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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
Volume 9 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1528346
This article is part of the Research Topic Indigenous and Local Knowledge as a Catalyst for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security View all 4 articles
Strengthening Household Resilience for Enhanced Food Security in Northwestern Ethiopia: Insights from Resilience Pillars
Provisionally accepted- Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
Ethiopia has faced significant food insecurity challenges, impacting households from the district to the national level. To strengthen household resilience to food security, it is essential to assess their current resilience levels accurately.The main objective of the study was to assess rural household resilience to food insecurity in Libo Kemkem, a district in northwest Ethiopia, which is particularly susceptible to food insecurity, and identify the contributions of the key pillars that enhance households' capacity to cope with food insecurity. The research used a cross-sectional survey with 216 households, drawn using a multi-stage stratified sampling technique to ensure representation across different subgroups. The Food and Agricultural Organization's Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis II (FAO RIMA-II, 2016) framework was applied to assess the levels of resilience. Factor analysis was used as the main analytical tool to estimate the household resilience index. The result indicated that asset, adaptive capacity, and access to basic services are highly contributed to resilience with positive scores of scores of 0.85, 0.82, and 0.81 respectively. All the aforementioned scores of resilience pillars are highly significant since it is greater than 0.37 which is recommended for a sample size of 200 and above. Nevertheless, the social safety net is negatively associated with resilience, with a score of -0.68. The average household resilience capacity index was 0.56, showing that 63% of households are less resilient. The overall results of the study showed that households with better assets, adaptive capacity, and better access to basic services, are likely to be more resilient. Consequently, this study recommends applying targeted resilience-oriented strategies programs, packages, and projects that improve these positively contributing pillars of resilience to enhance food security in the area.
Keywords: Community adaptation, Factor analysis, Food insecurity, Indigenous knowledge, Libo Kemkem, Livelihood zone, resilience
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 16 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Abebe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mekonen Getachew Abebe, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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