Child Poverty and Access to Basic Services in Somali Region

Qualitative Research Brief

Ethiopia’s economic growth over the last decade has been remarkable. However, these gains have yet to translate into considerable improvements in wellbeing, especially among children. According to the latest analysis for the report “Faces of poverty: Studying the overlap between monetary and multidimensional child poverty in Ethiopia” (2020), 28 percent of children under 18 are both monetarily poor and multidimensionally deprived.

In other words, more than 11 million children in Ethiopia live in households that lack the minimum financial resources necessary for survival. They are simultaneously deprived of fulfillment of three or more basic needs or rights, like access to adequate nutrition, education, healthcare services, water, sanitation, housing and protection.

Researchers of the Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI Global) supported UNICEF Ethiopia in partnership with the Central Statistical Agency in carrying out a qualitative study on child poverty and access to basic services in the Amhara and Somali regions of Ethiopia. These studies represent the findings of qualitative interviews with key informants in the sectors of health, nutrition, child protection, education, and WASH were carried out in Amhara and Somali to investigate bottlenecks in service provision before and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey data were collected by Rebret Business and Consultancy PLC under the leadership of Dereje Kebede.

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