Ethiopia’s social protection landscape: Its surface and underlying structures

Abstract

This article demonstrates the utility of explicating underlying forces that have brought about, shaped and underpinned provision of social protection in each sub-Saharan African country. It does so in the context of examining six such forces, namely: tradition and culture, drought and famine, relations among key actors, the mainstream paradigm of development, the poverty reduction agenda of the ruling party, and constrained fiscal space that have historically contributed to current provision of social protection in Ethiopia. Recommendations are given for social work policy practice to enable decision-makers to integrate developmental and human rights objectives in Ethiopia’s forthcoming national social protection strategy.

Keywords

development Ethiopia human rights social policy social protection sub-Saharan Africa

Background

This article differentiates between the surface and underlying structures of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape and begins to identify core implications of the underlying structures for the evolution of the surface structure. ‘Surface structure’ refers to a configuration of policies, legislations, strategies and interventions already in place that aim to address a variety of risks, vulnerabilities and deprivations such as food insecurity, HIV/AIDS, lack of access to basic social services and violence against children and women. Table 1 outlines key elements that make up the surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape. ‘Underlying structure’, on the other hand, consists of forces (factors) that have brought about, shaped and underpinned this surface structure. This article identifies six such forces, namely: tradition and culture, drought and famine, dynamics of interactions among key actors, the mainstream paradigm of development, the poverty reduction agenda of the ruling party, and Ethiopia’s constrained fiscal space.

Table 1.

The surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape.

Policies and legislation	Relevant strategies and national plans currently under implementation	Social protection programs/projects currently under implementation	Targeted risks, vulnerabilities and deprivations	Targeted vulnerable groups
1. National policies on education, health, nutrition and water	The Education Sector Development Plan The Health Sector Development Plan The National Nutrition Strategy The Water Sector Development Plan	Transfer of bed nets, and food and non-food items School fee waiver Waiver of medical fee Water fee waivers and subsidies	Lack of access to basic social services due to geographic, social and economic marginalization	Populations in remote regions Women and children
2. National HIV/AIDS policy	National multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS		HIV/AIDS	People infected and affected by HIV/AIDS
3. The National Policy on Disaster Risk Management		Emergency humanitarian relief Supplementary Feeding Program Therapeutic Feeding Program	Food insecurity due to drought, inflation in grain price Acute malnutrition due to food insecurity Severe malnutrition due to food insecurity	Victims of famine Food insecure rural households in selected rural woredas Malnourished children
	The National Food Security Strategy	Productive Safety Net Program Resettlement Program Household Asset Building Program
4. Legislations on cooperatives, small-scale and micro-enterprise and micro-finance institutions		• The Youth and Women Development Packages	Lack of access to credit markets Income poverty and unemployment	Unemployed women and youth in urban areas Food insecure households in rural areas
5. National policies on population, women and youth		• The Youth and Women Development Packages	Income poverty and unemployment of youth and women	Youth, women, PwDs, and the elderly
6. Revised Family Code (2005) 7. The revised Civil Code (2000)			Abuse, discrimination, exclusion and denial	Vulnerable women and children
8. The revised Labor Proclamation (2004)		Decent Work Country Program (DWCP)	Workplace risks and vulnerabilities	All formal sector employees
9. Social security policy		Social Security Program	Old age risks	Formal public employees
10. National Policy on Urban Development		Urban Development and Housing Program	Lack of adequate shelter in urban areas	The homeless and slum dwellers in urban areas
11. The Developmental Social Welfare Policy			Social exclusion and income poverty	Unaccompanied children, PWDs, the elderly

Source: Reformulated from Hailu (2010).

