MSWE 010 English Block 2 Final.pmd - eGyanKosh

2Block

Indira GandhiNational Open UniversitySchool of Social Work

MSWE-010Social Work in

African Context

SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL POLICIESIN ETHIOPIAUNIT 1Education in Ethiopia 5

UNIT 2Health Service Delivery in Ethiopia 24

UNIT 3Crime Corrections in Ethiopia 40

UNIT 4Social Protection and Social Security in Ethiopia 58

February, 2019

© Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2019

ISBN- 978-93-88498-34-0

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any othermeans, without permission in writing from the Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Further information on the Indira Gandhi National Open University Courses may be obtained from theUniversity’s Office at Maidan Garhi, New Delhi -110 068.

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EXPERT COMMITTEEProf Gracious ThomasSchool of Social WorkIGNOU, Delhi

Dr. D.K.Lal DasR.M CollegeHyderabad

Prof. P.K.GhoshDepartment of Social WorkVisva Bharti UniversityShantiniketan

Prof. C.P.SinghDepartment of Social WorkKurukshetra University

Mr. Joselyn LoboRoshni NilayaMangalore

Prof. Ranjana SehgalIndore School of Social WorkIndore

Dr. Asiya NasreenDepartment of Social WorkJamia Millia IslamiaUniversity, Delhi

Dr. Bishnu Mohan DashB.R.Ambedkar CollegeDelhi University

Dr. Rose NembiakkimSchool of Social WorkIGNOU, Delhi

Dr. SaumyaSchool of Social WorkIGNOU, Delhi

Dr. G. MaheshSchool of Social WorkIGNOU, Delhi

Dr. N.RamyaSchool of Social WorkIGNOU, Delhi

Mr. Elias Nour,DeanSchool of Graduate StudiesSt. Mary’s University CollegeAddis Ababa, Ethiopia

Mr Goitom AbrahamVice President for ResearchGraduate Studies and OutreachServices, SMUC, Ethiopia

Mr Mekonnen TadesseDirectorInternational ProgrammesSMUC, Ethiopia

Mr. Desalegn NegriSMUC, Ethiopia

Mr. Kulwant SinghAssistant Registrar (P)SOSW, IGNOU

PRINT PRODUCTION

COURSE PREPARATION TEAMUnit Writer Course Editors Programme CoordinatorMr. Dessalegn Negeri Prof. Gracious Thomas Dr. Saumya

Dr. Saumya

BLOCK INTRODUCTIONBlock 2 deals with social problems and social policies in Ethiopia. After reading thisblock, you will get an overview of education, health, service delivery, crimecorrections, social protection and social security in Ethiopian context.

Unit 1 provides an overview of education across the globe as well as in Ethiopia. Italso details out the development, organization and privatization of higher educationin Ethiopia. Further, an attempt is made to delineate the challenges of higher educationin Ethiopia as well as the perceptions of teaching as a profession. Another aspectcovered in this unit is the classroom realities.

Unit 2 makes you analyze the health services delivery in Ethiopia. The unit discusseshealth welfare status and major diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, socialsources of premature deaths and primary health care in Ethiopia. This unit will helpthe social workers and health care professionals engaged in health care services inEthiopia.

Unit 3 discusses about crime correction in Ethiopia. This unit describes communitypolicing, nature of crime and correction and details about prison life. In addition tothis, you will also learn about violence against women and children as well as humanand drug trafficking.

Unit 4 on ‘Social Protection and Social Security in Ethiopia’ makes you understandthe principles of social protection policy and programme responses, social securityin practice and the situation of children in Ethiopia. Issues associated with orphanchildren is also included in this unit.

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UNIT 1 EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIAStructure Dessalegn Negri*

1.1 Objectives

1.2 Introduction

1.3 Education : An Overview

1.4 Development of Education in Ethiopia

1.5 Organization of Higher Education Institutions

1.6 Privatization of Higher Education in Ethiopia

1.7 Challenges of Higher Education in Ethiopia

1.8 Let Us Sum Up

1.9 Further Readings and References

1.1 OBJECTIVESIn the first block, we have examined the situation of social work in African context. Inthis first unit of block-2, let us learn about the concept of education in Ethiopia. Afterreading this unit, you will be able to:

have an overview of education across the globe;

understand the nature and development of education in Ethiopia;

know about the development of higher education in Ethiopia; and

understand the perception of teaching as a profession.

1.2 INTRODUCTIONEducation is a key tool for development in many argument and ideologies of differentsocieties across the world. Education is concerned with the academic as well as socialresults of human relationship processes. These include the manner in which studentscome to abide by the norms and values of community, and the role that the educationalprocess plays in recreating or changing the social structure of community’s system ofsocial stratification and hierarchy of power. In this unit, let us make an attempt tounderstand the status of education across the globe, the nature and development ofeducation in Ethiopia, development of higher education in Ethiopia as well as theperceptions of teaching as a profession.

1.3 EDUCATION: AN OVERVIEWEducation is social because it is part of a network of interrelated societal institutions. Itis a social process and its functions are both intended and unintended. That is, educationtakes place within an established institutional structure (a school system) which isconnected to other systems—the economy, the political system, the legal system, thefamily, as well as the belief or religious system. The dominant norms and values of thecommunity are reflected in all these institutions (Abdi & Cleghorn, 2005).

* Mr. Dessalegn Negeri, St. Mary’s College, Ethiopia

Social Problems andSocial Policiesin Ethiopia

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Education is also a social process at another level: it involves human beings and requiresthem to interact in order for the intended knowledge, skills and values to be transmitted.The main participants in this process are the teachers and the students that bring to theteaching– learning situation their prior life experiences, language background, ethnic/racial origins, their beliefs about education and their understanding of how to interactwith others (e.g. elders, teachers). What goes on in classrooms is greatly influenced bythese factors or the social meaning which people attach to such matters as language,ethnicity, race and gender.

There are three kinds of education: first, the informal education, which normallytakes place within the family, starting at birth, and is to be distinguished from formaleducation. Children learn many things from parents, siblings, and community members—for example, the home language and behavioral norms. Second, formal educationrefers to the set of organized activities that take place in schools that are intended totransmit skills, knowledge and values. Third, non-formal education refers to organizedinstruction that takes place outside of school settings (e.g., girl guides, boy scouts, adulteducation, and sports groups).

In Ethiopia in urban centers, some education settings are diversely populated due tolarge numbers of ethnic groups live together. This diversity means that teachers need tobe prepared for mixed student groups with a range of prior experiences stemming fromvaried social class, language and cultural backgrounds. In Ethiopia, the social contextof teaching that accommodates these diverse groups is on their respective birthplace ortheir specific regions in which students get the chance of learning using their language,cultural practice and norms. However, there are attempts in some major cities in diverseeducation settings; the culture that is transmitted in school reflects the values and attitudesof the so-called dominant members of the community. This includes those who makeeducational policy decisions and depending on the number of student populations, someregions allow to build schools of the ethnic groups.

The dominant group’s culture differs from the home culture of students. Thus, schoolsnot only play a socialization role from one generation to the next but also a role in theacculturation of the children of newcomers (rural-urban, region-to-region and urban –urban migrants) or those who are members of minority groups to the norms and valuesof the dominant community. Schools play the role of acculturation that refers to thechanges that occur within a group through culture contact and through the process ofadapting to and taking on the values, attitudes, and ways of behaving of the dominant(power) group.

The Functions of Formal Schooling

Professionally speaking education has many forms and functions in which it promotesthe societal culture, values and norms to the next generations. It has the purpose ofsocializing the generation in the societal expectations and impetus what generation wouldbe. Hence education has intended and unintended functions.

Intended Functions of Education

The functions of schooling can be looked upon as intended or manifest and unintendedor latent, though there is considerable overlap between the two (Thomas, 1990). Theintended functions refer to those aspects of education that come immediately to mindwhen we ask ourselves what it is that schools do. Through the formal or officialcurriculum, schools transmit both generalized as well as specialized knowledge. Theytransmit skills and values and develop mental abilities.

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Schools also transmit the existing culture to the next generation and to new members ofthe community as well as new knowledge that are produced in universities and in industry;cultural transmission involves cultural diffusion. For example, Western culture, values,and schooling practices, including curricula, have been spread or diffused to theindigenous communities living in many parts of the majority world through colonizationand its aftermath by globalization.Cultural diffusion may be increasing globally throughthe textbook industry that tends to be controlled by Western capitalist interests(Abdi&Cleghorn, 2005).

Schools teach children to read, write, and to calculate, that is, to be functionally literate,providing them with the general knowledge they will need to take part in community, towork, and to learn other things. They are also taught facts in subjects such as history,geography and literature as well as procedures in subjects like science and mathematics.Some are taught computer and other skills that will be useful in specific jobs (Ghoshand Ray, 1987).

Unintended Functions

The unintended functions are sometimes referred to as the hidden curriculum whichrefers to the implicit messages that students receive about such matters as punctuality,neatness, achievement, deference toward teachers (authority relations), and the like. Itindoctrinates in students the values of the dominant group societies. The term dominantgroup refers to the group that holds the important and powerful positions in thecommunity’s institutions (including the school system).

Among the majority in the world, there is an equivalent belief - that there will be equalityof educational opportunity when a country’s economy develops, or if the industrializedcountries would share their wealth more generously. Another belief or myth is thateducation for all will bring about economic development; however, there is more evidenceto suggest that it is economic development, which brings more education for morepeople (Ghosh and Ray, 1987).

Young people learn about the occupational structure of community through the processof schooling. They are introduced, both directly and indirectly, to many occupations aswell as to the types of positions and roles within them. Children learn that there arecomplex rules associated with competition, cooperation and achievement; sometimeschatting in groups in the classroom is cooperative learning, other times chatting in classis considered disruptive behavior (Thomas, 1990).

Social control is another unintended function of schooling. Social control is about thedefinition and imposition of what the expected behaviors are of boys, girls, and membersof different racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups, depending on the particular communityand setting. Social control refers to the unwritten rules that define who is expected toget ahead and who is not. These are the “rules” that lead some girls to lose interest inscience or mathematics around the time of puberty, and other students to rebel againstthe system in ways that conform to popular racial or ethnic stereotypes (Ghosh andRay, 1987).

1.4 DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIAEducation in Ethiopia was oriented toward religious learning until 1 950s, when thegovernment began to emphasize secular learning as a means to achieve social mobilityand development. By 1974, despite efforts by the government to improve the situation,less than 10 percent of the total population was literate. There were several reasons for

Education in Ethiopia


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this lack of progress. The primary failure of the education system was its inability to“satisfy the aspirations of the majority of the people and to prepare in any adequateway those passing through its ranks.” Education was described as the system of theelitists, inflexible and unresponsive to local needs. Even the distribution of educationalopportunity favored a few of the Northern Administrative Regions and urban centers atthe expense of a predominantly illiterate rural population. The education system alsosuffered from inadequate budgeting (Yizengaw, 2003, Abdi&Cleghorn, 2005).

The situation of Ethiopian education is highly influenced by the ruling governments’political ideologies and commitment of those in power. The expansion of secular educationstarted during the Hailesillase I regime, followed by the MengistuHailemariam regimeand has reached its pick in the incumbent government since early 1 990s. Yet the quantityand quality varies accordingly. In the early 1 990s, the problems Ethiopians faced inmaking their education system responsive to national needs remained daunting. Socialand political change had affected many traditional elements of national life, but it wastoo soon to predict what effect the changes would have on the progress of education(GOE, 2003).

Type of schools in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia depending on the government in power the education policy system varyand the schools types vary in terms of their classification. Hence, the following are thetypes of schools found in Ethiopia:

1. Government schools are those schools operated under the auspices of the regionaleducation bureaus, Ministries of Education, Public Health institutions (healthextensions schools), Agriculture (like agricultural extension schools), Ministry ofTransport and Communications (driving and mechanical training schools), militaryand security schools (like police and military trainings schools) universities andColleges. Most of these schools have the recognition and approval for the curriculumby the Ministry of Education.

2. Non-Government schools include those schools that are Public schools owned bypublic(schools operated by the population of the localities in which they are foundand which are financed by student fees with or without assistance from theGovernment);

3. Mission schools are schools operated by religions missions with or withoutassistance from the government. Religious Missions schools teach religiousphilosophies and values [e.g. for the Christian – (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox)and Muslim religions],

4. Foreign Communities schools are those that follow the international curriculumusually the western that serves the children and families of diplomats and foreigncitizens living in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, foreign Community Schools are schoolsoperated by various foreign communities primarily for their children. Of course,children who do not belong to such communities may also enroll if there is room.

5. Organization schools are schools operated by different organizations mainly forchildren of adults who work in them. However, other children may also enroll ifthere is room (Yizengaw, 2003; MOE, 2010).

All of the above school types could be classified according to numerical grades wherethe grades classification has its own levels of conditions. The grades were grouped

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according to the system established by the Ministry of Education. Under the system,the primary, the junior secondary and the senior secondary grades were grades one (1)to six (6), grades seven (7) and eight (8) and grades nine (9) to 12, respectively prior to1997/98. However, according to the new education system primary grade covers grades1to 8: [where grades 1-4 grades are cycle one and 5- 8 grades are cycle two primaryschools]. The secondary grade covers grades nine (9) and 10, grades 11 and 12 ispreparatory whereas 10+1, 10+2 and 10+3 are categorized under the TechnicalVocational Education Training (TVET) (Ministry of Education, 2010).

As the population of the country is increasing from time to time, it needs to address theshortage of educational facilities that accommodates the demand in the areas of increasingthe enrollment of pupils of school age category. Hence, the government should attemptto increase in both rural area and urban centers. As for primary school GER, for thosechildren aged 7-14, the rate has increased from 5 1.2 per cent to 67.8 per cent (female62.9% and male 72.5%). Both the gross and the age based enrolment ratios do notinclude those attending informal education (MOE, 2010).

