The research was designed to determine whether all households in a community are equally affected by famine, and what households themselves do to ward off starvation. information on production, income, and food consumption is disaggregated by agroecological zone (highland and lowland), and by socioeconomic strata This kind of information improves our understanding of why the poor are more vulnerable than the less poor to drought and famine, and why relief and development interventions must target them more effectively. A sound famine prevention strategy must allocate resources so as to support sustainable economic growth and welfare improvement at national and local levels. Public interventions against famine must therefore strengthen, not supplant, the coping mechanisms of vulnerable households. In a world of limited public resources for crisis intervention, an understanding of how vulnerable households can be reintegrated into a productive development process is crucial to improving policies and the sustainability of investments for future economic growth.
