Ethiopia has been working to reduce poverty and foster social development, including through the Productive Safety Net Programme in rural areas. The Urban Productive Safety Net – one of the first conditional cash transfers of its kind in urban Africa – has since 2015 been introduced in Ethiopian cities including the capital, Addis Ababa. UNICEF Ethiopia is interested in ensuring the effectiveness of the transfer, which first began in 2015, by linking recipients with other social service providers in the health, education, nutrition and other sectors.
To inform this, Development Pathways was tasked by UNICEF Ethiopia to find out what the living conditions and needs of ‘destitute’ people – such as households with a disabled family member living in poverty, or people living in street situations – are in urban Ethiopia. We are also assessing the programmes, services and support currently provided by the government, NGOs and community organisations in the two sub-cities of Addis Ababa, Addis Ketema and Arada.
The study involved qualitative field research in the two sub-cities as well as extensive data analysis. Households living in street situations are not captured by standard household surveys and are also very hard to reach for direct interviews. The chosen research methodology therefore addresses the challenge of identifying vulnerable and socially excluded groups in order to interview them for their perspectives, including with extensive training for the research team. These include researchers from the Africa Disability Alliance, to ensure work is informed by local knowledge of the context.