There is significant increase in the number of primary schools from 11780 in 2000/01 to16513 in2004/05. The progress is supplemented by the fact that 80 per cent of theconstructed schools are located in rural areas and by the increased awareness of thecommunity towards education. It is necessary to note that there is disparity amongregions. In particular, the enrolment ratio of Afar and Somalia regions are found to below. Hence, special programs were initiated to respond to the needs of rural and pastoralareas where it is more difficult for children to go to school in the above-mentionedregions and in South-Omo, Oromia and Benshnguil- Gumuz regional states. For example,the Government has started the implementation of mobile education system in line withthe formal one in Afar region.

Secondary School Education (9-10) - The number of students in secondary schoolincreased from 512327 in 2001/02to 860645 in 2004/05, the GER in 2004/05 being29.2 (female 21.6 and male 36.6). The number of secondary schools has increasedfrom 455 to 707 as well. However, there are challenges in both primary and secondaryeducation, most notably overcrowding of classrooms and rising student-teacher ratios,with consequent strains on the quality of education (Ministry of Finance and EconomicDevelopment [MOFED], 2006).

Preparatory Secondary School Education (11 – 12) -This education level is forstudents who have completed grade 10 and passed the National School LeavingExamination to attend the preparatory education to join higher education institutions.Since the beginning of this program in 2001/02, the number of students has increasedfrom 79155 to 94660 and the number of preparatory secondary schools to 371 in2004/05 (MOFED, 2006).

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) - This program was initiatedin 2000/0 1 to cater for those students who have completed grade 10 education but didnot score the required grades to attend preparatory secondary education but have thenecessary aptitude for TVET in various fields. The TVET initiative structured as10+1,10+2 and 10+3 levels offers trainings in 25 fields in government run institutions andin16 fields in private institutions. It is believed that this line of education will fulfill thecountry’s requirement for mid-level trained human resources. The number of traininginstitutions has increased from 141 in 2001/02 to 200 in 2004/05, while the number oftrainees has increased from 38176 to105850 during the same period. Out of the totalfigure, 51 per cent of the trainees were women (MOE, 2010).



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Challenges in the next phase include ensuring the supply of teachers and reducing turnover,finding ways of reducing the unit cost, and ensuring the relevance and effectiveness ofTVET courses. The TVET expansion is complemented by, and forms part of, theEngineering Capacity-Building Program, which integrates training, demand andemployment concerns in an outcome-based and demand-driven system with strongstakeholder participation. The private sector has shown substantial interest, with anestimated 250 local and foreign investors now involved in TVET programs. In addition,a National TVET Council has been established to ensure participation of private sector,Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and other relevant stakeholders in advisingthe Government on TVET strategy (MOE, 2010; Yizengaw, 2003).

Higher Education -Similar to primary and secondary education, emphasis was givento higher education as a major source for meeting the country’s needs for highly trainedhuman resources. In this regard, the number of universities that were only two (2) hasincreased to eight (8), increasing the intake capacity from 18946 in 200 1/02 to 36405in 2004/05. During the same period, the number of students increased from 87413 to172111. Participation of women has reached 24 per cent as well. Even though thefigure has increased, participation in higher education has not exceeded 1.5 per cent.The ratio being 125 to150 higher education students per 100000 people (Yizengaw,2003; MOFED, 2006).

The participation of private universities has continued to increase at a higher rate. In2003/04, university level education was offered in 71 private universities/colleges at adiploma level, and in 34 universities/colleges at a degree level. The total number ofstudents in these institutions being 39125 constituted 23 per cent of the total number ofstudents in higher education institutions.

The focus to move forward will be on continuing to strengthen the management andfinancing of universities and expanding them, but at a slower pace than during thepreceding years. Measures include accreditation of 10 new private institutions, conversionof two public colleges to full-fledged universities, and strengthening the cost-sharingarrangement under which students repay some of the costs of their education once theyare employed. However, the increment of the universities in government and private isat the expense of quality of education that has highly emphasized the massification.The recently established agency of Higher Education Relevance and Quality Assurance(HERQA) is striving to assure quality education at all levels. The number of governmentuniversities has reached 31 in 2012 (see annex 2).

Check Your Progress I

Note: Use the space provided for your answer.

1) List out the types of schools found in Ethiopia.

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1.5 ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATIONALINSTITUTIONS

The Higher Education Institutions Board reviews and adapts the plans and budgets ofeach institution. The universities have senates, which fall in between the boards and theacademic commissions in their powers and duties. Each of these administrative bodiescreates various committees to assist their duties. The academic commission (AC) ofeach college faculty deliberates on and submits proposals about programs, plans,courses, certification, promotions, and students’ status. The department councils arecomposed of all full-time academic staff and chaired by the department heads. Thecouncil prepares and submits recommendations to the AC concerning programs ofstudy, curricula, courses, staff promotion, research projects, teaching materials andexaminations.Higher education institutions recruit their own staff based on certain criteria.

Once employed, the teachers are assessed at the end of every semester (twice a year)by their students, colleagues and the department head. The teacher must receive anabove average rating to continue their employment. Contracts are renewed every 2years. Those teachers whose performance falls below average for 2 consecutivesemesters will not have their contracts renewed. In the past 5 years, a few contractshave been terminated due to low evaluations by students at the AAU.

Salaries of faculty are based on their ranks. There are six salary scales and after twoyears of service a teacher will go up to the next rank. Previously all were paid the sameand there was no incentive. Thus, the new plan was every two years teachers receive apay increase. A good teacher can be promoted every 2 or 3 years and has pay incrementsevery year. Therefore, teachers are now highly motivated, although many instructorsstill complain that their salaries are too low by any standard globally.

As of 2008, there are 16,161,528 children enrolled in grades 1 through 12 in Ethiopia;13476104 are in government schools and 2685424 in non-government schools, whileare 8760958 are boys and 7380570 are girls. These were taught by 267191 teachersin 267191 schools, which had over 267191 classrooms.

There were 2228 teachers in higher education institutions in 1989-99. The professorsand associate professors were only 2.29 per cent and 6.78 per cent respectively. Over66 per cent of the instructors had a master’s or PhD degrees, with the rest hold abachelor’s or the equivalent. There was 5169 support staff working in higher educationinstitutions in Ethiopia in 1998-99. In 1999, 48.36 per cent of the supportive staff wasfemales. The academic staff of Ethiopian higher education institutions spends 75 percent of their time in teaching and 25 per cent in research activities. Those working inresearch institutes spend 25 per cent in teaching and 75 per cent in research work.Higher education admission has increased since the mid-1990s in Ethiopia.The admissionrate for women has been about 15 per cent for the past several years up to 1999.Some efforts have been made to improve the rate of admission by lowering the admissioncut-off grade point by 0.2 (for example, admitting boys with 3.0 and girls with 2.8 GPAto the same program). This affirmative action has improved women’s admission rate,but has not resulted in significant changes; the attrition rate of this group is higher thanaverage. Most women are also enrolled in social and pedagogical sciences and in diplomaprograms. Out of the 864 graduate students, only 62 (7.18%) were women. Engineering,agriculture and pharmacy had the least rate of female enrollment.



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The total government budget for education has increased. In attempt to provide educationfor all, huge expansions of education through the construction of new schools wereinitiated close to the communities they serve. After regionalization was introduced in1993, almost all Ethiopians had the right to education in their own languages. Educationaltexts, although assessed by the Ministry of Education, are devised by the RegionalEducational Bureaus in order to ensure their appropriateness to the diverse cultures ofEthiopia. Social awareness programs to teach that education is vital and set up tocombat cultural and historical barriers.

Regional governments have had a role to play in reviewing and strengthening educationin the primary and secondary sectors, but higher education remains the responsibility ofcentral government. The government set up a new plan to establish one new universityper regional state and one education college, one technology college and one medicalcollege.

The number of girls enrolled has doubled from 1996 to 2000. Most still do not haveequal status with boys, but there are measures such as “positive discrimination,” tocorrect the imbalance. In 2004, UNESCO Institute for Statistics showed percentageof female teachers in primary education reaching 44.6 per cent and primary grossenrollment rate to 93.4 per cent. There are a growing number of private and publicuniversities and colleges in Ethiopia.

As of 2007, the University Capacity Building Program (UCBP) to build 13 newuniversities is undergoing nationwide.The expansion of and privatization of highereducational institutions is discussed.

Academic Freedom in Ethiopian Higher Education Institutions

Any attempt to understand the emergence, development and present status of HigherEducation Institutions in Ethiopia should start from recognizing intellectual legacy thatpredates the age of Ethiopian Universities and Colleges in the 20th century. As a result,Ethiopia’s traditionally independent education looked elsewhere for new inspiration,for new models for a new era (Yizengaw, 1990: 64).

It should also be recognized that the seeds of modern education in Ethiopia were sownmainly during the period from 1898-1936. Emperor HaileSelassie’s succession to thepower in 1930 boosted the expansion of primary and secondary schools in Ethiopiaduring this period. He was eager to see the construction of new schools, closelysupervised the hiring of foreign teachers for the schools, and in some cases paid parentsso that their children go to school. According to Trudeau (1964), the expansion ofmodern education in Ethiopia was so vigorous in this particular decade and there weremore than 20 government schools in the country. Before the Italian invasion, FascistItaly’s invasion and five-year occupation (1936-41) meant a terrible blow to the cropof educated Ethiopian men. Many were jailed, tortured, and killed. Post 1941, Ethiopiafaced the daunting challenge to resuscitate its system of education. These were difficulttimes when teachers were few, the facilities were run down, books and other teachingmaterials were in short supply. Yet, Trudeau (1964:10) states a complete system ofeducation from the elementary to university level was developed in a space of a decade(1941-5 1). This is a laudable achievement that the Emperor, his government andEthiopians of that generation should be remembered for.

A landmark in the history of Higher Education in Ethiopia is, however, December11th1950, when the University College of Addis Ababa (UCAA) was inaugurated andbecame operational. Four years later, on 28 July 1954, the UCAA secured its Charter

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from the Imperial government and on 26 August 1954, it held its first graduation ceremony.In 1956, the Ministry of Education established a department to coordinate and supervisethe functions and development of special schools and institutions of higher learning(Yizengaw1990:85).

During the period from 1950 to 1960, the total number colleges grew to 12.Theseinclude University College of Addis Ababa, the then Alemaya College of Agriculture,Engineering College, Building College and Jimma Public Health College. Even morethe Armed forces had three military colleges including the Harar Military College, NavalForces Academy in Massawa and the Air Force College in DebreZeit. In line withthese developments, a survey team from the University of Utah (1959) was authorizedto develop a Higher Education Development Program. Particularly, the team wascommissioned to explore the possibility of founding a national university. The teamsubmitted in its final report on April 29th 1960, favoring the establishment of such aUniversity and outlining detailed recommendations on how to go about the task. Forour purpose, two major recommendations of the Utah team deserve mention.

First, the team emphasized the importance of autonomy to the University. It pointedout, the granting of a Charter to University in which autonomy or near autonomy couldbe guaranteed to the University so that political, religious, economic or other interferencewould be eliminated so far as is humanely possible. That freedom of teaching, research,discussion, publication and all other freedoms and privileges essential to academicexcellence and prestige in the academic word, thus established would be maintained(Survey Team Report, 1960:23).

Secondly, the University should command budget adequate to allow further expansionand the challenge to furnish skilled personnel to the mushrooming civil sector of thecountry.All budgets and funds, which regularly and normally go to the various units ofhigher education, including budgets for teacher education and training together with allother funds that may logically and rightfully be secured,are included in the budget of theUniversity.

Ensuring and protecting academic freedom, institutional autonomy and financial self-reliance of Higher Educational Institutions in Ethiopia were salient policy matters evenbefore the Haile Selassie I University (HSIU) was inaugurated. Soon afterwards, on28 February 1961, the Charter of Haile Selassie I University was published on theNegaritGazzeta. The Emperor donated his Palace to be the main campus of the newUniversity and the convocation marking the founding of HSIU was held on 18 December1961. Even though American assistance was sought at the early stages, the Universityleadership was Ethiopian from the very beginning. The first President wasLijKassaWoldemariam (1962-1969) succeeded by Dr. AkliluHabte (1969-1974).

According to Yizengaw (1990), the University became very assertive of its autonomyand freedoms right from its inception. Pressures used to come from the governmenturging the University to rapidly increase its student intake, open up new programs andmeet the work force needs of the country. The University leadership was, however,adamant responding to government pressures stating motivation, academic standards,the relevance of what is thought to current professional requirements and post academictraining are more decisive factor than are the size of the department or the number ofstudents in a given production line (Yizengaw, 1990: 130).

Since then, the University has experienced similar other pressures and the Universitycommunity never relented to express its skepticism towards hurried and imposed Higher



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Education expansion plans. Even more, Haile Selassie’s University students began tobecome ardent critics of the Imperial regime. Political radicalism of the students gainedground in the campuses because students enjoyed the freedoms to study; reflect on thesocial, economic and political conditions of their country and the freedom to organizethemselves into a student union.

The student body also started to publish articles on its newsletter, struggle over politicalissues like the National Question. These developments led to constant studentdemonstrations, clashes with the police that involved brutal beatings, student detentions,and killings as well. These dissenting voices were joined by the repetition of strikesfrom the Confederation of Ethiopian Labor Unions (CELU) and the Ethiopian TeachersAssociation (ETA), grievances and revolts from the Armed Forces, and the outbreakof the 1972-73 famine. The political crisis reached its apex in 1974 when the Imperialgovernment in Ethiopia collapsed. The University that bore the Emperor’s name andwas promoted under his tutelage became the pioneer to sow the seeds of the regime’sdestruction. Since then successive Ethiopian regimes view the University as the mainstayof resistance and opposition. However, this is the manifestation of lack of the Ethiopianacademic freedom and the leaders were overwhelmed. Even the incumbent governmentofficers were at one point in time members of the resistance groups. For this reason,they do not see university’s with positive attitude rather as source of opposition partiesof the system.

