Responding to Polycrisis in Ethiopia and Kenya

The spread of Covid-19 was layered on to various intersecting crises (‘polycrisis’), worsening people’s lives and weakening governments’ responses to the pandemic. Many responses to multiple crises focus on single hazards. This brief highlights effective responses to Covid-19, drought and conflict from Kenya and Ethiopia, which may offer lessons for future policy and programming that equitably address multiple crises. It focuses on two examples of how governments and local actors have sought to strengthen people’s ability to cope with multiple crises: through collaboration at different levels of governance across sectors; and strengthening resilience through water management

Why closing the gender gap is vital to Ethiopia's youth self-employment programme

In 2012 young people between the ages of 15 and 34 account for 43 % of the total urban population in Ethiopia. A series of government initiatives have been launched to promote entrepreneurship among youth. The government’s Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) sector development strategy focuses on expansion of technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The brochure covers how female-owned enterprises face specific extra challenges during both start-up and operational phases. The growth of female-owned enterprises is pivotal to reducing overall high unemployment rates as well as advancing sustainable livelihoods for all

The Role of Local Resources in Mitigating the Impact of Covid-19

Governments often found it challenging to mitigate the negative socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19 for households in and near poverty. Local efforts were critical to supplement government measures and implement government guidelines. In Ethiopia, these efforts mobilised a pre-existing, government supported village network system. In Bangladesh, a network of formal and informal strategies played an important role in increasing assistance to people affected by the pandemic, including through industry-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This policy brief outlines local responses to and lessons learnt from mitigating the negative socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19

Enhancing livelihoods for young people in Ethiopia

The Youth Self-Employment in Ethiopia survey data indicates the need for school-to-work targeted transition schemes that relate to demands of the economy as well as to the aspirations of young people. Existing private-sector employers are incapable of absorbing the rising numbers of young people entering the workforce. A viable strategy for public authorities would encompass creating conditions for young people to establish their own businesses. The brochure provides information on labour markets and youth, along with recommendations for policy. Young people seeking wage employment or self-employment opportunities have little access to relevant information

Food Price Volatility in Ethiopia: Public Pressure and State Response

The global market, variable agricultural production and irregular trading practices have marked food price volatility in Ethiopia over the last decade. However, the recent decline in global prices of food and fuel, coupled with state intervention in managing the supply of consumer goods, have brought some stability to food prices in 2014/15. While the safety net and price control measures could help mitigate the aggravation of impacts of food price increases on poor families, a more comprehensive food security approach is necessary. The article argues the importance of enhancing the purchasing power of the people

Chronic Poverty Report 2023: Pandemic Poverty

The Chronic Poverty Report 2023: Pandemic Poverty sets out to investigate the highly negative effects of the Covid-19 restrictions, and most importantly, the success or otherwise of the measures pursued to mitigate those effects on people in and near poverty. The leading message is that if restrictions were necessary, they should be minimised, and complemented by measures to mitigate their negative effects. During the pandemic, such measures were in most countries completely inadequate to prevent impoverishment and downward socio-economic mobility. The report makes suggestions on what needs to be done in a similar future crisis to avoid the economic and social reversals we have seen since 2020, and some steps on the road to recovery. This first CPAN report on Pandemic Poverty is the product of a long-term partnership across 18 countries in the global south. 12 of those countries participated in the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network’s Covid-19 Poverty Monitoring Initiative. These revisited life history respondents from pre-pandemic qualitative research and caught up with their lived experiences during the pandemic. This was designed as a people centred complement to the high-frequency phone surveys which were undertaken in many countries during the pandemic. Authors from some of the same countries and others based at the Institute of Development Studies, were involved in writing this report. They carried out key informant interviews with policymakers and implementers to track and understand the development of policy responses during the pandemic, and to analyse the policy discourses in each country. The co-authors met monthly for six months while the report was being written to ensure coherence

Putting Children First: New Frontiers in the Fight Against Child Poverty in Africa

Despite important strides in the fight against poverty in the past two decades, child poverty remains widespread and persistent, particularly in Africa. Poverty in all its dimensions is detrimental for early childhood development and often results in unreversed damage to the lives of girls and boys, locking children and families into intergenerational poverty. This edited volume contributes to the policy initiatives aiming to reduce child poverty and academic understanding of child poverty and its solutions by bringing together applied research from across the continent. With the Sustainable Development Goals having opened up an important space for the fight against child poverty, not least by broadening its conceptualization to be multidimensional, this collection aims to push the frontiers by challenging existing narratives and exploring alternative understandings of the complexities and dynamics underpinning child poverty. Furthermore, it examines policy options that work to address this critical challenge.Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) at the University of Bergen.publishedVersio

Children's experiences and perceptions of poverty in Ethiopia

This paper presents children’s experiences and perceptions of poverty. It draws on survey and qualitative data from the Young Lives study of poor children in Ethiopia. Through group exercises, discussions and interviews, children and young people aged 13-17 collectively and individually provided their perceptions of the causes, indicators and consequences of poverty in their communities. They felt that they were more victims of the consequences of poverty while they rarely contributed to its causes. Their poverty experiences suggest the multidimensional, contextualised and intergenerational nature of child poverty. The children and young people have also demonstrated their agency and resilience by providing their lived accounts and suggestions for tackling poverty and by practically contributing to family incomes. They identified what they believed to be the root causes of poverty and suggested what the Government, parents and children should do to reduce it. For example, they thought that child poverty could be addressed by changing some of the societal values that contribute to its perpetuation. The paper argues that children’s lived experiences of poverty place them in an optimum position to provide us with strong evidence to advance our knowledge of childhood poverty and develop apt policies to reduce it. Through this argument, this paper aims to provide both theoretical and practical contributions.</p

Education aspirations and barriers to achievement for young people in Ethiopia: Young lives working paper 120

This paper reports on the educational aspirations and the challenges facing children living in poor communities in Ethiopia. Using Young Lives survey and qualitative longitudinal data, the paper finds that children hold high educational aspirations and make much effort to achieve their ambitions. Children in higher grades at school maintained their high aspirations. Children have demonstrated their agency in their capacity to aspire high and work hard to attain their ambitions. The results also suggest that poverty has an impact on potential achievements. Despite making every effort to attain their aspirations, some children have failed to do so, or have modified their stated desires. The findings contest at least two widely held assumptions. First, that poor people have low levels of aspiration and do not make any effort because they believe in ‘fate’ rather than hard work, and therefore policies should aim to ‘raise’ their aspirations. Second, poor children, mainly in Africa, have ‘unrealistic’ aspirations, thus, they should be ‘reoriented’. The paper argues that interventions should not be on the ‘raising’ or ‘reorientation’ of aspirations, but on helping young people to achieve what they have aspired to. The ‘raising’ of aspirations is less relevant for young people motivated by the fast expansion of schooling in their country and spurred on by poverty, who do not lack aspirations. ‘Reorientation’ hinders children’s capacity for aspirations and achievements, and is thus detrimental to the national effort for poverty reduction, which could be enhanced by people with high levels of education. Addressing the structural impediments to achievement would be more helpful because achievements inspire the generation to come.© Young Lives 2014 ll rights reserved. Reproduction, copy, transmission, or translation of any part of this publication may be made only under the following conditions: with the prior permission of the publisher; or with a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd., 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE, UK, or from another national licensing agency; or • under the terms set out below. This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for teaching or non-profit purposes, but not for resale. Formal permission is required for all such uses, but normally will be granted immediately. For copying in any other circumstances, or for re-use in other publications, or for translation or adaptation, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher and a fee may be payable

Changing educational aspirations of children living in poverty in Ethiopia

Yisak Tafer