Mid-Term Performance Evaluation of the Pastoral Livelihoods Initiative Phase II (PLI II)

This report evaluates Phase II of the Pastoral Livelihoods Initiative (PLI II), a four-year project begun in May 2009 that aimed to strengthen the livelihoods of about 205,000 former and current pastoralists living in Ethiopia’s lowlands.

It found that PLI II as a whole and most partners delivered most services at a satisfactory level. A bright spot was improving the skills of community animal health workers, but there was little formal institutionalization. Similarly, the program did valuable work in improving natural resource management through a participatory approach with clan elders and government officials, but evaluators found that it was unlikely that this work would be fully completed by the end of the project.

At the national level, PLI II had strong relationships with government officials, but those officials were primarily interested in transferring tangible assets to targeted communities rather than on some of the underlying goals.

Evaluators urged USAID/Ethiopia to consider whether its programming adequately reflects the reality that in Ethiopia there is an ongoing continuum between pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and ex-pastoralists. These shifting household strategies and implications for targeting need to be taken more thoroughly into consideration for the PLI II and future programs, it said.