The Military government that seized power in 1974, the Dergue in popular parlance,had this fear towards the University community. Its first action after stepping into powerwas, therefore, to send students, faculty and staff into the rural areas for what wascalled, the development campaign. In the meantime, the curricula of Universityprograms were revised to ensure a thorough application of the principles of MarxismLeninism. Even more, faculty and staff attended orientation classes at the Yekatit schoolof Political Education (Yizengaw, 1990:250).All of these were attempts to indoctrinatestaff members with a single ideology and ban every other intellectual exercise or inquiry.This exercise is a clear contravention of the academic freedom of the Universitycommunity to think, reflect, research and publish about any socio-political or economicconcept, perspective, theory or ideology. No wonder the Higher Education Institutionsof Ethiopia lost their warmth and activism but became known for their monotony andstagnation.

Yizengaw (1990:254) narrates this tragedy stating, there is no faculty union worthy ofits name, and very few publications by staff members. The lively and useful studentunions, together with their publishing organs, no longer exist. The Dergue founded aCommission for Higher Education (CHE) in 1977, which was authorized to coordinateand supervise the operation of existing higher education institutions. In 1987, CHE wasdismantled and a new Higher Education Management Department (HEMD) was setup under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. An HEMD report in 1989/90shows that there were only three Universities in the country(Addis Ababa University,Alemaya University of Agriculture and Asmara University), 6 colleges (Awassa Collegeof Agriculture, Ambo Agricultural College, Jimma College of Agriculture, Addis AbabaCommercial College, Wondo Genet Forestry College and College of Urban Planning)and 3 Institutes (Bahir Dar Polytechnic Institute,Jimma Institute of Health Sciences,and Arba Minch Water Technology Institute).

Many of these were upgraded to college status during the time of the Derg. In addition,progress has been made in terms of student intake (both in the regular and evening

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classes), the number of teaching staff in the institutions and the opening of some graduate(MA) programs between 1974-91 .Broadly speaking, however, academic freedomand intellectual exuberance gave way to a stifled and docile University environment inthe days of the Dergue.

Post 1991 Higher Education Expansion in Ethiopia

Twenty-one years have lapsed [the author was writing in 2013] after the downfall ofthe Dergue and it is appropriate to examine the Higher Education Policy of the incumbentgovernment. In so doing, we have to explore not just the imperatives but also thepracticalities of Higher Education Reform currently underway. The beginning of theincumbent government was marred with suspicion, fear and harsh measures towardsHigher Educational Institutions in general, and the Addis Ababa University in particular.The first clash happened on January 1993, when security forces fired live ammunitioninto the crowd of unarmed students, beaten and arrested large numbers of Addis AbabaUniversity (AAU) students. Four months later the government dismissed more than 40professors who had been critical of the government.

The incumbent government repeatedly states that the level of enrolment, the number ofgraduates and the contribution of the sector to the country’s development has beenlimited. A prominent ex-official in the MOE writes, ‘the higher education system wasmediocre by not being in a position to inspire the country’s government and societytowards poverty alleviation and sustainable development’ (Yizengaw, 2003 :4). Eventhough it is not clear on how mediocrity could be measured at an institutional level, thegovernment had the iron will to do away with it. Hence, it launched what was called theHigher Education Expansion and Reform agenda from the early 90s to present. Twoconferences were held in Adama (1995) and Bishoftu (1996) consecutively where thestatus, problems and prospects of the Ethiopian higher education system were discussed.The outcome of these deliberations was a document entitled Future Directions ofHigher Education in Ethiopia (1997). According to Yizengaw (2003:7), the majorproblems identified in this document were:

1. The lack of clarity and vision;

2. Problems of quality and relevance;

3. Lack of program and institutional evaluation mechanisms;

4. Financial and resource constraints;

5. Inability to mobilize alternative financial resources;

6. Inefficient resource utilization; and

7. Poor quality and community of leadership.

It seems like the responsibility of the blame lay with University leadership and staffmembers who do not have the vision and mission, the intelligence to solicit extra fundingresources, to constantly upgrade the quality of their staff through evaluation and furnishrelevant products. The government wanted Higher Educational Institutions to organizetheir affairs by funding for themselves, utilizing their resource meticulously and engagingthemselves in constant evaluative exercise. These were believed to weed out themediocrity quoted earlier. However, there was no mention of issues relating to academicfreedom and institutional autonomy of higher education systems in Ethiopia. In reality,these staggering omissions might have intruded on the effectiveness of the governmentreform agenda.



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A striking observation in government policy is the recognition that the quality of graduatesfrom Ethiopian Higher Education institutions has been declining. Following from that isthe conviction to mitigate issues that have contributed to this decline. Thus, the Ministryfigured, could be handled by introducing a national Higher Education Quality andRelevance Assurance Agency (HEQRAA) mandated to review and evaluate the qualityand the practical relevance of Higher Educational Institutions in Ethiopia. Another is theNational Pedagogical Research Centre (NPRC)mandated to equip and enhance thepedagogic skills of university and college instructors. Accordingly, almost all HigherEducational Institutions in Ethiopia were urged to revise and update their curricula inrecent years uncompromisingly.

One challenge in implementing these reform measures, Yizengaw(2003 :9) states, wasthat the academia in the older Higher Educational Institutions does not accept anychange and was at the center of this resistance.

One gathers that officials saw not only mediocrity but also resistance to their reformagenda. There was not, however, any explanation why such resistance was faced inthese institutions. It is however, clear that the government’s approach has been top-down in curriculum revision, student enrolment, program development and institutionalreforms and restructuring which closed avenues for dialogue and initiative between theuniversity community and the higher authorities. A subsidiary reform measure meant toensure high quality and relevance was putting the students at the center of the system.

This line of reform inter alia meant calling a round of meetings (at the department,faculty and university level) where students appraise their teachers publicly and makethe latter account for their weaknesses and mistakes. This would allow the instructorsto swallow their criticisms.

The second frontier of the reform agenda was broadening access by expanding theintake of existing Higher Education institutions. This materialized by creating four newregional universities (2000) through merging smaller tertiary learning institutions and byopening up new graduate (Masters Level) programs. Resource wise, the governmentthinks that Higher Education institutions are costly establishments where the lion shareof their expenses is spent for administrative instead of academic purposes. Financiallyspeaking, these institutions solely depend on the government and generate very littleincome through research collaborations.

This trend, the government believes, should be reversed. Public universities and collegesshould generate income by mobilizing a greater share of the necessary financing fromstudents themselves. (Yizengaw, 2003:12). Hence, cost-sharing systems were put inplace. Other financial sources suggested include providing short courses, contractresearch, consultancy services, farm activities and production services(Yizengaw, 2003:12). The authorities have also thought of introducing a block grant budgeting system foruniversities and colleges so that the latter have greater autonomy while managing andutilizing funds.

Last but not the least, the government reform agenda targeted at appointing leaderswho commensurate with the reform agenda. This involved instituting new boardstructures, and ensuring accountability and transparency in the leadership. But onceagain, it is very difficult to confidently state if the reforms that entered into force haveresulted these much coveted virtues i.e. democracy, accountability and transparency. Alogical climax of the reform initiatives is the Higher Education Law, which was enactedby parliament in (2003). The Law recognized that Higher Educational Institutions shouldhave administrative and financial autonomy and enjoy the freedom of recruiting andpromoting their staff.

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It is not, however, explicit about the various academic freedoms that Higher EducationalInstitutions should enjoy in order to thrive in their ventures. This Law has also authorizedthe establishment of the Ethiopian Higher Education Strategic Institute (EHESI) and theHigher Education Quality and Relevance Assurance Authority (HEQRAA).

A year from the promulgation of the Higher Education Law (2004), a Higher EducationSystem Overhaul (HESO) study was carried out by a commission, which has come upwith two key findings. These are:

a. Higher Educational Institutions, Government and its agencies have not beenpreparing sufficiently for the new situation of autonomy and accountability. Forinstance, the document states (HESO, 2004:6), the introduction of formula fundingand the block grant will place much more responsibility on HEI managers andboards to do more with less. Unfortunately, HEI leaders and their Ministrycounterparts do not have that skill.

b. All agencies involved display aspects of a disabling culture: in particular, they sufferfrom a blame culture, are insufficiently outcome-oriented, and are not yetempowering organizations(HESO, 2004:6). The recommendations of the HESOstudy are directed to the top most echelons of power urging the Ministry ofEducation officials, board members of Higher Education Institutions, and the CEOsof universities and colleges to provide visionary, participatory and inspiring leadership(HESO 2004: 13).

In conclusion, much of the work done in promoting higher education institutions inEthiopia Post-1991 focused on institutional reforms. The four major strategic areas ofreform were quality and relevance assurance, augmenting access by increasing studentintake and commencing new programs, appointing new senior leadership andmanagement systems and introducing the Higher Education Law(2003). These reformsare highly technocratic. This legacy seems to have soured university-state relations inEthiopia and must have acted as a barrier even to well-meaning government policies ofreform.

Check Your Progress II


1) What are the major problems identified by Yizengaw in the context of post 1991higher education expansion in Ethiopia?

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1.6 PRIVATIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION INETHIOPIA

In today’s world where market rules seem to govern the production and access ofgoods and services, the notion of higher education as a public good is being revisited.The privatization of Higher Education is global phenomenon brought about by two



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major factors. These are a combination of unprecedented demand for access to highereducation and the inability or unwillingness of governments to satiate the demand(Altbach, 1999:1). These same factors (increasing demand and government inability tosatiate the demand) explain the reason why Ethiopia is currently experiencing themassification of higher education. Yizengaw (2003:1) argues that private providersnow complement public institutions as a means of managing costs of expanding highereducation enrolments, increasing the diversity of training programs and broadening socialparticipation in higher education. To its credit, the current government has introducedfavorable policy and legal instruments that have encouraged the opening up of manyprivate higher education institutions.

According to Desalegne (2004:65), the Education and Training Policy of the TransitionalGovernment (1994) first stipulated that the government will create the necessaryconditions to encourage and give support to private investors to open schools andestablish various educational and training institutions. However, it also underscored thatthe quality of education rendered in these private institutions should be constantlymonitored and evaluated. The Ministry of Education was authorized to set the qualitystandard for these institutions and grant accreditation. Later, the Ministry issued a guidelinefor opening up private Higher Educational Institutions. Its requirements were set intersof curricula and credit loads, requisite classroom and teaching facilities, and the numberand qualification of academic staff. Since then various proclamations were passedregarding the licensing of private higher education institutions and their accreditation.The latest was Regulation Number 206/1997 that charged the Ministry of Trade andIndustry with the responsibility of giving licenses. The Ministry of Education however,retained the authority to accredit these institutions.

Among other things, the regulation stated that private higher education institutions shouldbe assessed every two years so that its license is renewed before the beginning of thenext academic year. (Desalegne, 2004:70). The proliferation of private HigherEducational Institutions in Ethiopia Post-1991 is staggering. Desalegne (2004:72) quotesdata from the Ethiopian Privatization Agency where a total of 333 education projectswith a capital outlay of 4.4 billion birr have been approved from 1993/94 to 2002/03.Much of the investment has of course gone to the establishment of many private highereducation institutions. On a positive note, private higher education institutions in thecountry are contributing a lot in terms of enrollment. Ashcroft and Rayner (2004:1)stated, Only in 2002/03 those private Higher Educational Institutions accredited by theMinistry of Education accounted for 24 per cent of student enrollments. This figure isbelieved to increase in the years to come.

However, these institutions have a number of problems. They are mainly financed bytuition payments from students. This has affected their geographical distribution (theyare disproportionately found in urbane areas), the type of programs and training themoffer (many are tuned towards trainings in accounting, business management, ICTetc.)and the quality and sustainability of their programs (changing programs and courseofferings following trends in the market). Most of these institutions are housed in rentedbuildings many of which were not constructed for education purposes. They usuallyhave inadequate equipment, facilities and libraries. Still more, many of these privateinstitutions rely on part time teaching staff and have a limited number of teaching staffwho are employed on a full time basis. According to Wondwosen (2003 :2 6), thereluctance to employ full time teaching staff arises from the fact that these institutionsfind it profitable to run their programs with part time professors and lecturers. For allthese reasons, there is a lot of mistrust about the quality of education in these private

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Higher Educational Institutions. Just as many people appreciate the access private highereducation institutions have offered to youngsters, others consider these institutions asdiploma mills or certificate shops (Desalegne 2004:7 8).

Seen from this vantage point, a lot has to be done in order to promote the quality ofprivate Higher Educational Institutions in Ethiopia. Ashcroft and Rayner (2004:3) suggestthat providing stakeholders with quality information could be one major way of cultivatingconfidence amongst the general public. Stakeholders like the fee-paying public, potentialemployers as well as the government should see that private institutions add value totheir students. This should particularly be the case if private Higher Educational Institutionsseek assistance from the government.

According to Ashcroft and Rayner(2004:4), it is no longer enough to argue that, ifgovernment wishes to achieve a quality system it must invest in it. As an example, itwould be more convincing to argue, that at present, say, 75 per cent of employers arehappy with private HEI graduates, but many say they wish to see more IT competence:the private sector could then argue that with tax relief on or soft loans for technologicalproducts, the sector would aim to improve the employer satisfaction ratings by at least10 per cent.

According to Ashcroft and Rayner (2004), private higher education institutions shouldalso be active in influencing the direction of the Quality and Relevance Assurance Agency(QRAA). This involves seeking more autonomy [emphasis mine] to follow their individualmission and to define quality processes for themselves according to their circumstances(Ashcroft and Rayner, 2004:5). As far as autonomy is concerned, we need to recognizethat private institutions enjoy more autonomy and freedom when compared with theirpublic counterparts.

