Background: The recent trend of increasing incidents of floods in Ethiopia is disrupting the livelihoods of a significant proportion of the country's population. This study assesses the factors that shape the resilience and the vulnerability of rural households in the face of recurring floods by taking the case of Dembia district of Northwest Ethiopia as one of the flood-prone areas in the country. Results: The data for the study were collected through a survey of 284 households, two focus group discussions, and 12 key informant interviews. Principal Component Analysis and simple linear regression were used for the analysis. The former served both for data reduction and identification of the dominant factors that explain resilience to recurring flood hazards while the latter was used to check the relationship between resilience and vulnerability. Findings indicate that access and use of livelihood resources such as size of farmlands, availability of farm oxen, credit as well as ability to draw help from social networks were found to be the most important factors that determine the resilience of households to floods. Similarly, the coping strategies employed by households were found to be constrained mainly by the scale and impact of the recent floods and lack or shortage of basic infrastructural and social facilities. Conclusions: The results confirmed that most of the traditional coping strategies employed by households failed to effectively help households offset the impacts of flooding. Given the livelihood context of smallholder farming system in the studied area, context specific institutional interventions such as the integrated use of both safety nets and cargo nets may help communities to overcome livelihood predicaments associated with the recurrent flood disasters. This implies that policy should focus more on addressing the factors that expose people to flood disasters and shape their resilience, rather than focusing on short-term emergency responses which seems to be the norm in much of the flood affected areas in the country.

Social‐protection programmes like the Productive Safety‐Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia can play a positive role in promoting livelihoods and enhancing risk management. This article uses propensity score matching to estimate its effect on income diversification. The results suggest that receiving transfers from the PSNP, on average, did not increase farm or non‐farm income but significantly increases natural‐resource extraction (one component of off‐farm income). While these results should be treated with caution, they suggest that the PSNP may not be helping smallholders diversify income sources in a positive manner for climate adaptation. The article concludes by arguing for the promotion of positive forms of income diversification and the further investigation of the PSNP's influence on autonomous adaptation strategies.

This article examines smallholders' perceptions of climate variability in two districts in northern Ethiopia, and the diversification options pursued within and outside agriculture. Meteorological records corroborate smallholders' belief that temperatures are increasing but do not support assertions that rainfall is decreasing. Farm-level adaptation mainly involves soil and water conservation measures learnt from state-led schemes as well as planting a broader crop mix. Diversification outside agriculture is mainly wage labour: international and national migration, construction work in local towns, participation in public works and piecework on nearby farms. The article concludes by arguing that policymakers could do more to support non-farm diversification strategies by recognising the importance of rural-urban connections in fostering adaptation.

Because of the common practice of subletting construction work into smaller packages, subcontracting has become an attractive technique in the construction business. Effective subcontractor selection and monitoring reduce the problem while also determining the performance of construction firms. The engagement of a subcontractor in a building construction project results in relationships with the main contractor, which will influence the project's success. The purpose of this study was to look at how main contractors choose subcontractors and to analyze the effect of the main contractorsubcontractor relationship on project performance. This research used a descriptive survey method to look at the underlying characteristics that influence the relationship between the main contractor and subcontractors and their effect on the performance of construction projects. The findings of the study confirmed that most contractor depends on subcontractors for the execution of their work and therefore procurement and management of subcontractors highly affects the performance of the construction project. It was also discovered that the subcontractor often performs 20 percent to 50 percent of the work. Main contractors used subcontractors primarily to offer skilled labor, lower overhead expenses, and relieve work and financial burden on themselves. The major causes of issues between the main contractor and the subcontractor include the main contractor's delay in releasing payments, the subcontractor's shortage of trained personnel, and scheduling conflicts among the subcontractors on a given project. To eliminate antagonistic relationships, the study advises a trust-based cooperative partnership that incorporates subcontractors into a partnering strategy. Furthermore, for optimal construction project performance, simpler and complete subcontract documents would improve the interaction between the main contractor and the subcontractor.

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