It also highlights how these forces have historically collaborated in crystallizing the current surface structure. Understanding how these forces have led to the current surface structure is critical if the developmental and human rights aims of the African Union Social Policy Framework (AU-SPF) are to be integrated in Ethiopia’s forthcoming social protection policy and strategy. This understanding can reveal established power relations and historical circumstances that may have privileged some groups in need over others, as well as the consequent prioritization in national allocation of resources and patterns of institutional arrangements, capacities and interactions. Following the endorsement of the AU-SPF, the Ethiopian government, a signatory to the framework, is currently taking steps to bring the various elements of the surface of the landscape under the umbrella of a national social protection framework (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2009). Mapping of existing social protection interventions and identifying gaps in these interventions has been the first set of actions that the National Social Protection Platform has decided to undertake once appointed to spearhead the process. This article, however, argues that a national social protection strategy that is developed based only on stocktaking of provisions and identification of gaps currently on the surface of the landscape, and ignores its underlying structures, may remain blind to, perpetuate, or even reinforce structures of inequalities that may characterize provision of social protection in Ethiopia. A nuanced understanding of the landscape requires going beyond a functionalist analysis of the surface structure of this landscape by explicating ideas and ideologies that have shaped it, interests it is made to serve, traditional beliefs, values and norms in which it is embedded as well as the limits that history sets to policy and strategic options.

Following is the discussion of the six underlying forces mentioned earlier that have come to shape the surface of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape. Recommendations for social work policy practice are included to enable decision-makers to integrate the developmental and human rights aims of AU-SPF in the Developmental Social Welfare Policy and the National Social Protection Strategic Framework currently under revision and formulation respectively. In addition, the article aims to add to a recent strain of literature that attempts to locate the emerging dialogue and debate on social protection in socioeconomic and political realities and history of sub-Saharan Africa (see, for example, Adesina, 2010; Devereux and White, 2010; Hickey, 2007; Niño-Zarazúa et al., 2010). In doing so, it attempts to call attention to the significance of moving away from generic explanations in these articles that tend to homogenize sub-Saharan Africa and demonstrate country-specific contextualization by taking provision of social protection in Ethiopia as a case.

Tradition and culture

Tradition and culture have been a source of both social protection and social and psychological risk and vulnerabilities for Ethiopia’s social protection landscape. Ethiopian cultures have a variety of mechanisms for mutual aid, which are captured in the rich and longstanding anthropological literature on ‘reciprocity’ (for the pioneering works on reciprocity, see Malinowski, 1966; Mauss, 1990; Nash, 1964; Polanyi, 1957; Sahlins, 1972; Scot, 1976). Sahlins (1972) made the influential distinction between ‘generalized reciprocity’ and ‘balanced reciprocity’. The former refers to ‘transactions that are putatively altruistic, transactions in the line of assistance given and if possible and necessary, assistance returned’, which is typical of (free) gifts and assistances among members of a closely-knit social group such as a kin group. Traditionally, the extended family and other social institutions in Ethiopia have provided this type of social security entitlements. For example, among the Arsi Oromo, relatives in other areas would either transfer grains to the victims or the latter would migrate to live temporarily with the former during lean months due to drought or other calamities (Hailu, 2007). Similarly, during such times individuals and households among many other cultural groups could depend on transfers from members of the extended family, the clan, close acquaintances and/or settlement groups (Teshome, 2010). On the other hand, ‘balanced reciprocity’ tends to be less personal and involves direct, precise and immediate reciprocation in which the material side of the transaction is at least as critical as the social (Sahlins, 1972). For example, the traditional institution of debo or wonfel that exists among many cultural groups of Ethiopia ensures households against labor deficits, for example, in times of harvest and construction of dwellings. Another instance of balanced reciprocity is the widely known community based contributory insurance known as the Idir, which provides resources necessary to carry out funeral rituals. Similarly, the ikub (and its numerous variants among the various Ethiopian cultures) is primarily a financial institution in which a regularly pooled fund rotates among members.

These informal mechanisms have continued to be important, if not the most important social protection mechanism on the surface of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape. It does appear, however, that their importance in Ethiopia and other sub-Saharan African countries appears to be increasingly undermined by such internal factors as population growth, environmental change and degradation, and external factors such as globalization.

