Faces of Poverty: Studying the Overlap between Monetary and Multidimensional Child Poverty in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has achieved remarkable economic growth in the past decade (2010-2020), but growth achievements have been disproportionate to social-welfare improvements for the most vulnerable groups. Monetary poverty prevalence is still high but declined from 29 percent in 2011 to 23 percent in 2016. Multidimensional child poverty, on the other hand, is much higher in incidence and is declining at a much slower rate, moving down only very slightly from 90 percent in 2011 to 88 percent 2016.

Rising incomes do not appear to have proportionally curtailed deprivations of basic needs and violations of children’s rights. Previous research on the overlap between monetary and multidimensional child poverty in Ethiopia has been limited to one study that focused solely on the rural areas of the country. There remains a lack of evidence on the extent to which household financial means and public service availability and accessibility are related to deprivation and unmet needs in the sectors of nutrition, health, education, child protection and WASH.

This report thus details the outcome of an expanded study on children’s well-being in Ethiopia by the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and UNICEF Ethiopia, it builds upon the findings of the a CSA & UNICEF 2018 report5 and aims to better understand disparities between monetary and multidimensional poverty among children and to guide policy and programming that targets the fulfilment of their rights and needs.

This research was implemented in partnership with the Central Statistical Agency (CSA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI).

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