Digital money, analogue hunger? Mobile financial inclusion and the transmission pathways to rural household food security in Central Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s mobile money use expanded rapidly after Telebirr’s 2021 launch, yet evidence linking it to rural food security remains limited. Using cross-sectional data from 560 smallholder households in Ada’a and Adama districts, this study applies Endogenous Switching Regression and mediation analysis to examine savings smoothing, remittance receipt, and input credit access as mechanisms. Mobile money adoption is associated with an 8.81-point higher Food Consumption Score, versus a raw 16.26-point gap. The three mechanisms explain 49% of the conditional differential, with savings smoothing (28%), remittances (12%), and input credit (9%) contributing most. Findings support targeted savings products and expanded agent networks.