Dry forests are dominant vegetation types in East Africa. The contribution of these resources to local livelihoods is poorly understood. This study was conducted to quantify the contribution of dry forest products to household income and to identify factors that influence forest income level in the northwestern and southern lowlands of Ethiopia. Data was collected using key informant interviews, focus group discussions and formal survey administered to 428 randomly selected households from representative districts in three regional states. Regression analysis, one way ANOVA, chi-square and t-tests were used to analyze the quantitative data. The major sources of household income are crop production, livestock farming, forest products, off-and non-farm activities, and remittances and aid, contributing respectively to 46.3%, 27.6%, 17.0%, 6.3% and 2.8% of the household income. The relative importance of forest income to total household income varied significantly across wellbeing categories (P < 0.001), representing 31.8%, 15.5% and 9.9% respectively for poor, medium and rich households and also between male headed (16.1%) and female headed (23.5%) households(P < 0.001). In terms of magnitude, however, forest income differed significantly (P < 0.05) with wealth category of households but not with the gender of the household head. Forest income level was significantly and positively influenced by family size (P < 0.01) and being a member of gums and resins producers cooperative (P < 0.01), while distance to the forest resource (P < 0.01) and being in Tigray or Amhara Regional States (Oromia being reference state) negatively and significantly affected forest income levels of households. Attempts to promote sustainable management of dry forests should recognize these factors that influence access to forests and forest income level of different members of the community to ensure equita- B. Teshome et al. 332 ble responsibility and benefit sharing arrangements and inclusive participation for better livelihoods and conservation outcomes.
One of the key outcomes of international migration is the flow of resources to the home countries of migrants. With the rise of international migration from Ethiopia, remittance flows have recently become significant in terms of total volume and their impact on household income and the national economy. In recent years, the amount of remittances to Ethiopia has increased and as such outperformed the export sector. This chapter by using empirical data collected from selected sites examined two major questions with respect to the flow of remittances from Ethiopian migrants in the Gulf countries and South Africa. The first is why migrants choose informal channels of remittance transfer over the formal ones and the second is the socio-economic impacts of remittances at the household level in migrant communities.
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