On the other hand, traditional practices abound that violate legal rights endorsed in various international human rights instruments. These include disciplining practices such as wife and child beating; traditional harmful practices such as early marriage, abduction and widow inheritance; gender based violence such as rape and female genital mutilation (see, for example, CSA, 2005; Terefe et al., 1997; Zeleke, 1998); stigmatization, discrimination, denial and abuse of people living with HIV/AIDS (Kidanu et al., 2003), despite a reported decreasing trend (MoH-FHAPCO, 2009), and People with Disabilities (PwDs) (Teferra, 2005); and stigmatization of and discrimination against occupational minorities such as tanners, weavers and blacksmiths (Freeman and Pankhurst, 2003). The traditional beliefs, attitudes and values underlying these practices can be so ingrained in the psyche of citizens that the gravity of harm that they cause is often minimized by both victims and perpetrators. As products of this worldview and value system, decision-makers at various levels of government may often be no less immune to their systematic tolerance. In aggregate, this tolerance is reflected in the limited attention that Ethiopia’s social protection landscape gives to addressing culturally rationalized social and psychological risks and vulnerabilities. This tolerance confirms Marquis and Battilana’s (2009) observation that communities continue to exert critical influences on globalized institutions such as formal social protection systems.

Drought and famine

Another factor that has influenced the social protection landscape of Ethiopia is the history of cyclical droughts, which have increased beyond the absorption capacity of the traditional social protection mechanisms described above. Organized public emergency response to drought did not exist during the Imperial regime, which resulted in many deaths during the 1958 Tigray famine, the 1966 Wag-Lasta famine and the 1972–4 Wello and Hararghe famines (Lautze et al., 2009; Tolossa, 2010). The 1972–4 drought may be regarded as a critical juncture in Ethiopian social and political history. For the social protection landscape, drought had at least a three-fold significance. First, it forced the government to engage in large social protection interventions (Lautze et al., 2009; Tolossa, 2010), thereby bringing about the inception of public provision of social protection as an institution.¹ Consequently, the Derg (the socialist regime that was removed from power by EPRDF in 1991 after 17 years of armed struggle) established the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, which was instrumental in the distribution of relief food and other emergency supplies and the provision of emergency services. In 1993, the incumbent government adopted a Policy and a National Food Security Strategy that linked relief with development.

Second, the history of responding to severe and recurrent droughts means that government and its international partners have, in the process of managing responses, developed an institutional capacity of addressing vulnerability to a grossly fluctuating food supply (Lautze et al., 2009). This has facilitated the birth of and dominance in the landscape interventions that address food insecurity including: Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which is the largest safety net program in sub-Saharan Africa (Wiseman et al., 2010); the Enhanced Outreach Strategy/Targeted Supplementary Feeding program (EOS/TSF), which is the largest supplementary feeding program in the world (Skau et al., 2009); and the Therapeutic Feeding Program (TFP). Consequently, addressing food insecurity through social transfers (both in-kind and cash) has become one of the dominant priorities of the surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape.

Third, drought has triggered the emergence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their heavy involvement in humanitarian relief (Ketete and Amare, 2006; Lautze et al., 2009). The path dependence of heavy involvement in relief operations appears to have made it very difficult for NGOs to shift from relief response to the provision of basic social services and, much less, to promotion of good governance, human rights and democracy (Ketete and Amare, 2006). Consequently, similar to public interventions, most NGO interventions have been predominantly of a social transfer nature.

Dynamics of interactions among key actors

In addition to causing the formation of the surface of the landscape and determining its most dominant interventions, the 1972–4 and the subsequent 1984–5 droughts have defined key actors and their roles in the landscape. As mentioned earlier, absence of organized public response against drought forced the Derg to involve itself in social protection interventions. The droughts also forced the Derg to allow the involvement of other local and international actors. Initially, the churches and a few secular NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children Sweden, mobilized international resources followed by a larger contingent of international NGOs (Lautze et al., 2009). Subsequently national NGOs began to proliferate, and their significance in provision of social protection steadily increased due to internal and external factors. Internally, after 1993, government was putting pressure on NGOs to shift from relief to development and/or linking relief with development, which was accompanied by placing restrictions on expatriate personnel of international aid agencies (Keteke and Amare, 2006). The result was an increasing policy shift by international NGOs away from direct delivery of services to focusing on building capacity of national NGOs, so that the latter could better assume the responsibility for direct service delivery. The external factor affecting this policy shift was the concomitant increase, during the 1980s and 1990s, in international aid available to national NGOs in developing countries (Carothers, 1999; Flanigan, 2007). As a result, the government, international aid agencies and national NGOs have over time stood out as key actors on the surface of the landscape with broadly defined roles of regulators, financiers and implementers respectively, although the government and some international NGOs still simultaneously implement interventions.

