*Lecturer, Bahir Dar University, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Department of Disaster Risk Management and Sustainable Development, Ethiopia
**Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Commerce, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India
Online published on 7 September, 2012.
This study examined the survival strategies of female-headed households (FHHs) in Libo Kemkem Woreda, Ethiopia. Agriculture is the mainstay of nearly 90 percent of the people of Libo Kemkem; however, it is more vulnerable to soil infertility, erratic rainfall, low technology, and low technology farming system. As a result, majority of the people could not able to produce sufficient production. The problem is serious in female-headed households. They do not have sufficient productive resources such as land, oxen, labour and capital, which are important to sustain once life. As the findings indicated, rural female-headed households are busy to look for jobs as income sources. They shoulder three major responsibilities and they are production, reproduction and community works. Due to this fact their survival strategies became very challenging. As a result, to avoid women's constraints in the agriculture sector gender-aware interventions in planning and implementation of development projects in each specific socio-economic setting are very crucial.
Rural FHHs, Assets, Survival strategies, Gender interventions, Libo Kemkem Woreda
