Child Poverty Research Day: Reducing Economic Poverty - Yisak Tafere, 'Poverty, Social Protection and the Implications for Children in Ethiopia'

POVERTY, SOCIAL PROTECTION AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR

CHILDREN IN ETHIOPIA Yisak Tafere, PhD

Child Poverty: Research Scoping Day, Institute of Development Studies (IDS),

Brighton, UK 18 November 2016

Outline •Background

•Social Protection in Ethiopia

• Implications for Children

•Discussions

Background Population Est 100 million • Child population – 45% under age

15 (CSA 2014). • Economic growth (29.6% below

poverty line in 2010/11) but with increased inequality, • Children are disadvantaged and

the magnitude of their poverty rarely understood

Expansion of education – as a means of achieve national development expansion of schools and

increased number of school children

But many unable to achieve because of low quality, poverty

Social Protection in Ethiopia: Evolution and its implications to children

Constitutional basis of Social Protection: • Article 41/5 of the FDRE Constitution states:

• ‘The State shall, within available means, allocate resources to provide rehabilitation and assistance to the physically and mentally disabled, the aged, and to children who are left without parents or guardian.’

• Article 41/6: • ‘The state shall pursue policies which aim to expand job opportunities for the

unemployed and the poor and shall accordingly undertake programmes and public work projects’.

• Article 41(7): • ‘The state shall undertake all measures necessary to increase opportunities for

citizens to the find gainful employment’.

• Article 90: • ‘to the extent the country’s resources permit, policies shall aim to provide all

Ethiopians access to public health and education, clean water, housing, food and social security.’

Ethiopian productive Safety net: addressing food insecurity

• Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) was designed fore this purpose: Started in 2005 •Public work: Cash/ food for work program – household supply labour•Direct support (cash/food aid)

•Designed for rural areas•Targeted households with assumption it benefits all including children

•Objective – ensure food security through•Asset protection •Community asset creation – ‘productive’

•Components •Public work – ‘adult able bodied’ - 5 days in a month – was unclear of age limited for work •However, in 2010, limited 16-55 age and maximum work required for HH is 15 days •Direct Support – Households ‘without labor’ (elderly, disabled, etc.) • ‘Wages’ – 15kg of grain or 30 birr [50 in PIM 2010] per person

• Impacts: prevented hunger, sale of assets, certain level of nutrition, …

Implications for Children • Safety net: too small to change lives and trickle down to children (Tafere and Woldehanna 2012)

‘I work at safety net for three days a week. The rest is done by my mother and brother. The amount from safety net is not enough to buy food. So we usually face food shortage. To support this I work in the private irrigation farm which involves hoeing, planting, weeding and harvesting. I get birr 6 or 7 per day. I work to support family, to pay my heath care and school fees. I am in grade 4 now. I repeatedly dropped out of school due to illness and workload. I am trying to combine work and schooling. But I do not have time for study. I usually study during the evenings.’ A girl, 14, grade 4 from Oromia

Rarely helped children’s long-term developmental needs: ‘I had to discontinue my education because my family is very poor. As I often got hungry, I ran away from home and started carrying things for pay in the nearby town… I usually sleep on the veranda with other poor boys. …I caught a cold. I became ill and lost weight because of the hunger and cold.’ (Defar, Amhara, 2011) His family was very poor and depended on the social safety net transfer provided by the government for their food needs. Dropped from grade 4, gave his hope of finishing university and have a better life.

Unintended impact: children engaged in public work ‘Children participate in public work by replacing their parents who go to other activities or attend funerals. They also do the public work together with their parents. Those aged 15 or above do the work equally as adults. (PW supervisor, Tigray).

Growing Sensitivity to children: • PSNP 4 (2014) : • Raised awareness on the needs of sending children to school and not incoming in PW –• Prohibited child work in PW, but some involved in work as far as their family is required to preform PW

Social protection (2012) address vulnerable children: School feeding: in selected schools for poor children

The continuity of PSNP to ensure food security Free health care for poor families and their children Job opportunities for young people – micro credit …

Discussion (1): Twin Task of Social Protection

•Household poverty •Material –economic needs – thereby child needs •Relieve child stress of supporting family at the expense of their development (e.g. child work or substituting the family work) •That would contribute to the economic improvement •May contribute to Break intergenerational poverty transfer

•Child poverty •Address economic, material, developmental needs •Life course – at different levels different needs different interventions [child care, nutrition, schooling, employment…]

Discussion (2) Understanding Child poverty: Do we have child poverty measures? •Our limited focus on child-sensitive social protection is influenced by our understanding of child poverty – child poverty as embedded in household poverty!

MDG perhaps failed to address child poverty, because it failed to understand the multidimensional and longitudinal nature of poverty

Discussion (3): Can social protection contribute to end poverty without addressing child poverty? • If social protection is to Contribute to overall poverty reduction in Ethiopia, it requires adopting child-focused social protection

It is only by breaking life course poverty that intergenerational poverty could be tackled

the Post-2015 Agenda seems to offer renewed promise –can social protection contribute to this?