Nuru Ethiopia 2020 Impact Report

Since 2016, the Ray Marshall Center has provided technical assistance to Nuru International’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team. The Center’s experience and expertise support Nuru’s work in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria by demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of its integrated approach to addressing poverty. This report presents Nuru Ethiopia’s 2020 impact results for farmer cooperatives, rural livelihoods, and healthcare programming. RMC researchers found that Nuru interventions led to higher agricultural incomes for Nuru farmer households and reductions in under‐five mortality while building a foundation of sustainable cooperative businesses.

In 2020, communities and farmers in southern Ethiopia experienced the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, a national state of emergency, continued desert locust swarms, and the outbreak of violent conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. However, the firm foundation of livelihood diversification, healthy behaviors, and farmer organization impacts will ensure that meaningful choices are available to farmers in the future through their member‐owned businesses. Rigorous methods including comparison groups and benchmarking‐based analysis demonstrated that Nuru Ethiopia achieved attributable impact in 2020 despite the multiple challenges present in the year.