Even though there is a growing interest to empower rural women in all economic activities. Works of literature are scant to evaluate the role of small-scale irrigation technology on women empowerment. This study evaluates the impact of the adoption of small-scale irrigation technologies on women empowerment, where empowerment is measured by Women Empowerment in the Agricultural index. The propensity Score Matching (PSM) method was employed to identify comparable technology adopting and non-adopting sample households. Results of the average treatment effect on treated suggest adoption of small-scale irrigation technologies exacerbate the disempowerment of women. Hence, we suggest Policy and development interventions should give due emphasis on improving women’s capacity to own and control resources and should be decision-makers.

Irrigation is widely considered a potential means to improve agricultural productivity, nutrition, and income, as farmers can carry out farming and production year-round. However, the feasibility of irrigation technologies is highly dependent on the long-term economic return farmers achieve. Solar-based irrigation could address the challenges of underinvestment in irrigation within Africa. Evidence on the economic viability of the adopted solar pumps such as MajiPump is very scant and focused on ex post evaluation. This study evaluated the income and nutritional feasibility of solar-powered irrigation using the MajiPump in sub-humid Ethiopian highlands using the farm simulation (FARMSIM) model and compared it with the manual pulley system. Results from the FARMSIM model show that farmers’ adoption of Maji solar pump technology to grow vegetables is economically feasible with financial support such as credit or loan for initial and capital investment to acquire the pump. The average profit under the solar MajiPump, drip irrigation, and conservation agriculture was 3.6 times higher than that of the baseline scenario. While the pulley technology provides the same amount of irrigation water to grow vegetables, its feasibility is limited due to high labor costs and time, estimated to be more than seven times the baseline. The simulation results show that the alternative scenarios’ nutrition level has improved relative to other scenarios and met the minimum daily average nutrition requirement level for proteins, iron, and vitamin A but fell short in fat, calcium, and calories. The results suggest that farmers who adopt improved small-scale irrigation technologies (solar MajiPump and drip system) have a higher potential to increase production and income from irrigated crops and improve their nutrition if part of the income generated is used to purchase supplemental food for their nutrition.

Stable and sustainable economic growth depends on an effective domestic resource mobilisation strategy. Ethiopia’s tax share of gdp is relatively low. One possible explanation for such a low tax-to-gdp ratio is the existence of a substantial shadow economy. There is proof that the shadow economy is extremely prevalent in Ethiopia. Despite a few attempts, Ethiopia’s shadow economy has not been extensively examined. There are three ways to estimate the size of the shadow economy: the direct, indirect and model approaches. In this study, we estimate the size of the shadow economy using a direct survey method. Our analysis shows that 29.9% of the Amhara region’s gdp comes from the shadow economy. Contentment with the tax legislation and the likelihood of detection are both major predictors of businesses engaging in shadow economic activity. Policymakers should be concerned, since the estimate of the shadow economy in the Amhara region is still relatively high even though it is lower than the national average.