• Child Poverty

The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years. Given that children and young people (under 18 years) constitute over half of the Ethiopian population and have distinct developmental needs and experiences of poverty, they necessitate a special policy focus.  Moreover, poverty in its many dimensions affects diverse groups including children in different ways - girls and boys, urban and rural children, able-bodied and disabled children and children of different ages. It is also important to recognize that children born into poverty are more likely to become impoverished adults and in turn pass on their poverty status to their children. Tackling childhood poverty can break long-term cycles of poverty -both life-course poverty and the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

The Government of Ethiopia has been implementing pro-poor programmes with in the framework of Ethiopia’s first generation PRSP known as the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP) during the three years period ending in 2004/05. The successor Plan to the SDPRP which deepened and broadened the fundamentals of the SDPRP known as the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) which span the five year period (2005/06 to 2009/10) is currently in its third year of implementation. Education, health, HIV/AIDS, Water and Sanitation, infrastructure (roads), and Rural Development and Food Security which have had direct bearing on child poverty/welfare are the pro-poor sectors/programmes upon which the SDPRP and the PASDEP rests. Pro-poor budgets on those sectors have increased from about 40 per cent of total public spending to over 60 per cent by the end of fiscal year 2006/07.

Despite these encouraging developments, it is important to recognize that poverty reduction policies with a general focus on the poor may not automatically address childhood poverty in its entirety. In order to tackle poverty in a holistic and child-sensitive manner, it is important to consider the potentially differential impact of economic growth and poverty reduction policies within the household -on adults and children, males and females. Ethiopia has given focus to universal access to primary education, primary health services, reproductive health, rural growth, food security and gender equity all of which have positive impact on children.