The dynamic of interactions among these key actors that subsequently emerged has at least three key implications for the surface structure of the landscape. First, the policy option adopted by international aid agencies to reduce direct budget support to governments of developing countries perceived as ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘authoritarian’, and to redirect this assistance to national NGOs for participatory and local development, had the additional consequence of the latter’s dependence on resources of international aid agencies rather than on local resources. Tvedt (2006) provides a compelling argument that this policy has strengthened a patron–client relationship between donors and national NGOs, where international aid agencies could condition their assistance to national NGOs on donors’ priorities. In Ethiopia, when too often donors’ priorities run in conflict with the political and economic interests and the priorities of government, a hidden tension and rivalry has resulted between national NGOs and government (Lautze et al., 2009). Economically, increased resources available to NGOs has meant that the NGOs could offer better incentives, which has apparently drained trained and experienced human resources from public services. Politically, donors’ increased priorities to projects that claimed to promote human rights, democracy and good governance have been interpreted by the government as foreign interference in domestic political matters and undermining of national sovereignty. Consequently, following the 2006 national election, the nascent involvement of national NGOs in these issues generated heated and, at times, fierce debate regarding the NGOs’ legitimacy and representativeness to engage in these ‘political’ activities, a debate which was further exacerbated by an already existing estrangement between NGOs and government. Ultimately, the debate culminated in the passage of the Proclamation of Charities and Societies (2009), which severely restricts NGOs receiving more than 10 percent of their budget from external sources from engaging in these activities. This historical estrangement and antipathy between the NGO and government may be regarded as a root cause for limited, if not total absence of, integration between public and private social protection interventions current on the surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape.

Second, as in other developing countries, increased donor resources available to national NGOs have allegedly strengthened dependency of local communities on NGO charities in Ethiopia. Apparently, what appears to have resulted from this dependency is the consolidation of the entrenched attitude that social protection interventions are charities that NGOs dispense to vulnerable populations at will, rather than as rights that these populations can claim from the NGOs. This attitude, coupled with the government’s lack of institutional capacity for effective and efficient monitoring, has impeded transparency and accountability of NGOs operating on the current surface of the landscape (Hailu, 2010).

Third, as strong as vertical (top–down) relationships of national NGOs with their international donors have become, horizontal (lateral) relationships and linkages among NGOs themselves have lagged behind. Formal networks of NGOs are very recent phenomena. The oldest, Christian Relief and Development Association, itself is only an outcome of the requirement for collaborative interventions that the 1972–4 drought demanded of the churches. Although absence of legislation that allows or prohibits their formation (Cerritelli et al., 2008) may have contributed to the limited historical presence of networks in the landscape, the root cause perhaps is the suspicion and competitiveness that underlies lateral relationships in the dominant culture (Korten, 1972), which might explain Clark’s (2000) observation of internal divisions and jealousy that had at times precluded cohesion of the NGOs around important public policy issues. In any case, an important implication of the precarious linkages among NGOs is the fragmentation of their interventions on the surface of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape.

The mainstream paradigm of development

Backed by enormous international resources, the evolutionary model, which defines development and poverty in terms of economic prosperity and deprivation that have come to characterize ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries respectively (Hoogvelt, 1982; Kiely, 1995), has significantly structured and continues to structure not only the surface of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape and other developing countries, but also its overall development philosophy. Grossly stated, the model assumes that economic poverty reinforced by traditional values, attitudes and norms (Fagerline and Lawrence, 1983) is at the root of causes that undermine the well-being of populations in developing countries. Consequently, because a modern, educated and healthy workforce is a necessary input of economic growth, expanded provision of such basic services as education, health, water and sanitation have been widely promoted.