This is mainly because private institutions typically receive little, if any, public funds andbecause legal structures do NOT restrict most academic activities (Altbach, 1999:10).On the other hand, many scholars are skeptical about the relative autonomy of theseinstitutions. Some regard them as elite institutions both in terms of their student intakeand staff profiles that exclude the ordinary African/Ethiopian. More often than not,these private institutions work to the detriment of public institutions leading to thefragmentation of higher education systems, with intellectuals, in their search for economicand political opportunities, being drawn more and more towards the elite institutions2.In the African context, A. Mama (xx: 16) argues, the marketization of higher educationhas undermined most of the pre-requisites for academic freedom and social responsibility.We can therefore, conclude that debates about academic freedom, institutional autonomyand issues of financial and human resource management in private Higher EducationalInstitutions are substantively and contextually different from that of the public institutionsin Ethiopia.

1.7 CHALLENGES OF EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIAEthiopia faces many historical, social and political obstacles that have restricted progressin education for years. According to UNESCO reviews, most people in Ethiopia feelthat work is more important than education, so they start at a very early age with little tono education.

Children in rural areas are less likely to go to school than children in urban areas.Though gradually improving, most rural families cannot afford to send their children toschool because parents believe that while their children are in school they cannot



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contribute to the household chores and income. Social awareness that education isimportant is something that Ethiopia lacks but has improved gradually. There is a needto change the importance of education in the country’s social structure, and childrenshould be encouraged and required to attend school and become educated.

Corporal punishment is also an issue that has affected progress for centuries. The societyof Ethiopia expects teachers and parents to use corporal punishment to maintain orderand discipline. Most believe that through punishing children for bad habits they in turnlearn good ones.Also since the mid-1970s, there have been drastic losses ofprofessionals who leave the country, mostly for economic reasons. Many educatedEthiopians seek higher salaries in foreign countries, thus many of those who manage tofinish higher education immigrate creating endless shortage of qualified personals andprofessionals in every sector of the country. As of 2006, there are more Ethiopia-trained doctors living in Chicago than in the entire country. Given scarce resources ofthe developing nation of Ethiopia, the government has determined that improvement ofprimary education is the best hope for its future. Yet, even at the primary level, childrenand teachers are confronted by problems not easily overcome. These include majoreconomic barriers, early marriage and traditional female roles, attitudes toward education,preparation of teachers and classroom realities.

Basic Economic Barriers

Especially in rural Ethiopia, where the majority of the population lives, day-to-dayeconomic realities seriously impede prospects for improving the education of very youngchildren. The Ethiopian economy is based on agriculture, a sector of the economy thatsuffers from recurrent droughts and inefficient cultivation practices. Because of timefactors, 45 per cent of the population is below international poverty measures (CIA:World Fact book-Ethiopia, 2003).

Thus, in order for many families to survive, children in rural areas are needed to helpsupport the family by herding animals and assisting with the crops rather than attendingschool. In urban areas, on the other hand, this view has been changing. Since educationis seen as one of the few means for economic improvement inthe city, increasing numbersof urban families now hire tutors at home to assist very young children in receivingbetter academic preparation in hopes they will be more successful in schools.

Early Marriage/Traditional Female Roles

Early marriage and traditional female roles generate still further barriers to early education.These traditions, though changing in towns and cities, are still evident among the vastmajority of the population of rural Ethiopia. Families see early marriage as a way toimprove the family’s economic status, to strengthen ties between marrying families,toincrease the likelihood that girls will be virgins at marriage, and to avoid the possibilityof having an unmarried daughter later in life. These attitudes and values seriously impedethe participation of females in education at nearly all levels. Although such views arebeginning to change in the larger cities, it is not uncommon to see children (primarilyfemales) married as early as ages 9-11. Along with such marriages are often earlypregnancies and accompanying birth complications for child mothers whose bodies arenot mature enough to support pregnancy and childbirth. Such complications often resultin serious injury and/or death of both infants and mothers placing even greater economicdemands on survivors.

Moreover, since girls tend to marry so early and are quickly relegated to a life ofchildcare and traditional chores, it is little wonder that families with such limited incomes

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are unwilling to invest financially in the education of females. To address this problem,the MOE has been working on ways to include formal discussion of such issues inemerging curricular material.

Attitudes toward Education

Low educational attainment and aspirations of most parents pose another challengefacing early education. In a society where the literacy rate is 43 per cent, the level ofeducational aspiration for children tends to be lower (CIA: World Factbook-Ethiopia,2003). Further, parents who hope education will provide advancement opportunitiesfor their children are unaware of decades of research strongly supporting play-orientedapproaches to learning in the early grades over the traditional academic approaches.During informal interviews conducted by the authors with a number of preschool teachersin 2001, one teacher depicted the feelings of many families as follows:

Most families do not know the significance of preschool education in general and therole of play in educational life of children in particular. As a result of this, even thosefamilies who send their children to preschools assess the performance of their childreninterms of their academic achievement, i.e., to what extent a child is able to countnumbers, recite the alphabet, etc. That is one reason why most of the preschools followteaching methods similar to the primary school children rather than emphasizing creativeplay.

Lower educational aspirations for children might also be accounted for by the veryremote probability of their children being admitted to higher education institutions oncompletion of secondary education. Currently, however, the government is openingnew higher education institutions and expanding existing programs. Such expansionshould increase the likelihood of admission of more students and give increasing numbersof students and parents greater hope that higher education pursuits will be rewarded.

Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession

As in many countries of the world, teaching young children in Ethiopia is consideredamong the lowest rungs of professions. Thus, comparatively low salaries result in littleinterest in teaching as a career path. As a result, after only 1 or 2 years of service, manynew primary teachers leave the profession for higher paying jobs. Thus, new teachersoften consider teaching as only a stepping-stone for future career opportunities.

Classroom Realities

Day-to-day classroom realities such as high student-teacher ratio, lack of schoolmaterials, curriculum concerns and gender bias pose serious challenges to teachers asthey begin their work. One such reality is the teacher-child ratio existing in most schools.In observations of Cycle I schools during seven site visits over the past 3 years, forexample, authors observed classes with teacher-child ratios from 1:60 to 1:90. Suchratios certainly pale the complaints of teachers in most countries who express concernsabout class sizes of 25 or 30 students. In addition to teacher- child ratios, Abebe(1998) aptly describes current classroom realities regarding teaching materials:

In elementary schools, it is a common sight to observe one book shared among four tofive students. In classrooms where children are, sitting so close together that freemovement is almost impossible, the teacher cannot move around to attend to individualstudents. He or she can only stand in front and lecture. The teaching and learningenvironment is so uninviting that both teachers and students are not motivated at all. It



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is a situation in which teachers have lost their enthusiasm to teach, and students havelost their interest to learn.

In addition to the above physical realities of classrooms, under the most recent reforms,teachers are given additional responsibilities of adapting the national curriculum tospecialized needs of local regions. Since over 80 different languages are spoken inEthiopia, even this simple curricular innovation poses a major burden on already overextended teachers.

Check Your Progress III


1) Discribe briefly the challenges faced by education in Ethiopia from economicfront.

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1.8 LET US SUM UPThe discussion in this unit was fully devoted to “Education in Ethiopia”. It dealt withtopics such as : education : an overview, development of education in Ethiopia,organization of higher education institutions in that country, privatization of highereducation in Ethiopia, as well as challenges of higher education in Ethiopia. The unitalso explained the nature and development of education in Ethiopia and the perceptionsof teaching as a profession. Another aspect covered in this unit was the classroomrealities.

1.9 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCESAbdi, A. A. &Cleghorn, A, (2005) (Ed.).Issues in African education: Social Perspectives.Palgrave Macmillan.

Andreas, B. & Thomas, H. (2002). “Economic Perspectives of Tertiary Education:The Case of Colombia.” LCSHD Paper Series No. 75.Washington, D.C.: The WorldBank.

Berhan, Y. (2008). Medical doctors profile in Ethiopia: production, attrition andretention. In memory of 100-years Ethiopian modern medicine & the new Ethiopianmillennium. Ethiopian Medical Journal 46 Suppl 1:1-77.

Central Statistical Agency [Ethiopia] and OR C Macro (2005).Ethiopia Demographicand Health Survey 2005.

Ethiopia (201 1).Crime and Safety Report.

Every Child UK (2009).Missing: Children Without Parental Care in InternationalDevelopment Policy. Every Child UK, London. Retrieved December 23, 2012, fromhttp://www.everychild.org.uk/docs/EvC_Missing_final.pdf.

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Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia [FMOH] (2010). Ministry of Health: HealthSector Development Program IV

FHI (2010).Improving Care Options for Children in Ethiopia through UnderstandingInstitutional Child Care and Factors Driving Institutionalization. (unpublished) retrievedon December 20 2011 from http://www.fhi.org/institutionalcare/content.pdf.

Geertz, C. (1973) (Ed.).The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Ghosh, R. and Ray, D. (1987).Social change and education in Canada. Toronto:Harcourt Brace.

Government of Ethiopia [GOE] (2003).Higher Education Proclamation.No.351/2003.Addis Ababa: NegaritGazeta.

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development [MOFED] (2006). Ethiopia: Buildingon Progress; A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty(PASDEP)

Thomas, M. (1990) (Ed.).International comparative education: Practices, issues,and prospects. New York: Pergamon.

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE).1993a. National health policy of Ethiopia.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). 1 993b. National population policy ofEthiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE).1993c. National policy on Ethiopian women.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). 1 994a. Education sector strategy. AddisAbaba, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE).1994b. Education and training policy ofEthiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

Turner, S. B. (2006) (Ed.).The Cambridge dictionary of sociology.

Wilson, M. (2010).Criminal justice social work in the United States: Adapting to newchallenges. Washington, DC. NASW Center for Workforce Studies.

Yizengaw, T. (2003) Transformations in higher education: Experiences with reform andexpansion in Ethiopian higher education system.


UNIT 2 HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY INETHIOPIA

Structure Dessalegn Negri*

2.1 Objectives

2.2 Introduction

2.3 The Re-emergence of Tuberculosis

2.4 Social Sources of Premature Deaths

2.5 Health Delivery Services in Ethiopia

2.6 HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia

2.7 Primary Health Care in Ethiopia

2.8 Let Us Sum Up


2.1 OBJECTIVESIn our effort to understand the social issues confronting Ethiopia, we have examinedvarious aspects pertaining to Education in the first unit. In this unit, let us analyse thehealth services delivery in Ethiopia. After reading this unit, you will be able to :

know the health welfare status and major diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia;

social sources of premature deaths in Ethiopia;

health delivery services; and

primary health care in Ethiopia.

2.2 INTRODUCTIONThe news of a new, fatal infectious disease stunned both the medical community and thepublic. Yet throughout history, new diseases have appeared and old diseases havedisappeared. In beginning of this unit, let us have an understanding of health welfare.An Epidemiology is the scientific and medical study of the causes and transmission ofdisease within a population. Hence, the first concept we need to define is disease. Toresearchers working in health care system, disease refers to a biological problem withinan organism. Illness, on the other hand, refers to the social experience and consequencesof having a disease. Therefore, for example, an individual who becomes infected withthe poliovirus has the disease we call polio. When we refer, however, to subsequentchanges in that individual’s sense of self and social relationship, we should properlyrefer to these changes as consequences of the illness known as polio, not the disease.

The concept social epidemiology is the distribution of disease within a populationaccording to social factors (such as social class or use of tobacco) rather than biologicalfactors (such as blood pressure or genetics). For example, whereas biologists mightinvestigate whether heart disease is more common among those with high versus lowcholesterol levels, social epidemiologists might investigate whether it is more common

24 * Mr. Dessalegn Negeri, St. Mary’s College, Ethiopia

among smokers versus non-smokers. This commonness of the disease and illness canbe seen from the viewpoints of prevalence and incidence. The two useful indicatingtypes of rates are incidence and prevalence rates.

Incidence refers to the number of new occurrences of an event (disease, births, deathsand so on) within a specified population during a specified period. Prevalence refers tothe total number of cases within a specified population at a specified time—both thosenewly diagnosed and those diagnosed in previous years but still living with the conditionunder study.

In general, incidence better measures the spread of acute illnesses, such as swine fluand influenza, which strike suddenly and disappear quickly. Incidence also bettermeasures rapidly spreading diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and TB. For example, to seehow HIV/AIDS spread during the first decade after it was identified, we would compareits incidence in 1981 to its incidence in 1991. Prevalence, on the other hand, bettermeasures the frequency of chronic illnesses, which last for many years, such as musculardystrophy, asthma and diabetes.

The other two terms frequently used in epidemiology are morbidity and mortality.Morbidity refers to symptoms, illnesses and impairments; mortality refers to deaths.To assess the overall health of a population, epidemiologists typically calculate the rateof serious morbidity in a population (that is, the proportion suffering from serious illness),the rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality (that is, the proportion of infants andchildbearing women who die during or soon after childbirth), and life expectancy (theaverage number of years individuals born in a certain year can expect to live).

The Epidemiological Transition:

As industrialization and urbanization increased, mortality rates rose, especially amongthe urban poor. The main killer was tuberculosis, followed by influenza, pneumonia,typhus, and other infectious diseases. For instance, by the late nineteenth century,however, deaths from infectious diseases began to decline rapidly in the United Statesas in other industrialized countries. Although infectious diseases remained common,especially among the poor they no longer accounted for the majority of deaths. Partlyas a result, infant and childhood mortality declined steeply. Between 1900 and 1930,life expectancy rose from 47 years to 60 years for whites and rose from 33 years to 48years fir African Americans (U.S Bureau of Census, 1975).

As infectious diseases declined in importance, chronic and degenerative diseases, whichonly can affect those who live long enough for symptoms to develop, gained importance.Cancer, heart disease, and stork became major causes of mortality, while arthritis anddiabetes emerged as major sources of morbidity. Increasingly, conditions like heartdisease, stroke and hypertension shifted from being primarily diseases of the affluent tobeing disproportionately diseases of the poor.The shift from a society characterized byinfectious and parasitic diseases and low life expectancy to one characterized bydegenerative and chronic diseases and high life expectancy is referred to as theepidemiological transition (Orman, 1971).

