| About the Partnership for Food Security (PFS)
The Partnership for Food Security Project has been implemented in three phases. PFS Phase I (PFS-I) started in March 2003 in response to an emerging famine situation with a $1 million dollar contribution from the Sprott Foundation in Canada and matched by additional funding from CIDA.
PFS-I was designed to provide early relief and asset protection for hard-hit families in the Bati woreda, as well as support rehabilitation activities through employment generating schemes. PFS-I had a budget of $3.075 million and targeted 61,000 poor and food insecure people.
PFS moved from relief to development in a Bridging Phase from August 2004 to September 2005. This phase, with a budget of $1.3 million, laid the groundwork for the planning and implementation of PFS-II, a multi-year final phase with a budget of $6.7 million.
PFS-II seeks to build on the successes of Phase I and the Bridging Phase and to contribute to new and innovative relief-to-development programming in Ethiopia by actively promoting a shift away from dependency on food aid to sustainable livelihoods. The project contributes to enhanced food security within a ‘livelihood security’ framework focusing on enhancing livelihood assets and promoting diversified and sustainable livelihood strategies.
It also embraces a ‘productive and social safety net’ approach while integrating gender, HIV/AIDS and environment as important cross-cutting themes. PFS-II works within 10 of the 28 rural kebeles in Bati woreda, targeting a population of 47,000.
In 2005, the Government of Ethiopia initiated the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). PSNP aims to alleviate the loss of assets and resources, fill food production gaps and build households and community assets by providing a reliable source of food and cash transfers to the chronically food insecure population. In 2006, coverage of the PSNP was expanded to overlap with Other Food Security Programmes (OFSP) and covered all 28 kebeles in the Bati woreda, including those targeted by the PFS project.
 Following the introduction of PSNP into the Bati woreda, the PFS project reoriented its implementation strategy to ensure that it complemented rather than substitute for, or duplicated, PSNP activities. The complementarity of the interventions was expected to enhance the graduation of PSNP beneficiaries. PFS is implemented by CHF’s partner, the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara (ORDA), one of the largest non-governmental organizations in Ethiopia. ORDA worked in close collaboration with line ministries and local administrations. CHF in turn provided institutional capacity building support to both ORDA and line offices in Bati, helping to improve management capabilities, technical skills, monitoring and evaluation, and IT systems.
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