Assessing the Contribution of Food Assistance for Assets on Food Availability in Chipinge, Zimbabwe

This paper assessed the effects of Food for Assets (FFA) in improving food availability in Chipinge District of Zimbabwe. Results show that FFA significantly contributes to meeting immediate food needs for participating households, especially households with low numbers. However, being a short-term intervention and targeting few households within communities, the FFA programme’s overall effectiveness at the community level is minimal. As a coping strategy, households resorted to food rationing to ensure that the food lasted the whole season. Also, households that participated both as workers and had established plots in FFA irrigation schemes had a better opportunity to cope since they also resorted to their own food production. Such households were found to have increased food availability compared to non-beneficiaries. Short working hours that guide FFA activities have also allowed community members to engage in other productive activities to improve food security. We recommend that future FFA should be implemented over an extended period for a more sustainable benefit on food availability and livelihoods. Participation in the FFA programme should be transitory to enable progression from emergency response to more developmental initiatives that will result in long term food availability and sustainable livelihoods.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development

• Publication date

  2023-09-28

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.52589/ajesd-aeshrt4o
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Household survival and resilience to food insecurity through the drip irrigation scheme in dry rural areas

  2021cited by this paper
• Understanding the Recent Food Price Trends in Uganda

  2012cited by this paper
• An evaluation of the impact of food aid on food security: the case of Ngabu area in Malawi

  2009cited by this paper
• The impact of climate change and adaptation on food production in low-income countries: Evidence from the Nile Basin, Ethiopia

  2008cited by this paper
• Research methods in education, 6th ed.

  2007cited by this paper
• The challenge of capacity development: working towards good practice

  2005cited by this paper
• Adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity

  2001cited by this paper
• Article

  2000cited by this paper
• Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam

  1999cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.