2.3 THE RE-EMERGENCE OF TUBERCULOSISFrom a worldwide perspective, probably the most important consequence of thedevelopment of drug resistant germs is the re-emergence of tuberculosis, which killsmore people yearly than any other infectious disease. During the nineteenth century,

Health ServiceDelivery in Ethiopia

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tuberculosis, known as the “white plague” killed millions. Tuberculosis is caused by thebacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which attacks and destroys lung tissue. Individualsbecome infected by inhaling bacilli spread when already injected persons sneeze orcough. Because the bacilli can survive for some time in airy or dust and can becomeinfected merely by breathing.Tuberculosis is highly infectious disease as the WHOestimates that infected one –third of the world’s population (although only about 10per cent of infected persons, most often those already weakened by age, other diseases,or poor living conditions, ever develop active symptoms).

The incidence rate of tuberculosis in the United States declined steadily from the latenineteenth century to the 1 980s but then rose steadily until 1992, especially amongimmigrants and minorities. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control andPrevention (CDC), the federal agency responsible for tracking the spread of diseasesin the United States, the current tuberculosis epidemic reflects the increases in :

1) HIV/AIDS;

2) homelessness, poverty and substance abuse;

3) persons lacking health care; and

4) during resistant strains of the disease (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,1993).

The increase in AIDS, homelessness, and poverty beginning in the 1980s and thecontinued high rates of substance abuse has left more Americans with weakened immunesystems, making them more likely to become infected with tuberculosis and to developactive symptoms if infected. During the same period, the numbers of persons withouthealth insurance of access to health care have increased. As a result of these factors,those who develop active tuberculosis often do not receive consistent medical care andstop treatment once there symptoms decline rather than continuing until the bacilli areall killed.

On the other hand, even among drug users and the poor, public health workers havefound that the wave of tuberculosis infection. Studies conducted both in the UnitedStates and elsewhere suggest that, even in these populations with the drug-resistanttuberculosis, can be cured. Patients’ needs and staffs who treat patients with respect,and directly observe patients taking their medications and identified strategies that ledto reduction in the tuberculosis rate in United States since 1992.

The Emergence of HIV/AIDS

HIV/ADIS demonstrates the continuing potential for new killer diseases to arise.Beginning in 1979, a few doctors in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles hadnoticed a small outbreak in young gay men of a deadly form of Kaposi’s sarcoma, arare cancer that normally produces only mild symptoms and that primarily affects (forunknown reasons) elderly, heterosexual men who were Italian or Jewish. Subsequently,doctors discovered five gay men who had pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), arare pneumonia generally found only among persons who cannot fight infections effectivelybecause their immune systems have been damaged by disease or chemotherapy. Diseasessuch as PCP are called “opportunistic infections” because they stem frommicroorganisms that usually live in the body harmlessly but that take advantage of theopportunity created by weakened immune systems to multiply and cause disease.

The CDC published the first report of the PCP cases in mid-1981, followed shortly by

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a report on Kaposi’s sarcoma, which was strange. At this point, no one knew what hadcaused these strange diseases. Obviously, however, something had distorted the immunesystems of these men, leaving them susceptible to fatal infections by virtually anymicroorganism in their environment.

The next year, the CDC officially coined the term Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome(AIDS) to describe what we now know is the last deadly stage of infection with HumanImmunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Epidemiological research soon demonstrated that thedisease was spread through sexual intercourse; through sharing unclean intravenousneedles’ through some still-unknown mechanism from mother to fetus; through bloodtransfusions or blood products; and rarely, through breast milk. The last three modes oftransmission are now rare in countries where HIV blood tests, breast milk substitutes,and drugs for reducing the risk of maternal –fetal transmission are affordable.

Despite the great fear the HIV/AIDS epidemic has stimulated, studies have demonstratedconclusively that HIV/AIDS is not spread through insects, spitting, sneezing, hugging,nonsexual touching, or food preparation. Of the thousands of friends and family memberswho have lived in households with persons who have HIV/AIDS, sharing toothbrushes,beds, dishes, and so on- only eight have become infected other than through sexualintercourse, needle sharing, or breastfeeding. Even regular sexual partners of personswith HIV/AIDS usually remain uninfected if they use latex condoms consistently.

Although initially identified in gay men, HIV/AIDS cannot be considered a “gay disease”.Homosexual activity now accounts for less than half of new cases in the United Statesand less than 10 per cent internationally. Moreover, although some lesbians have becomeinfected with HIV through drug use or sex with men, no documented cases of twofemale sexual transmissions have occurred and modes of HIV/AIDS transmissiondiagnosed in 1998.

In the United States, it takes several years on average before HIV-infected person’sexperience any symptoms and more than a decade before HIV/AIDS develop. As aresult, although HIV/AIDS remains an acute illness in places like Africa, many in thewest now consider it a chronic disease. Because most HIV infected persons do not infact have HIV/AIDS. The rapid spread of HIV diseases since 1981 reflects publicattitudes as much as biological realities. A handful of behavioral changes could havevirtually halted its spread: testing the blood supply for infection, suing latex condomsand spermicidal with sexual partners and using clean needles when injecting drugs.Unfortunately, through the early years of the epidemic when intervention would havebeen most effective, the U.S, government (like most other governments) treated HIV/AIDS disease as a distasteful moral issue rather than as a medical emergency.

A critical junctures during the 1 980s, federal officials lobbied congress to restrict fundingfor HIV research. Moreover, the limited funds the government provided early on forHIV education came with many strings attached, such as prohibiting explicit pictures inmaterials on sexual education. Prohibiting language that might offend heterosexuals evenin education material designed solely for gay men, and –even though substantialproportions of teenagers engage in young adults unless the programs taught onlyabstinence from sex and not how to have sex safely.

2.4 SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREMATURE DEATHSThe traditional emphasis within medicine was on tertiary prevention: strategies designedto minimize physical deterioration and complications among those already ill. Tertiaryprevention includes such tactics as providing kidney dialysis to persons whose kidneys



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no longer function or insulin to those who have diabetes. Doctors much less commonlyfocus on secondary prevention: strategies designed to reduce the prevalence of diseasethrough early detection and prompt intervention. Examples of secondary preventioninclude screening patients for cervical cancer or glaucoma so these diseases can bedetected at still treatable stages. Those who focus on secondary prevention typicallywork in public health or in the primary practice fields (family practice, pediatrics, orinternal medicine). Finally, only a small fraction of doctors, usually in public health orless commonly, primary practice, focus “upstream” on primary prevention: strategiesdesigned to keep people from becoming ill or disabled, such as discouraging drunkdriving, lobbying for stricter highway safety regulations and promoting vaccination.

Even when doctors and researchers, (or for that matter, the public) have focused onprimary prevention, they typically have looked only far enough upstream to see howindividual psychological or biological characteristics make some more susceptible thanothers to disease or unhealthy behaviors. For example, an increasing number of medicalresearchers now focus on the generic roots of disease, such as a possible gene foralcoholism. Within the social sciences, meanwhile, many researchers focus onunderstanding how individuals chose whether to adopt behaviors believed to preventillness, such as exercising regularly or refraining from smoking.

The most commonly used framework for understanding individual preventive healthbehavior is the health belief model, originated by Irwin Rosenstock (1966) and extended,most importantly, by Marshall Becker (1974,1993). According to the model, fourfactors determine whether individual will adopt preventive health behaviors:

First, individuals must believe they are susceptible to a particular health problem,

Second, individuals must believe the problem they risk is a serious one,

Third, individuals must believe adopting preventive measures will reduce theirrisks significantly, and

Fourth, individuals must not perceive any significant barriers to doing so. Forexample, individuals are most likely to adopt a low fat diet if they believe that theywould otherwise face high risks of heart disease, that heart disease wouldsubstantially decrease their life expectancy, that a low fat diet would substantiallyreduce their risk of heart disease and that adopting such a diet would not betookcostly, inconvenient, or unpleasant.

In turn, according to the health belief model, these four factors are affected bydemographic variables (such as the personality characteristics and peer group pressures),structural factors (such as access to knowledge about the problem and contract withthose who experience the problem), and external cues to action (such as mediacampaigns about the problem or doctors advices).

As this model suggests, although biological factors and psychological predispositionsdo affect the likelihood of adopting healthier behaviors, they do not occur in a vacuum.Rather, they occur in particular economic, cultural and poetical settings that can makehealth behaviors or health itself either more or less possible. For example, adolescents’decisions regarding whether to drink alcohol are affected significantly by the attitudesof their friends, family and culture in general. Similarly, the high rates of diabetes foundamong contemporary Native Americans in part reflect a genetic predisposition to thedisease. They also, however, reflects of the reservation system, with its sedentary lifestyle,ready access to fatty and sugar foods, and limited prospects for employment, which

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make purchasing healthier food difficult. In both cases, to blame unhealthy behaviorpatterns on individual choices seems over simplistic.

As these examples suggest, truly refocusing upstream requires us to look beyondindividual behavior or characteristics to what McKinlay refers to as the manufacturesof illness: those groups that promote innless causing behaviors and social conditions.These groups include alcohol distributors; auto manufactures that fight against vehiclesafety standards and politicians who vote to subsidize tobacco production.

An article by public health doctors provides a useful starting point for refocusing upstream.The article synthesizes the available literature on the major underlying cause of prematuredeaths (that is, deaths caused neither by old age nor by genetic disease) to identifythose causes of death that we could most readily reduce or eliminate though social ormedical interventions.

McGinnis and Foege identify nine causes that, they believe, together account for 50per cent of all premature deaths. These causes (listed not by disease but by the factorsthat cause disease) and provides estimates of their prevalence. These estimates reflectthe lowest estimates given in the reviewed literature, so the actual prevalence couldwell be considerably higher.

Public Health Perspective

In his seminal 1920 piece, “The Untilled Fields of Public Health,” Charles-EdwardAmory Winslow, professor of Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine from 1915to 1945, defined, public health as:

“the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promotingphysical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitationof the environment, the control of community infections, the education of theindividual in principles of personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursingservices for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and thedevelopment of the social machinery which will ensure to every individual in thecommunity a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health.”

The core functions of public health agencies at all levels of government are assessment,policy development, and assurance (IOM, 1988; Schneider, 2000). Assessment refersto the regular collection, analysis, and sharing of information about health conditions,risks, and resources in a community. Policy development uses assessment data to developlocal and state health and social welfare policies and to direct resources toward thosepolicies. Assurance focuses on the availability of necessary health services throughoutthe community. It includes maintaining the ability of both public health agencies andprivate providers to manage day-today operations as well as the capacity to respondto critical situations and emergencies (Rounds & Gallo, n.d.).

Public health is a field of practice with a specific orientation and framework for thevarious professionals who work within the public health arena. The professionals includeboth clinical practitioners, such as clinical social workers, nurses, health educators, andphysicians, and nonclinical professionals such as epidemiologists, administrators, andpolicymakers.

Social workers are well prepared to work within public health and with other publichealth professionals because they share many of the same values, theories and practicemethods. Shared values include a commitment to enhance social and economic justice



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and a focus on eliminating disparities between and among various populations. Further,social work and public health interventions primarily focus on oppressed, vulnerable,and at-risk groups. Theoretical approaches to develop interventions are, in social work,the ecological approach of person-in-environment and, in public health, socialepidemiology. Each is unique, but both rely on an understanding of how social systemsrelate to health status.

Social workers who work in public health serve as members of Trans-disciplinary teams,share many of the same skills as their colleagues, and participate in public healthinterventions. The unique approach that public health social workers bring to publichealth practice is grounded in social work theory, especially the person-in-environmentapproach to practice. The practice methods particular to social workers—family centeredcommunity-based, culturally competent, coordinated care—have been integrated intopublic health practice and adopted by various other providers of public health services.



1) Do you think “HIV/AIDS” is a serious health related problem in Ethiopia? Discuss.

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2.5 HEALTH DELIVERY SERVICES IN ETHIOPIAThe National Health Policy

The Government of Ethiopia formulated the National Health Policy in 1993. The policyemanated from commitment to democracy and gives strong emphasis to the fulfilmentof the needs of the less privileged rural population that constitutes about 85 per cent ofthe total population in Ethiopia.

The Health Policy mainly focuses on:

Democratization and decentralization of the health system;

Prevention of disease and Promotion of health;

Ensuring accessibility of health care to all population;

Promoting inter-sectoral collaboration;

Promoting and enhancing national self- reliance in health by mobilizing and efficientlyutilizing internal and external resources.

The health policy has also identified the priority intervention areas and strategies to beemployed to achieve the health policy issues. Health policy in Ethiopia is rooted in theprimary health care approach, which has, health education, education in personal and

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environmental hygiene, nutrition, immunization and family planning for standardcomponents. The network of health care services have always been limited in scopeand the situation deteriorated in the face of intensified civil war rehabilitating the rundownhealth infrastructure and restoring them to the status quo ante in itself a tremendous taskin the transitional period.

The main cause of many of Ethiopia’s health problems is the relative isolation of largesegments of the population from the modern sector. Additionally, widespread illiteracyprevents the dissemination of information on modern health practices. A shortage oftrained personnel and insufficient funding hampers the equitable distribution of healthservices. Moreover, most health institutions were concentrated in urban centers priorto 1974 and were concerned with curative rather than preventive medicine. After 1974revolution, there were attempts in expansion of health facilities and health person in thecountry in rural and urban areas.

In the earlier times, Western medicine came to Ethiopia during the last quarter of thenineteenth century with the arrival of missionary doctors, nurses, and midwives. Butthere was little progress on measures to cope with the acute and endemic diseases thatdebilitated large segments of the population until the government established its Ministryof Public Health in 1948. The World Health Organization (WHO), the United NationsChildren’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United States Agency for International Development(USAID) provided technical and financial assistance to eliminate the sources of healthproblems. In addition to establishing hospitals, health centers, and outpatient clinics, thegovernment initiated programs to train Ethiopian health care personnel. The fewgovernment campaigns that encouraged the people to cooperate in the fight againstdisease and unhealthful living conditions were mainly directed at the urban population.