From a social protection standpoint, the evolutionary model, to which Ethiopia seems to have apparently subscribed has, at best, given priority to addressing economic risks and vulnerabilities. Enthused by the successes achieved in the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War, significant investment was made in industrialization to increase the gross national product in the hope that its trickledown effects would address economic risks and vulnerabilities (Rondinelli, 1983). By the 1980s, however, the trickledown theory proved increasingly unsuccessful and safety nets were proposed for protection against livelihood shocks and consumption variability (World Bank, 1990). Meanwhile, issues of social equity and social vulnerabilities have continued to claim little attention on the agenda of key international actors (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler, 2004). Although the Millennium Development Goals could address food insecurity and lack of access to key basic social services, they have set no goal related to psychological – and a number of social – risks and vulnerabilities. Nor do they ensure equity in access to expansion of basic social services. This has meant that psychological and social risks and vulnerabilities have been afforded little priority on the surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape.

The poverty reduction agenda of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front

When Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) took over state power in 1991, it inherited a shattered economy and a poverty-ridden society. In addition to establishing measures to ensure political stability, it has put in place a series of policy, legislative and strategic reforms that have defined the country’s development priorities, goals and implementation instruments (Assefa, 2008). Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) became the overarching economic policy framework that defined the direction for economic development. Successive national plans including the past three Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs) have vigorously pursued those social policies and strategies that are necessary complements of the ADLI. Following the development model described above, expansion of education and health services has obtained the greatest attention in national budget allocation (Hailu, 2010). More recently, interventions that aim at proliferation of small- and micro-enterprises have increasingly been afforded status. Because of the developmental link between chronic poverty and food insecurity, addressing the challenges of the latter attained increasingly systematic attention in the National Food Security Strategy. As a result, Ethiopia is one of the few countries in the world to register an average economic growth of 7 percent over the past 10 years. Significant advances have also been reported towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Still, social development has been treated only as an ancillary to ADLI. Social policies have been by and large ad hoc and isolated responses to challenges (such as recurrent drought) currently identified as requiring policy. Similarly, legislations have arguably been reactive, aiming to resolve currently perceived threats and challenges and rarely instruments for implementing social policies aimed at propelling social development of the country. Moreover, although a variety of policies and legislation exist that address social risk and vulnerabilities, in terms of resource allocation and implementation psychological and social risks and vulnerabilities to which politically weak and marginalized populations are routinely subjected have received little to no attention (see, for example, trends in national budget expenditure for the past eight years in Hailu, 2010). The list of these populations includes orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), women, elders and PwDs. Other much less recognized but highly vulnerable groups include occupational minorities, such as blacksmiths, weavers and potters, who are traditionally excluded from access to political processes, basic productive resources and social activities.

Constrained fiscal space

The poorly performing economy that EPRDF inherited from the Derg meant that Ethiopia is one of the smallest economies in the world. Moreover, despite a registered average of 7 percent growth in GDP over the past decade, tax collection as a percentage of GDP has been declining from an average of 10.5 percent in 1996/7 to 2001/2 to 9.9 percent in 2008/9, with the fluctuation decline between about 12.7 percent and 10.9 percent during the years between 2001/2 and 2005/6 (Alemu, 2010). This declining tax performance means a declining trend in total domestic revenue as a percentage of GDP. This historical trend dims promise for fiscal space in the budget for social protection from domestic sources.

Failure by many citizens to meet their tax obligations is an immediate cause for this decline. A root cause may be ‘the calculating view of ‘‘what is in this for me?’” which, according to Korten (1972), characterizes the nature of reciprocity in the dominant culture, which sees no other source of motivation for observing citizenry duty in the absence of immediate return in the form of increased wealth, prestige or power.

