COVID-19, Access to Energy and Food security in Ethiopia: Panel Data Evidence

This proposal will examine two key research objectives that have not been well explored: First, it will examine the role of access to electricity on household’s food security and the nutritional status of children under the age of five. It will also attempt to examine the gender differential effect of access to electricity on household’s food security status. Second, it will provide insights on the effect of COVID-19 related stayat-home order on household energy consumption in the city of Addis Ababa. The study will be based on publicly available panel household survey of the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey (ESS) and panel data collected by ECRC/PSI. In order to meet the key objectives of the research, we will apply Difference in Difference (DID) approach. Hence, this study will help public officials and policy makers through generating objective evidence about how household’s food security and child nutrition can be improved through enhancing access to electricity; and on the impact of COVID-19 on household’s energy consumption and the necessary precautions to reduce the pressure on the infrastructure for future similar pandemics. Such evidence in turn will encourage the government to invest more in basic infrastructure, which is still severely lacking in Ethiopia. This study will also contribute to the food security literature by examining the impact of access to electricity through a new lens of inputs to household food security and child nutrition. Furthermore, it will contribute to the scant literature available on the economics of COVID – 19 in Africa. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study that looked at the two key important hypotheses in the Ethiopian context.