Mainstreaming Children into Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. 2005.

In August 2005, with the revision of Ethiopia’s Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP, as Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is known) coming up towards the end of the year, the Young Lives Ethiopia team lobbied for the new SDPRP to include policies for tackling child poverty. Drawing on Young Lives research, the team took their key findings and policy recommendations to the country’s development policy community, including relevant government ministries, with the aim of influencing them to make the SDPRP II more pro-poor and child-sensitive.

Young Lives believes that it is important to mainstream children into national development and poverty reduction policies such as Ethiopia’s SDPRP because these policies profoundly affect poor children. A general focus on the poor in such policies does not automatically address childhood poverty, therefore it is crucial to advocate for them to be both pro-poor and child-sensitive.

Initial feedback from the development policy community in Ethiopia indicated that the Young Lives team’s recommendations for revising the SDPRP have been well received. The team is certainly hopeful that the new SDPRP will reflect their efforts.

Click the titles below to download pdf files of the five papers containing the Young Lives Ethiopia team’s findings and recommendations (see the Working Papers section of the Publications pages of this website for related papers):

• Mainstreaming children: a child-focused analysis of Ethiopia’s sustainable development and poverty reduction program’s poverty analysis, policy goals and targets [Working Paper 22] (PDF file 796 KB)

• Child labour, gender inequality and rural/urban disparities: how can Ethiopia’s national development strategies best address negative spill-over impacts on child education and well-being? [Working Paper 20](PDF file 1000 KB)

• Children’s educational completion rates and achievement: implications for Ethiopia’s SDPRP II (2006-10) [Working Paper 18]
  (PDF file 1000 KB)

• Tackling Child Malnutrition in Ethiopia: to what extent do the SDPRP’s underlying policy assumptions reflect local realities? [Working Paper 19] (PDF file 822 KB)

• Who is benefiting most from education expansion in Ethiopia? Implications for addressing wealth, gender and urban/rural educational disparities in Ethiopia’s SDPRP II. (PDF file 116 KB)