This brief documents the achievements of two projects implemented in Ethiopia. The first project ‘‘Better potato for a better life’’ sought to significantly improve food security and diet quality of vulnerable households. While second one ‘‘Alleviation of food insecurity and malnutrition via orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP)’’. Implementation of these project demonstrated the potential for exploiting synergies between emergency efforts and development projects by linking emergency implementing partners as buyers to trained farmer multipliers of quality planting material, 60 million sweetpotato vines were distributed in the drought affected SNNP Region in Ethiopia. A major lesson learned is that sweetpotato is ideally suited as a post-emergency rehabilitation crop. It is a hardy, drought resistant and “low maintenance” crop that is easy to grow even for inexperienced farmers. Large quantities of planting material can be transported at reasonable costs and will produce substantial amounts of food and feed within a short period of time (3 to 4 months).