By the mid-1970s, the number of modern medical facilities had increased relativelyslowly-particularly in rural areas, where at least 80 percent of the people still did nothave access to techniques or services that would improve health conditions. Forty-sixpercent of the hospital beds were concentrated in Addis Ababa, Asmera (the currentcapital city of Eritrea), Dire Dawa, and Harer. In the absence of modern medicalservices, the rural population continued to rely on traditional medicine. According toofficial statistics, in 1983/84 there were 546 physicians in the country to serve apopulation of 42 million, a ratio of roughly one physician per 77000 people, one of theworst ratios in the world. Less than 40 percent of the population was within reach ofmodern health services.

As in most developing countries in the early 1 990s, Ethiopia’s main health problemswere communicable diseases caused by poor sanitation and malnutrition and exacerbatedby the shortage of trained work force and health facilities. Mortality and morbidity datawere based primarily on health facility records, which may not reflect the real incidenceof disease in the population. According to such records, the leading causes of hospitaldeaths were dysentery and gastroenteritis (11 percent), tuberculosis (11 percent),pneumonia (11 percent), malnutrition and anemia (7 percent), liver diseases includinghepatitis (6 percent), tetanus (3 percent), and malaria (3 percent). The leading causesof outpatient morbidity in children under age five were upper respiratory illnesses,diarrhea, and eye infections including trachoma, skin infections, malnutrition, and fever.Nearly 60 percent of childhood morbidity was preventable (FMOH, 2010).

The leading causes of adult morbidity were dysentery and gastrointestinal infections,malaria, parasitic worms, skin and eye diseases, venereal diseases, rheumatism,



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malnutrition, fevers, upper respiratory tract infections, and tuberculosis. These diseaseswere endemic and quite widespread, reflecting the fact that Ethiopians had no accessto modern health care.

Tuberculosis still affected much of the population despite efforts to immunize as manypeople as possible. Venereal diseases, particularly syphilis and gonorrhea, were prevalentin towns and cities, where prostitution contributed to the problem. The high prevalenceof worms and other intestinal parasites indicated poor sanitary facilities and educationand the fact that potable water was available to less than 14 percent of the population.Tapeworm infection was common because of the popular practice of eating raw orpartially cooked meat.

Schistosomiasis, leprosy, and yellow fever were serious health hazards in certain regionsof the country. Schistosomiasis, a disease caused by a parasite transmitted from snailsto humans through the medium of water, occurred mainly in the northern part of thehighlands, and in the western lowlands. Leprosy was common in the then Harerge,Gondar and Gojjam administrative region and in areas bordering Sudan and Kenya.The incidence of typhoid, whooping cough, rabies, cholera and other diseases haddiminished in the 1970s because of school immunization programs, but serious outbreaksstill plagued many rural areas. Frequent famine made health conditions even worse.

During the Mengistu regime since 1974, there have been modest improvements in nationalexpenditures on public health. Between 1970 and 1975, the government spent about 5percent of its total budget on health programs. From 1975 to 1978, annual expendituresvaried between 5.5 and 6.6 percent of outlays, and for the 1982-88 periods, totalexpenditures on the Ministry of Health were about 4 percent of total governmentexpenditures. This was a low figure but comparable to that for other low-income Africancountries. Moreover, much of the real increases of 7 to 8 percent in the health budgetwent to salaries. Besides the then governments efforts, a number of countries weregenerous in helping Ethiopia meet its health care needs. Among them Cuba, the SovietUnion, and a number of East European countries provided medical assistance.

Starting in 1975, the regime embarked on the formulation of a new health policyemphasizing disease prevention and control, rural health services and promotion ofcommunity involvement and self-reliance in health activities. The ground for the newpolicy was broken during the student campaign of 1975/76, which introduced peasantsto the need for improved health standards. In 1983, the government drew up a ten-year health perspective plan that was incorporated into the ten-year economicdevelopment plan launched in September 1984. The goal of this plan was the provisionof health services to 80 percent of the population by 1993/94. To achieve such a goalwould have required an increase of over 10 percent in annual budget allocations, whichwas unrealistic in view of fiscal constraints.

The incumbent Federal Government of Ethiopia, recognizing the low level of healthdevelopment and improving the services in this sector, the Government’s health strategyhas targeted the most common poverty-related diseases including malaria, tuberculosis(TB), childhood illnesses, and HIV/AIDS in its 1993 Health Policy. It has also beenshifting services to improve the health needs of rural people, who make up 85 per centof the population. In line with this, the Government launched the Health Extension WorkerProgram (HEWP), to move services out from facilities to the household and villagelevel. So far, 3000 women workers have been trained to deliver basic sanitation,immunization, and other health services. Besides, over 7,000 additional health workers

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are being trained to be deployed to expand the service of the program nationwide.New health centers and institutions have been established in 2004/05.

In literatures the first three hospitals were constructed in 1896 (Russian hospital), 1903(Harar Ras Mekonnen hospital) and 1906 (Menelik II hospital). In 2005, 139 hospitals(87 public and 52 private) were reported. Remarkable hospital construction was donebetween 1935 and 1948, and recently between 1995 and 2005; however, in the lattercase, private hospitals construction took the lions share. By the time MOH was established(1948), 110 Ethiopian and expatriate medical doctors were working, mainly in thecapital, and 46 hospitals constructed.

Physician number increment was very slow till 1980 at which time it started to getdoubled every five years and reached peak (1658 medical doctors of all type) in 1989in the public sector. As there was sharp increment in physician number, on the contrary,there was sharp decline in the last 15 years (1990-2006) to nadir 638 doctors in 2006in the public sector. The last 25 years of Ethiopian modern medical history, in referenceto physician number, forms a triangle with the lower and upper base 1980 and 2006,respectively.

Since MOH of Ethiopia started registering health professionals with qualifications in1987, 5743 (76.5 per cent Ethiopian and 23.5 per cent expatriate) medical doctorswere registered for the first time. Out of these, 3717 were general practitioners. Thethree prestigious medical schools (Addis Ababa, Gondar, and Jimma) were establishedin 1964, 1978 and 1984, respectively. Since establishment until 2006, about 3728medical doctors were graduated with MD degree from the three medical schools. AddisAbaba university medical faculty alone graduated 1890 general practitioners (1964-2006) and 862 clinical specialists (1979-2006). In the 23 years period (1984- 2006),the highest and lowest physician to population ratios in the public sector were found tobe in 1989 (1 :28,000) and 2006 (1:118,000), respectively.

In 2006, the physician to population ratio in Amhara, Oromia and SNNPR regionalstates was computed to be 1:280,000, 1:220,000, and 1:230,000, respectively. Thephysician deficit analysis in the last 23 years in relation to the WHO standard fordeveloping countries (1:10,000) revealed the lowest record at the national and regionalstates in the last 12-years. Average physician to hospital ratio in five regional states inDecember 2006 was 3.6 (Tigray), 4.3 (Amhara), 6.1 (Oromia) and 5.3 (SouthernNations Nationalities and Peoples Region) per hospital.

As the December 2006 direct interview with 76 public hospitals outside Addis Ababashowed, there was no specialist in 36 hospitals and no doctor at all in 3 hospitals.Seven public hospitals located in big regional states’ town took the lion’s share ofmedical doctors. In short, in December 2006, 80.3 per cent of regional hospitals wereequipped with 0-2 specialists of 1 kind, and in 4 8.7 per cent there were 0-3 generalpractitioners. Highest medical doctors’ annual attrition rates (20% to 54.3%) werefound in 199 1-1992, 1998, 2002-2006. In general, in 20 years period (1987- 2006),73.2 per cent of Ethiopian medical doctors left the public sector mainly due to attractiveremuneration in overseas countries and local NGOs/private sectors. The number ofpostgraduate program in Addis Ababa, Jimma and Gondar medical schools in December2006 was 22, 12 and 3, respectively. The total number of fully employed academicstaff of the medical schools in declining order was Addis Ababa 181, Gondar 118,Jimma 71, Hawassa 63 and Mekele 52: those with second degree and above being97.2 per cent, 35.6 per cent, 90.1 per cent, 55.6 per cent and 15.4 per cent, respectively.Currently (2006), there are about 416 clinical residents in three medical schools.



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2.6 HIV/AIDS IN ETHIOPIAAcquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was a growing problem in Ethiopia.In 1985, the Ministry of Health reported the country’s first HIV/AIDS case. Insubsequent years, the government sponsored numerous HIV/AIDS studies and surveys.For example, in 1988 the country’s HIV/AIDS Control and Prevention Office conducteda study in twenty-four towns and discovered that an average of 17 percent of thepeople in each town tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), theprecursor of full-blown AIDS. A similar survey in Addis Ababa showed that 24 percenttested positive. According to the Ministry of Health, there were 2 AIDS patients in thecountry in 1986, 17 in 1987, 85 in 1988, 188 in 1989, and 355 as of mid- 1990.

Despite this dramatic growth rate, the number of reported AIDS cases in Ethiopia waslower than in many other African countries. However, the difference likely reflected thecomparatively small amount of resources being devoted to the study of HIV/AIDS.Since1990s, the Government developed and put into effect a Multi-sectoral HIV/AIDSPlan, expanded service delivery facilities and introduced prevention programs alongwith a Social Mobilization Strategy against HIV/AIDS, a policy for supplying ART toadvanced AIDS case has been in place in Ethiopia.

Trend analysis of HIV/AIDS prevalence indicates that the urban epidemic appears tohave leveled off at high prevalence in the past years while the rural epidemic graduallyincreases, with a reduced rate of progression, resulting in a slowly growing overallprevalence. Against the SDPRP target of sustaining the prevalence rate at 7.3 per cent(2001/02), the rate has decreased to 4.4 percentage by the end of the program period.The prevalence rate between the ages of 15-24 has declined to 8.6 per cent in 2004/05(GOE, 2003; FMOH, 2010).

In general, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS is on the highest side in Amhara,Oromia, Addis Ababa, SNNPR, and Tigray region. Owing to expansion in the numberof health centers, the rate of HIV positive pregnant women from Antenatal Care (ANC)receiving complete course of ART has reached 42 per centfrom its targeted rate of 15per cent by the end of the SDPRP period. About 35000 orphans and vulnerable childrenhave received support by the end of 2004/05 from the target level of 69000.By the end2004/05, with respect to the provision of ART, 26241 patients (12836 men, 12462women and 943 children below the age of 15) have received the treatment from thetarget of providing the medicine to 24000 patents. The progresses achieved have beenattributed to provision of the treatment at no cost to 94 per cent of the patients (FMOH,2010).

At the federal level, 15 government institutions established HIV/AIDS fund. At theregional level, Amhara, Tigray, SNNPR, Addis Ababa, Afar, and Benshangul-Gumuzhave started the process. The Government launched the National HIV/AIDS Forum todeal with coordination issues. Similar structures were formed in all the regional statesand down to the kebelelevel. VoluntaryCounseling and Testing (VCT) before marriage,preventing early marriage, avoiding harmful traditional practices, and provision of supportto HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children also add to the encouraging results.According to a recent progressive report of HAPCO the rate of HIV/AIDS is decreasing,which was officially appreciated in 2012.

Health extension in Ethiopia

The second five years development plan contained major polices and strategies regarding

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health sector with the emphasis on preventive measures, expansion of basic healthservices, the plan period set long term objectives for and health centers and healthstations.

The focus of health delivery system is expansion and improvement in the quality of careand is guided by the eight components of health service development program (HSDP)at all levels.

Health service delivery & quality of care,

Facility rehabilitation and expansion,

Human resource development, and

Strengthening pharmaceutical services.

This section will also help you understand how recent changes in health policy havehelped the development of Primary Health Care in rural areas and identification ofhealth problems. It was estimated that, around 1990, only 46 per cent or less of thepopulation of Ethiopia lived within a reasonable distance from health care facilities inEthiopia. A reasonable distance is defined as a radius of 10 kilometers from wherepeople live.

The population/physician, population/nurse ratios were estimated at approximately30700 and 15000 respectively. Daily calorie supply per capita was estimated at 76.0per cent of the recommended daily initials. Only 18 per cent of the rural and 78 per centof the urban population has access to safe water supply 5.3 per cent use any form oflatrines. Ethiopian population is strictly under-served and there is a long way to go inmeeting these needs even in the most rudimentary manner. There will be no basis forexpecting that significant inroads would be made towards solving these basic healthproblems if the present high rate of population growth continues (GOE, 2003).

Ethiopia is a country with 85 per cent of its population living in rural areas. Between 70per cent and 80 per cent of the diseases that affect its population are preventable byusing simple methods. Despite this, Ethiopia previously had a health policy that focusedon curative and urban-centered health services until the Government of the FederalDemocratic Republic of Ethiopia launched its new health policy in 1993 (GOE, 2003).

The new health policy gives much more emphasis on prevention and the health promotioncomponents of healthcare that should be able to resolve most of the health problems ofthe population. The main features of this policy include a focus on decentralization,expanding the PHC system and encouraging partnerships as well as the participation ofthe whole community in health activities. The strategy of the policy has been to expandhealthcare delivery at the grass roots level through the implementation of the HealthService Extension Program (HSEP). The primary aim of the HSEP approach is tobring health service delivery to the rural community at family level where such a bigpercentage of the total population lives.

The healthcare service has always consisted of a mixture of public, private andnongovernmental healthcare sectors. In the mid-1990s, prior to the implementation ofHealth Sector Development Program I (HSDP I), the public healthcare system wasstructured into a six- tier system. Currently, it is a four-tier healthcare system, which isorganized into Primary Health Care Units (PHCUs), District Hospitals, General Hospitalsand Specialized Hospitals. The PHCU is a Health Centre surrounded usually by fivesatellite Health Posts. Each Health Post serves approximately 5000 people and the 5



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together total 25000 people who are looked after by each Health Centre. In short,population per health service center is 1) specialized hospital 5 million people, Zonalhospital 500000 people, District hospital 250000 people and Health center 25000 /Health post 5000 people (GOE, 2003).

