Policy Interventions and Community-Based Initiatives: A Mixed-Methods Study on Food Security and Resilience in Rural Tigray

Abstract

The study analyzes the interplay between governmental measures and community-based efforts in promoting food security and resilience in rural Tigray. Using mixed techniques, including ethnography, surveys, interviews, and secondary data analysis, the study analyzed the contributions of external and local efforts on household adaptive ability. The study's results indicate great variety in community participation: women-led savings and credit groups had the most engagement (46%), seed-sharing cooperatives 39%, while grain banks had the lowest at 16%.   Government support, such as food aid (61%) and the Productive Safety Net Programme (52%), were vital in the near term but inadequate for sustainable resilience. Areas with greater local efforts such as Beleso and parts of Agazi had better recovery rates (63%) and food security levels (48%) compared to areas depending mostly on foreign help (Guahgot: 42% recovery and 28% food security). Generally, these results emphasize that long-term resilience is most successfully obtained when community-driven methods are improved and supported by properly coordinated governmental measures.