Analysis of Rural Poverty at Household Level in Silte Wereda, Southern Ethiopia (original) (raw)

Poverty is getting a serious social problem in the world and drawing attention of the international community for global solution. It remains challenging particularly in Developing Countries. Ethiopia is among the countries which, striving toward alleviating the problem for many years; however the problem has still persisted and caused many suffering. This study was carried out in Silte Wereda of South Nations Nationalities Regional State (SNNPRS); specifically, the study aim at measuring the magnitude and identifying determinants of poverty in the Wereda. Thus, to meet these objectives, primary data was collected by structured interview from 365 selected sample household. Thus applied descriptive statistics and econometric (logit) model in order to identify the poor and non-poor; analyze the incidence, depth and severity of poverty; and associating livelihood capital with rural poverty have been made. In setting poverty line, Cost Benefit Necessity approach was employed. This has been done by using basket of food items actually consumed by the households and converted to calorie. Based on this, the total poverty line was estimated to Birr 4,380.00 adult equivalent per year, out of this Birr 2,989.50 for food poverty line and Birr 1,390.50 for non-food. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Poverty Index result shows 41.1% of the sample households have lived under the poverty line, the total consumption required to lift up the poor households to the poverty line is 11.3%, and poverty severity is 4.3%. The binary logit regression econometric model result indicated that out of the twelve variables which included in the model, seven explanatory variables were found significant up to less than 5% probability level. Accordingly, off-farm and non-farm income, educational level, access to credit and contact of agricultural extension worker, ownership of livestock and cultivated land were found as theoretical expectation statistically significant and had negatively association and family size positively associating with the status of poverty of rural households in surveyed area. Thus, promoting education, family planning, diversification credit accessibility, linkage between rural and urban, strengthens research extension-farmer linkage and productivity of land suppose to be policy intervention for targeting rural poverty.