2.7 PRIMARY HEALTH CARE IN ETHIOPIAEthiopia is one of the countries in the world, which has adopted PHC as a nationalstrategy since 1976. This strategy focuses on fair access to health services by all peoplethroughout the country, with special emphasis on prevention and the control of commondiseases, self-reliance and community participation. Since this time the concept of HealthPosts and the development of rural health services have been further developed. Thegovernment of that time started to construct Health Posts, train Traditional Birth Attendants(TBA) and Community Health Agents (CHA), and assign them to Health Posts. However,this was not sustained due to factors such as insufficient managerial support, lack of in-service training, lack of remuneration and mainly due to centralized health servicemanagement and the shift to vertical health programs.

Concepts of Primary Health Care

The term ‘Primary Healthcare’ (PHC) is the name given to the essential healthcare thatis universally accessible to individuals and is acceptable to them at a cost that the countryand community can afford. Often, as in Ethiopia, this level of healthcare is free forpeople living in rural areas. Primary Health Care gained the world’s attention after the1978 International Conference on PHC held at Alma Ata in the USSR (now calledAlmaty in the country that has become Kazakhstan). Since then many countries havestarted to follow the approach of PHC to reach rural communities where most of thehealth problems exist. PHC focuses on disease prevention and health promotion. It isthe type of healthcare delivery sometimes described as ‘by the people, of the peopleand for the people.’ It involves the community in the whole process of healthcare deliveryand encourages them to maintain their own health (Federal Ministry of Health [FMOH],2010).

The role of the Health Extension Workers and Practitioners is to work with the communityand help them acquire the knowledge and skills that enables them to ensure their ownhealth. In the following lists are principles of PHC that will help you to understand itsimpact on improving health throughout Ethiopia. There is an essential health servicesdesigned to be provided to every community by government.

Elements of Primary Health Care in Ethiopia

Education on health problems and how to prevent and control them > Developmentof effective food supply and proper nutrition;

Maternal and child healthcare, including family planning > Adequate and safe watersupply and basic sanitation;

Immunization against major infectious diseases;

Local endemic diseases control;

Appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; and

Provision of essential basic medication.

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Achievements of the Ethiopian Health Service Extension Program (HSEP)

The HSEP has had government support and commitment at all levels, from Federal tokebele administration, from the start. Because of this, it has delivered significantimprovements in the health status of the people.

Achievements and health outcomes of HSEP until the year 2010 is briefly listed below:

34,382 female Health Extension Workers have been trained and deployed to date> 14,192 Health Posts have been constructed so far;

Under five years old mortality has decreased from 160 per 1,000 live births in2000, to 109 per 1,000 live births in 2010;

Infant mortality in the first year of life has decreased from 77 deaths per 1000 livebirths in 2005 to 67 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2009;

The Maternal Mortality Ratio has decreased from 673 to 470 per 100,000 livebirths;

There has been a decrease in malaria epidemics and a decrease in malaria-relateddeaths > Antenatal coverage has increased from 30 per cent in 2002 to 71 percent in 2010;

Latrine coverage increased from 60 per cent in 2009 to 74 per cent in 2010;

Contraceptive usage rate increased from 56 per cent in 2009 to 62 per cent in2010; and

HIV/AIDS-related deaths have been decreasing (Ethiopian Federal Ministry ofHealth Report, 2010)



1) What are the elements of primary health care in Ethiopia?

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2.8 LET US SUM UPIn this unit, we have elaborately analysed the health services delivery in Ethiopia. Thedeliberation were centered around health welfare, re-emergence of tuberculosis, adventof HIV/AIDS, social sources of preventive deaths and health care services in Ethiopia.The content of this unit is rich with latest information and facts presented by supportingdata. This unit will be highly useful for social workers and health care professionalsengaged in health care services in Ethiopia.



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Berhan, Y.(2008). Medical doctors profile in Ethiopia: production, attrition andretention. In memory of 100-years Ethiopian modern medicine & the new Ethiopianmillennium. Ethiopian Medical Journal 46 Suppl 1:1-77.



Every Child UK (2009).Missing: Children Without Parental Care in InternationalDevelopment Policy. Every Child UK, London. Retrieved December 23, 2012, fromhttp://www.everychild.org.uk/docs/EvC Missing final.pdf.


FHI (2010).Improving Care Options for Children in Ethiopia through UnderstandingInstitutional Child Care and Factors Driving Institutionalization. (unpublished) retrievedon December 20 2011 from http://www.fhi.org/institutionalcare/content.pdf. Geertz,C. (1973) (Ed.).The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.




Thomas, M. (1990) (Ed.).International comparative education: Practices, issues,and prospects .New York: Pergamon.



Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE).1993c. National policy on Ethiopianwomen.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia.


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UNIT 3 CRIME CORRECTIONS IN ETHIOPIAStructure Dessalegn Negeri*

3.1 Objectives

3.2 Introduction

3.3 Community Policing

3.4 Crime and Correction in Ethiopia

3.5 Legal System in Ethiopia

3.6 Prison Life in Ethiopia

3.7 Violence against Women and Children

3.8 Human and Drug Trafficking

3.9 Let Us Sum Up


3.1 OBJECTIVESOne of the popular areas of social work intervention is in correctional setting. Crime,corrections, prison life and rehabilitation are familiar to social workers. The objectivesof this unit on crime corrections in Ethiopia are:

to examine community policing in Ethiopia;

to understand nature of crime and correction in Ethiopia;

to know details about prison life in Ethiopia; and

to learn about violence against women and children as well as human trafficking inEthiopia.

3.2 INTRODUCTIONCrime is a social construct that reflects normative values, customs, mores, and traditionof a given community at a given point in time. Definitions of crime are also reflected inthe political values and historical foundations of a social system. For example, themedieval church played an important and instrumental role in shaping and monitoringthe morality of community, which in turn shaped what was defined as criminal. Forexample, in seventeenth-century Europe, the criminality of witchcraft was constructedby political leaders who were profoundly influenced by the religious community.

Religious doctrine also influences criminological and juridical perspectives on what isacceptable behavior and what constitutes a crime. For example, the holy law of Islam,the Shari ’a, is deeply rooted in the religious practices and institutions of Muslim societies,and the basic assumptions of the various schools of religious law are reflected in thecriminal codes of many Middle Eastern and Asian societies today. However, in theUnited States and other western societies, a philosophical and juridical doctrine mandatesthe separation of church and state. The result is that many beliefs and activities that areoffensive to religious groups are not necessarily criminalized.


Crime is, therefore, a function of beliefs and morality. Those actions that violate moralityand general social mores become crimes and are constrained by law. In theory, theselaws are to be applicable to all members of community, regardless of social class andthe personal attributes of individuals. Crimes are generally categorized as felonies,misdemeanors, and acts of treason. Felonies are the more serious transgressions andare usually punishable by imprisonment for over a year. Misdemeanors are consideredless serious and punishments range from community- based sanctions through to jailtime for less than one year. Treason is an act against the state, thus reflected in thecountry’s Law, although some state constitutions and statutes do contain treasondefinitions and provisions (Turner, 2006).

Societies have been concerned about behavioral expectations, disruptions to socialorder and the protection of the natural flow of life since ancient times. With varyingdegrees of formalization and success, rulers have endeavored to protect their kingdoms,albeit the wealth and power of monarchs have frequently superseded the interests andprotection of their citizens. The rules governing social life have been part of the socialorder of communities. Violations of these codes of conduct have been part of the socialfabric and social experience since humans’ history (Turner, 2006).

Crime is an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a dutythat is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to reprimand bythat law. It is a grave offense especially against morality.

Albanese in Criminal Justice (2002: 13) asserts, “crime is a natural phenomenon, becausepeople have different levels of attachments, motivation, and virtue.” Once a communitycan identify tangibly those actions that are disruptive, the presence of crime can play aunifying role. For example, if particular behaviors are seen as offensive or threateningthe greater social order, those behaviors will be barred, thus strengthening what a groupbelieves to be important defining characteristics of its culture. Violations that offendcore values and beliefs of a collectivity become the foundations for the formalization ofcodes of conduct at a given point in time and place.

Violations of social norms are a continuous process in all communities. Crime is aconcept whose definition varies across time and place. The definition is dependentupon perspective, viewpoint, and perception. Within criminology, there exist severalcompeting theoretical foundations, all of which construct different and distinctivedefinitions of crime (Turner, 2006).

Social workers have had a defined role in providing services to incarcerated individualssince the inception of the profession in 1904. There are many thousands of social workersworking in criminal justice settings, working with criminal justice populations, or both.It is likely that most criminal justice social workers also practice in the areas of behavioralhealth and case management (Wilson, 2010).

3.3 COMMUNITY POLICINGDefinition

Community policing is “a policing philosophy that promotes community-based problem-solving strategies to address the underlying causes of crime and disorder and the fear ofcrime. The stated intention of community policing is to enhance the quality of life of localcommunities.”

Crime Correctionsin Ethiopia

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Distinctive Features

Community policing is one of the most popular contemporary approaches to policework and has emerged in response to evidence that indicated that the police could notfight crime by themselves and increasingly conflictual relationships with minority ethniccommunities. There is no general consensus as to what community policing actuallyentails and it can take various forms, for example‘ team policing’, ‘foot patrol’, ‘problemoriented policing’, ‘neighborhood policing’, ‘service-based policing’, ‘policing byconsent’.

It recognizes that effective police work is a collaborative effort between the police andthe community and involves identifying the problems of crime and disorder that concernthe community and attempts to include all sections of the community in the search forsolutions to these problems. At the center of community, policing initiatives are localizedpolicing, community partnerships and problem oriented approaches.

Localized policing requires a process of organizational decentralization. Officers needto be assigned to the same beat and same shifts so that they can establish the trust andconfidence of local people and secure an intimate day-to-day knowledge of localconditions. Officers also need to be given more operational freedom and uncommittedpatrol time to tailor their work to local demands and optimize contact with the community.

Forging meaningful partnerships with the community necessitates a degree ofdeprofessionalization on the part of the police. Active community involvement indeliberations about police priorities obliges the police to be open about issuessuch as strategies and resourcing.

Problem oriented policing identifies the underlying causes of crime and disorderthat the community feels most strongly about and constructs tailor-made strategiesthat have the support of the community.

It also enables police officers and communities to alter the conditions and circumstancesthat encourage criminal and disorderly behavior. Community policing holds out thepromise of reduced levels of crime and disorder, improved quality of life for thecommunity, enhanced relationships between the police and the community, a supportiveenvironment for police operations and greater job satisfaction for police officers. Thelong-term aim is to produce strong self-sufficient communities that have the ability toprotect themselves from crime and disorder. There is no single recipe for successfulcommunity policing but for it to work it requires the entire police force to shift to abroader conceptualization of police work and the transformation of the mindset ofpolice officers of all ranks.

The production of genuine community policing is not possible unless it is constructedwithin a framework of democratic accountability that necessitates service to communitiesrather than the state or the police bureaucracy. The radical implications of such a movemean that many police forces will continue to opt for a ‘spray on’, token version ofcommunity policing that leaves the hegemonic position of the police bureaucracy intact.

Eugene McLaughlin

3.4 CRIME AND CORRECTION IN ETHIOPIACriminal Codes

The FethaNagast and customary laws remained the basis of criminal judicial procedureuntil 1930, when Haile Selassie introduced a penal code, which, although primitive in its

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application, strove for modernity in its articulation. Unlike the old system, the 1930penal code set down specific punishments for precisely defined offenses. It was a legalprinciple that a person who performed an act not prohibited by law committed nocrime; nor was acts of omission punishable by law. The code made distinctions amongpreparatory acts, attempted crimes, and completed offenses. Preparations in itself werenot considered criminal, nor were unsuccessful attempts, especially ones in whichcommission of the offense was judged “absolutely impossible.” Courts did not inflictpunishment if the accused acted out of superstition or “simplicity of mind.”

The penal code was strong on retribution, but the courts determined penalties accordingto the degree of individual guilt. In addition, the courts took into consideration anoffender’s background, education, and motives, as well as the offense’s gravity and thecircumstances of its commission. In theory, the courts meted out the most severepunishments to persons of title and wealth on the premise that such offenders had lessreasonable motives for criminal action than did persons of lower station. Among thecomplaints of ethnic dissidents, however, was the allegation that any offense against anAmhara resulted in more severe punishment than an Amhara’s offense against a non-Amhara. The new code abolished mutilation but retained capital punishment andpermitted flogging. Although more sophisticated than the FethaNagast, from which itapparently was derived, the 1930 penal code lacked a comprehensive approach to thedisposition and treatment of offenders.

In 1958, a Swiss legal expert drafted a revised penal code to meet the needs of adeveloping nation. A 1961 criminal procedures code, drafted by a British jurist,augmented the 1930 penal code. The former was based on the Swiss penal code andmany secondary sources; the latter reflected the influence of English common law.

For virtually every offense listed in the revised penal code, there were upper and lowerlimits of punishment. The effect was to stress acceptance of the concept of degrees ofblameworthiness, as well as the concept of justifying and aggravating circumstances.Separate provisions existed for juveniles. Nevertheless, the commission appointed toapprove the revision repeatedly expressed the traditional view that “punishment shouldremain the pillar of Ethiopian criminal law.”

Following the 1974 revolution, a normal legal process theoretically was in effect fordealing with criminal offenses. Existing parallel to it was a “revolutionary” system ofneighborhood justice. In practice, it was impossible to distinguish between criminal actsand political offenses according to the definitions adopted in post-1974 revisions of thepenal code.

