Employment Programs for Food Security in Rural and Urban Africa: Experiences in Niger and Zimbabwe

The food security and poverty-targeting potential of employment-based income transfers has long been recognized in many African countries, not least in Niger and Zimbabwe. Niger's experience with public works dates from the 1930s. Beginning with the great drought of the 1970s, the Nigerien government has increasingly emphasized small-scale programs to generate labor for soil and water conservation and to minimize the effects of future droughts. These programs have been supported by donors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with close government collaboration, and they have a growing focus on urban food security problems. Zimbabwe's history of employment programs is even older, dating back to 1903 (Iliffe 1990). It, too, has shown an increasing reliance on public works in recent years, both in urban and rural settings. However, in contrast to Niger, Zimbabwe has implemented two major public programs of its own, based primarily on domestic food and budgetary resources. This chapter examines some of the public works experiences of these two countries, particularly with regard to their short-term impact on food insecurity. Three major questions are addressed in relation to projects in both rural and urban areas. First, who participates in labor-based works projects, and why? Second, what is the impact of the project on household employment and income? Third, what obstacles do employment programs face in alleviating food insecurity and lifting long-term constraints on growth in semi-arid environments? Few in-depth evaluations of the effects of participation on food-insecure households have been undertaken in either country. Noting the scarcity of in-depth evaluations, Dreze (1989) argues for "paying greater attention to . . . important 'success stories,' because serious studies of costs and benefits are not available." Such information is urgently needed, according to Rukuni and Eicher (1991), so that researchers can turn their "attention to converting grain to calories via food-for-work . . . to combat hunger and