Another immediate cause may be limitations in making public budget processes more transparent, informing citizens about budget allocations and expenditures, particularly at lower tiers of government. With better transparency and public participation in decisions on budget allocation, citizens could be better convinced of the merits of its plans for spending the tax payers’ money, which could then encourage them to better fulfill their tax obligations. The limitation in transparency and participation may partly be rooted in a reservoir of behaviors traditionally present in superior–subordinate relationships in the dominant culture. Related to this limitation in transparency may be the traditional behavioral strategy of ‘ambiguity in communication to keep personal commitments flexible’ that is often used for preservation of self-interest and ensuing self-protection (Korten, 1972). Related to a limitation in participation may be the domination of subordinates as a source of prestige and the many social and economic benefits that can instill in subordinates attitudes and behaviors of acquiescence, subservience, and unquestioned respect and praise of authorities. Nevertheless, in the context of social protection, early reported initiatives by the Ethiopian government, particularly in the PSNP and the PBS make an attempt to go against the status quo and put in place mechanisms to ensure transparency regarding decisions and decision-making processes and resource allocations, as well as regular reporting on progress as well as appeal and redress mechanisms (Wiseman et al., 2010; World Bank, 2009).

In sum, the limited tax that government could potentially generate from a small economy and the poor tax performance (Alemu, 2010), together with limited government commitment to social assistance due to its perceived potential to promote dependency, has meant that much of the social protection interventions of a social assistance nature are financed by external resources. Moreover, because of the ideological favoritism in addressing economic risks and vulnerabilities, both government and donors have allocated relatively little to addressing psychological and social risks and vulnerabilities.

Institutional implications for public provision of social protection

The underlying cultural, environmental, historical, ideological, political and economic forces described in the previous sections have had important implications for institutional arrangements for public provision of social protection currently on the landscape. To begin with, they have historically collaborated to give significant precedence to addressing economic risks and vulnerabilities at the expense of those that are social and, much less, psychological, as can be noted in Table 1. Accordingly, the history of cyclical droughts, an ideology of development that gives economics a deterministic role and the limited physical space have collaborated to prioritize vulnerabilities to food insecurity in particularly rural areas, lack of availability of basic social services in marginalized regions and, more recently, youths’ and women’s lack of entrepreneurial skills and capital to engage in income generating activities. On the other hand, discriminating and abusive traditional beliefs, values and norms have rationalized and, together with the same ideology of development, minimized and given less attention to psychological and social risks and vulnerabilities.

Consequently, ‘sector based institutions’ in government that have implemented interventions to address the historically prioritized risks and vulnerabilities have developed significant institutional capacity over the years (Hailu, 2010). These institutions include ministries and bureaus for industry, agriculture and rural development, education and health. Conversely, ‘population-focused institutions’ in government that have been mandated to manage interventions that address psychological and social risks and vulnerabilities of various marginalized populations such as the Ministries for labor and social affairs, women’s affairs, youth and sports affairs, have remained institutionally weak (Hailu, 2010). Hence, the surface of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape witnesses a stark institutional capacity imbalance between the two categories of government agencies in terms of human resources, budget allocation, managerial capacity and infrastructure. In terms of human resources, for example, significant investment has been made over the past decades in training, deploying and setting up mechanisms for supervision of teachers, health extension workers, and agricultural development agents. In contrast, preliminary results of the fieldwork we are currently undertaking indicate that training of semi-professional social workers, let alone professional social workers who are technically core workforces of population-focused institutions, started only a half-dozen years ago and their systematic deployment and supervision necessary for their effectiveness has lagged even further behind.

Similarly, sector-based institutions have developed significantly better institutional capacity for vertical and horizontal coordination of intra-institutional engagement, albeit with existing gaps. Over the years each sector-based institution has been working within the framework of one costed national plan known as the Sector Development Plan. For example, the Ministries of Education, Health and Agriculture and Rural Development each has had a five-year ‘Education Sector Development Plan’, ‘the Health Sector Development Plan’ and ‘The Agriculture Sector Development Plan’ respectively detailing relevant aspects of each of the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs). This plan assigns specific roles and duties to various departments of the respective institutions at federal, regional, district and local levels, and establishes a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating implementation of assigned roles and duties. Moreover, availability of the costed national plan has, in the absence of a commonly agreed regulation or policy framework that structures institutional arrangements and patterns of relationships between states (federal–regional as well as regional–regional) of the federal system, offered incentives for regional governments to articulate their institutional arrangements with relevant federal institutions, which has facilitated vertical coordination.² The plans have also provided a framework for donors to harmonize their assistance in such multi-donor programs as the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) and PSNP. This has enabled donors to reduce transaction costs and align with the existing government systems.

