good” alignment of kebele ASNPs within a woreda.
Environmental and Social Safeguards The application of the ESMF ensures that PSNP projects are environmentally and socially sustainable and that inappropriate projects are eliminated. However, the program’s very large scale (approximately 40,000 projects a year) gives rise to monitoring problems. Sampling is the most obvious approach, but it must be structured so as to limit the sample size to a manageable proportion. Another approach is the case study approach, which seeks to determine typical results for certain types of projects. There is much debate regarding the relative merits of the two approaches. The appropriate methodology must be determined depending on the characteristics of the program involved. To examine the application of the ESMF, the important two dimensions to measure are frequency and quality. Frequency. Frequency of ESMF implementation has been a focus of monitoring in Ethiopia’s PSNP. Following training to address information gaps within and between the relevant institutions that had led to a low ESMF implementation rate in the program’s early years, the rate improved. By 2008, rates of ESMF implementation exceeding 90 percent were being reported by the public works reviews. However, it appears that there has recently been a decline in the ESMF implementation rate, at least in the project samples examined (table 9.5). These data indicate that, overall, in Ethiopia’s four largest regions, only about three-quarters of projects are being reviewed against the ESMF by the development agents. The variation across the regions is considerable.
Table 9.4 Reconciliation of Kebele Annual Safety Net Plans percent
2008 2011
Poor
Satisfactory
Good
Very good
5 5
27 10
44 72
25 13
Source: Government of Ethiopia 2011.