Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA (DVS) / Formal microfinance institutions have been an important tool in the fight against poverty in developing countries, but their reach for rural people and urban slum poor are limited. Following this, Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) are established as an alternative, informal mechanism for saving and borrowing that do not require external capital or ongoing financial or administrative support from a founding organization or government bodies. Thus, this study aimed to assess the effects of women participation in VSLA on poverty reduction with a case study in Hawassa city, Ethiopia. Using a mixed qualitative and quantitative research methodology, the study tried to focus on examining the effects of VSLAs contribution to economic and social wellbeing of households, and decision makings, and women participation in community activities. The study used 254 samples (127 VSLA participants, and 127 non-participants) and collected data using questionnaire and focus group discussion. The study used propensity score matching (PSM) to estimate the impact of women participation in VSLA on average monthly household income, and the result indicated the average effect of women participation in VSLA on average monthly household income of participant women is positive and significant at 5% significant level, ranging from 169.63 Birr/month (nearest neighbor matching) to 141.55 Birr/month (Kernel matching), on average. Besides, comparison between participants and non-participants using hypothesis testing shows that women participation in VSLA has a significant positive association with improvements in household diet, health, children's education, and women’s involvement in household decisions. However, although hypothesized, no significant association is found in relation to women participation in community activities. Findings from the focus group discussions are also consistent with the results from the PSM and hypothesis testing. Following the findings, the study recommends government and nongovernmental organizations to provide regular, timely and need based capacity building trainings for VSLA participants; Link VSLA participants with formal microfinance institutions; conduct regular monitoring and follow ups by either the city or sub-cities Women Children Affairs Department/offices or concerned government body; different concerned stakeholders in the city including government, nongovernmental organizations, microfinance institutions and others need to work in coordinated manner to solve the recurrent challenges of VSLA participants in Hawassa city; and finally government and/or nongovernmental organizations need to take best practices and lessons from existing VSLAs and expand the VSLA initiative to address more impoverished women in the city.

The land grabbing phenomena grew in both reported cases and in scholarly interest after the 2008 financial crisis. The concept of land grabbing has been greatly debated and some have chosen the term large scale land acquisition instead, focusing on win-win outcomes while the land grabbing term rather focuses on the unequal power relations involved. Our study has defined land grabbing as; a global land rush characterized by transnational and domestic investors, governments and local elites taking control over land in order to produce food and other industrial commodities for domestic and international markets. The study's aim is to examine land grabbings implications on smallholders local livelihoods in Ethiopia and furthermore to reveal what narratives that are being promoted by the Ethiopian government to justify these land grabs. This to understand how the implications on smallholders' livelihoods and the narratives by the government match. The study is based in a qualitative methodology, basing most of the study's result in a literature review. The study is examined through a Political Ecology framework, focusing on political economy with theory influences from both Marx and David Harvey. Furthermore, the study will also combine the theoretical understanding of discursive power, focusing on development discourses, with a narrative analysis. Findings of the study show that the main narratives pushed by the government to justify said land grabs in the country was economic growth, further enabling a ‘development state’, modernizing pastoralists by providing stable income and changing living situations for pastoralists and increasing the food security in the country. Furthermore, the study found that the livelihood implications for smallholders have been overall negative, with outcomes such as displacement, loss of land and resources, weakened food security and also negative psychological and social impacts as well. Therefore the study could conclude that the Ethiopian government's argumentations have not matched with the lived realities for many smallholders.