Conversely, absence of such integrated and costed national plans³ for addressing psychological and social risk and vulnerabilities means that population-focused institutions have had less opportunity to learn about and develop the capacity for coordination of relevant interventions. It has not also provided donors with a framework that would allow them to harmonize their potential financial assistance for such interventions. In addition, regional governments have had little incentive to model the structural arrangement of their line bureaus after that of federal ministries. Limited vertical interface and frequent changes of institutional arrangements in this category of institutions has further hampered both horizontal and vertical coordination and engagement within and among population-focused institutions. Similarly, the absence of costed national plans and a sector-wide strategy has not offered incentives and platforms for donors to harmonize their approaches, instruments and financing modalities.

Implications for social work

From the foregoing discussion of the institutional implications of underlying structures for public provision of social protection currently on the surface can be distilled at least four broad areas for social work policy practice to enable decision-makers to integrate developmental and human rights objectives of AU-SPF into Ethiopia’s forthcoming national social protection policy and strategy. To begin with, it can inform a necessary dialogue and debate that advocates and social workers may help decision-makers promote at all levels towards achieving a working clarity and consensus within and among key actors – the legislature, the civil service, civil society and international development partners – on a nationally relevant definition of and rationales for an integrated social protection, which is currently lacking (Hailu, 2010). Second, it can rationalize an advocate’s call for revision of the unfair priority that underlying structures have historically given to some risks and vulnerabilities over others. If advocates become successful in this regard, national actors, particularly governmental, will have undertaken a national baseline of risks and vulnerabilities based on which subsequent policy and strategic priorities can be defined/revised and against which progress in effective implementation can be systematically gauged. Similarly, institutional actors will have shouldered the challenging task of harmonizing current conceptual, definitional and methodological diversities currently widespread on the surface of the landscape (see, for example, analysis of this challenge in the context of food security in Burg, 2009; Deressa et al., 2008 and in the context of disabilities, Teferra, 2005). Third, such an analysis can also enable advocates to realize and bring to the attention of decision-makers the apparently reactive pattern of social policy formulation in Ethiopia. An indicator of success in this regard will be the formulation by government of an overarching social policy framework that identifies and prioritizes broad social issues and challenges that will have been elaborated by available and new social policies on specific issues. The framework will have rationalized the contribution and complementarities of existing and forthcoming social policies for equitable social development outcomes. This can facilitate systematic and ongoing reviews and evaluations of the coherence and integration among relevant policies and strategies, which will have served as a feedback loop for avoiding potential overlap and fragmentation of policies, strategies and interventions. It will also have provided the basis for adapting the social policy environment to changing local and global circumstances. Part of this framework will have identified social protection as a pillar of social development; rationalized the legal, economic, social and political grounds for social protection; defined elements for an integrated national plan for social protection; and linked it with the broader social development and growth strategies of the country. Fourth, such an analysis will rationalize their recommendation for a legislation that clarifies and defines institutional relationships within and among federal and regional states towards transforming the structural fragmentation partly responsible for the above-mentioned overlap and fragmentation among policies, strategies and interventions.

Conclusion

This article serves as a call to go beyond a functionalist analysis that takes stock of and identifies relationships between and implications and outcomes of policies, legislations, strategies and programs currently on the surfaces of social protection landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa, to examine their underlying structures. As a preliminary attempt in this line of inquiry, it demonstrates how the forces of history, culture and traditions, ideas/ideologies and interests have collaborated to shaping the surface structure of Ethiopia’s social protection landscape; namely, the prioritization of risks and vulnerabilities, institutional arrangements, institutional capacity, as well as coordination and harmonization within and among institutions in government, civil society and international community. Ultimately, such a country-specific analysis of the implications of underlying structures for the surface structures of a social protection landscape of each signatory of AU-SPF can provide advocates with evidence and rationales for making specific recommendations to and influence decision-makers towards integrating the framework’s developmental and human rights objectives into the social protection policies and strategies of that country.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Daniel Hailu and Terry Northcut work in the School of Social Work, Loyola University of Chicago, USA.

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