Mainstreaming children into national poverty strategies : a child-focused analysis of the Ethiopian sustainable development and poverty reduction program (2002-05)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess how the needs of children are incorporated into Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)—known as the Ethiopian Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme 2002-2005 (SDRDP) —and to develop policy recommendations for the second PRSP based on a comparative content analysis with other countries’ PRSPs. The paper begins by identifying the key ingredients of a child-centred PRSP, including: consideration of childhood poverty in the document’s poverty analysis; spaces for consultation with children; child-specific policies and programmes as well as child-sensitive macro-development policies; institutionalized mechanisms to coordinate these policy approaches and the inclusion of child-related progress indicators. The second section uses a content analysis methodology to consider the extent to which the Ethiopian PRSP is pro-poor and pro-child and contrasts this to more child-sensitive approaches in other PRSPs. The paper then analyses the SDPRP’s policies, programmes and indicators using a rights-based framework. It assesses the extent to which both the direct (child-specific policy commitments) and indirect (macro-development) policies are in keeping with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) principles of child survival, development, protection, equal treatment and participation. The paper concludes by drawing on the best practices of PRSPs in other countries and outlining how a child-focused PRSP could more effectively address the multi-dimensionality of childhood poverty in Ethiopia.