A November 1974 decree introduced martial law, which set up a system of militarytribunals empowered to impose the death penalty or long prison terms for a wide rangeof political offenses. The decree applied the law retroactively to the old regime’s officialswho had been accused of responsibility for famine deaths, corruption, andmaladministration and who had been held without formal charges since earlier in theyear. Special three-member military tribunals sat in Addis Ababa and in each of thecountry’s fourteen administrative regions.

In July 1976, the government amended the penal code to institute the death penalty for“antirevolutionary activities” and economic crimes. Investigation of political crimes cameunder the overall direction of the Revolutionary Operations Coordinating Committee ineach awraja. In political cases, the courts waived search warrants required by thecriminal procedures code. The government transferred jurisdiction from the military



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tribunals, which had been inactive for some time, to kebele and peasant associationtribunals. Political trials constituted the main business of these tribunals until 1978.

More generally, the 1976 revision of the penal code empowered association tribunalsto deal with criminal offenses but limited their jurisdiction to their urban neighborhoodor rural area. Elected judges, without formal legal training, conducted criminal trials.Procedures, precedents, and punishments varied widely from tribunal to tribunal,depending on the imperatives of the association involved. Peasant association tribunalsaccepted appeals at the wereda (district) level. Appellate decisions were final, butdecisions disputed between associations could be brought before peasant associationcourts at the awraja level. In cities, kebele tribunals were similarly organized in a three-tier system. Change of venue was arranged if a defendant committed an offense inanother jurisdiction.

The judicial system was designed to be flexible. Judges could decide not to hear a caseif the defendant pleaded guilty to minor charges and made a public apology. Nonetheless,torture was sometimes used to compel suspects and witnesses to testify. Penaltiesimposed at the local association level included fines of up to 300 birr, compensation tovictims in amounts determined by the tribunal, imprisonment for up to three months,and hard labor for up to fifteen days. Serious criminal cases were held over, dependingon their gravity, for association tribunals sitting at the awraja or wereda level, whichwere qualified to hand down stiffer sentences. In theory, death sentences were reviewedby government officials, but little effort was made to interfere with the administration oflocal justice. Tribunal decisions were implemented through an association’s public safetycommittee and were enforced by the local People’s Protection Brigade.

The 1976 revision of the penal code also created new categories of so-called economiccrimes. The list included hoarding, overcharging, and interfering with the distribution ofconsumer commodities. Offenses that are more serious concerned engaging in sabotageat the work place or of agricultural production, conspiring to confuse work forcemembers, and destroying vehicles and public property. Security sections of theRevolutionary Operations Coordinating Committee investigated economic crimes atthe awraja level and enforced land reform provisions through the peasant associations.These committees were empowered to accuse suspects and hold them for trial beforelocal tribunals. Penalties could entail confiscation of property, a long prison term, or adeath sentence.

In 1981, the Amended Special Penal Code included offenses against the governmentand the head of state, such as crimes against the state’s independence and territorialintegrity, armed uprising, and commission of “counterrevolutionary” acts (these provisionsalso were in the earlier Special Penal Code); breach of trust by public officials andeconomic offenses, including grain hoarding, illegal currency transactions, and corruption;and abuse of authority, including “improper or brutal” treatment of a prisoner, unlawfuldetention of a prisoner, and creating or failing to control famine.

The Amended Special Penal Code also abolished the Special Military Courts and creatednew Special Courts consisted of three civilian judges and applied the existing criminaland civil procedure codes. Here defendants had the right to legal representation and toappeal to a Special Appeal Court.

Incidence of Crime

The crime rate in Ethiopia is low compared to industrialized countries. An analysis wasdone using INTERPOL data for Ethiopia. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn

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for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI’s index of crime. Indexoffenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny,and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Indexused for trend calculation purposes. Ethiopia will be compared with Japan (countrywith a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to theINTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2000 was 5.48 for Ethiopia, 1.10 for Japan,and 5.51 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2000 was 1.12 for Ethiopia, compared with1.78 for Japan and 32.05 for USA. For robbery, was 5.01 for Ethiopia, 4.08 forJapan, and 144.92 for USA. For aggravated assault, was 71.61 for Ethiopia, 23.78for Japan, and 323.62 for USA. For burglary, was 1.79 for Ethiopia, 233.60 for Japan,and 728.42 for USA. The rate of theft for 2000 was 28.92 for Ethiopia, 1401.26 forJapan, and 2475.27 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2000 was 2.06 forEthiopia, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 414.17 for USA. The rate for all indexoffenses combined was only 115.99 per 100,000 populations, compared with 1709.88for Japan and 4123.97 for USA in the year 2000.

Trends in Crime

Between 1995 and 2000, according to INTERPOL data, the rate of murder decreasedfrom 14.65 to 5.48 per 100,000 populations, a decrease of 63.6 per cent. The rate forrape increased from .76 to 1.12, an increase of 47.4 per cent. The rate of robberydecreased from 9.11 to 5.01, a decrease of 45.0 per cent. The rate for aggravatedassault increased from 49.76 to 71.61 per 100,000, an increase of 43.9 per cent. Therate for burglary decreased from 2.61 to 1.79, a decrease of 1.79. The rate of larcenydecreased from 44.83 to 28.92, a decrease of 35.5 per cent. The rate of motor vehicletheft increased from 1.69 to 2.06, an increase of 21.9 per cent. The rate of total indexoffenses decreased from 123.41 to 115.99, a decrease of 6 per cent.



1) Describe Community Policing.

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3.5 LEGAL SYSTEM IN ETHIOPIAThe legal system of Ethiopia is currently transitional mix of national and regional courts.Briefly occupied by Italy from 1936 to 1941, although Eritrea under Italian rule from1886 to 1941. During WWII, British defeated Italians and established protectorateover Eritrea. In 1950, UN Resolution to unify Eritrea and Ethiopia implemented in1952. Civil Code passed in 1960 governs civil, religious and customary law marriages.Armed movement for Eritrean independence began in 1961. In 1974, military coupended Emperor Haile Selassie’s rule and newly installed rulers oriented towards Marxism.All religions, including Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, officially placed on equal footingunder new regime. Eritrean People’s Liberation declared Provisional Government of



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Eritrea in May 1991 and same year military rule in Ethiopia brought to an end withcoalition government. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia established in August1995. Although Ethiopians have long depended on written laws, the criminal legal systemobserved at the time of the 1974 revolution was of relatively recent origin. The firstintegrated legal code, the Fetha Nagast (Law of Kings), was translated from Arabic inthe mid-fifteenth century. Attributed to a thirteenth-century Egyptian Coptic scholar, itwas inspired by the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), the NewTestament, canons of the Christians’ early church councils, Roman civil law, and tenetsof Quranic law. However, the Fetha Nagast applied only to Christians. Muslims whobecame subject to Ethiopian rule through conquest continued to be judged in their owncourts according to sharia law. In addition, outside the ordinary judicial system, clanand tribal courts exercised unofficial but effective coercive powers, and people rarelyappealed their decisions to regular courts.

Police

Because of insurgencies, affecting a large part of the country in the 1970s and after,questions of internal security and public order became inseparable from the generalproblem of national security. Revisions made to the penal code in 1976 helped blur thedistinction between political opposition to the government (defined as criminal activity)and categories of crime against persons and property. Army security services andcounterinsurgency units assumed many functions formerly assigned to the national police’sparamilitary and constabulary units, and local law enforcement was delegated largely tothe civilian paramilitary People’s Protection Brigades, drawn from peasant associationand kebele defense squads. Although criminal investigation remained an important partof the mission of the national police, units of its heavily armed Mobile Emergency PoliceForce were employed in pursuing insurgents and rooting out political dissidents. Thegradual isolation of the Mengistu regime during the 1980s meant that these and othermeasures designed to suppress internal dissent remained in force until the militarygovernment collapsed.

In traditional Ethiopian society, customary law resolved conflicts, and families usuallyavenged wrongs committed against their members. The private armies of the nobilityenforced law in the countryside according to the will of their leaders. In 1916, theimperial government formed a civilian municipal guard in Addis Ababa to ensureobedience to legal proclamations. The public hated the municipal guard, nearly all ofwhose members were inefficient at preserving public order or investigating criminalactivities.

In 1935, the emperor authorized the establishment of formal, British-trained policeforces in Addis Ababa and four other cities. Seven years later, he organized the ImperialEthiopian Police under British tutelage as a centralized national force with paramilitaryand police force units. In 1946, the authorities opened the Ethiopian Police College atSendafa. In 1956, the imperial government amalgamated the separate city police forceswith the national police force. Initially administered as a department of the Ministry ofInterior, the national police had evolved, by the early 1970s, into an independent agencycommanded by a police commissioner responsible to the emperor.

Local control over police was minimal, despite imperial proclamations that grantedpolice authority to governors general of the provinces. Assistant police commissionersin each of the fourteen provinces worked in conjunction with the governors general, butfor the most part Addis Ababa directed administration. The Territorial Army’s provincialunits, commanded by the governor general and by an unpaid civilian auxiliary in areas

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where police were scarce, assisted the national police force. Police posts were found inall cities and larger towns and at strategic points along the main roads in the countryside.The police usually recruited local men who were familiar with the social values of theareas in which they served; however, the populace rarely looked upon such individualswith affection. Police operations generally emphasized punishment rather than prevention.

In 1974, the national police numbered approximately 28,000 in all branches, including6,000 in the Mobile Emergency Police Force; 1,200 frontier guards; and a 3,200-member commando unit with rapid reaction capability. The Federal Republic of Germany(West Germany) supplied the paramilitary police with weapons and vehicles and installeda nationwide tele-printer system, while Israeli counterinsurgency specialists trainedcommandos and frontier guards. About 5,000 law enforcement police, mostly recruitedlocally served in Eritrea.

After the 1974 overthrow of Haile Selassie, the new Marxist government severelycircumscribed the authority of the national police, which had been identified with theold regime and regional interests. The authorities accused constables of protectinglandowners against peasants in the countryside, of arresting supporters of the militaryregime in Addis Ababa, and of being members of the “rightist opposition.” In Eritrea,however, the army already had taken over police functions in January 1975 from localpolice units suspected of being sympathetic to the secessionists. The Asmera policevoluntarily stayed at their posts for some time after their dismissal to protect civiliansfrom attack by unruly soldiers.

In 1977, the Mengistu regime reorganized the national police, placing a politically reliablecommissioner in command. A security committee formulated policy, which then wasimplemented by the Ministry of Interior. The army assumed a larger role in criminalinvestigation and in maintaining public order. People’s Protection Brigades took overlocal law enforcement duties previously assigned to the constabulary. Because of thesechanges, by 1982 the strength of the national police had declined to about 17,000.Mengistu also created the army’s new Eighth Division from police commando units.Other special units joined the augmented 9,000-member paramilitary Mobile EmergencyPolice Force for employment in counterinsurgency operations.

The Directorate of Police, which reported to the commissioner, included the specialCriminal Investigation Branch, which had the role in directing police counterinsurgencyactivities through regional branch offices. Another branch of the directorate investigatedeconomic crimes, particularly smuggling and other forms of illicit commerce. TheRevolutionary Operations Coordinating Committee, organized at the sub region level,cooperated with the police in battling smuggling and economic sabotage.

The Addis Ababa police, by contrast, were organized into uniformed, detective, andtraffic units; a riot squad, or “flying column”; and a police laboratory—organizationalrefinements not found in regional police units. A small number of women served inpolice units in large cities. Generally, they were employed in administrative positions oras guards for female prisoners. National police officers were paid according to thesame standardized wage scale that applied to members of the armed forces.

Officers usually were commissioned after completion of a cadet course at the EthiopianPolice College at Sendafa, near Addis Ababa. Staffed by Swedish instructors, theschool opened in 1946, but since 1960, the faculty had consisted entirely of Ethiopianswho were police college graduates. Candidates for the two-year course had to have asecondary school education or its equivalent. After the Derg took power, the government



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increased enrollment to bring new blood into the national police; from 1974 to 1979,about 800 graduates received commissions as second lieutenants.

Instruction at the college included general courses in police science, criminal law, tactics,traffic control, sociology, criminology, physical education, and first aid, as well as politicalindoctrination. Practical training was offered midway in the program and sometimesentailed field service in troubled areas. Those few cadets who had passed their finalexaminations with distinction were selected for further specialized training. The policecollege also offered short- term courses and refresher training for service officers. Itcooperated with the army in training military police in traffic control and criminalinvestigation techniques. By the end of 1990, the police college had graduated 3,951officer cadets in the years since its establishment in 1946.

Currently, the security forces consist of the military and the police, both of which areresponsible for internal security. The police in previous years were subordinate to theMinistry of Justice and reported to the Security, Immigration, and Refugees AffairsAuthority (SIRAA); however, after the October reorganization of the federalGovernment, the Federal Police Commission and the Federal Prisons Administrationbecame subordinate to the new Ministry of Federal Affairs. The military consists ofboth air and ground forces and reports to the Ministry of National Defense. Followingthe end of fighting between Ethiopian and Eritrean armed forces in 2000, some Ethiopiantroops were demobilized, and others were redeployed from the border area in Tigrayto other regions throughout the country, which increased the internal military presencein some parts of the Somali, Oromia and the Southern Regions. Military forces continuedto conduct an increased number of low-level operations against the ‘insurgents’ wherelocal officials and members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

Human rights violations by the police have been reported for the year 2001. The securityforces committed a number of extrajudicial killings, including some alleged politicalkillings during the year. However, the Constitution prohibits the use of torture andmistreatment; however, there were credible reports that security officials sometimesbeat or mistreated detainees.

Detention

The Constitution and both the criminal and civil codes prohibit arbitrary arrest anddetention; however, the Government does not always respect these rights in practice.Under the criminal procedure code, any person detained must be charged and informedof the charges within 48 hours and, in most cases, be offered release on bail. TheConstitution provides that arrested persons have the right to be released on bail; however,some offenses, such as murder, treason and corruption, are not bailable.

Those persons believed to have committed serious offenses may be detained for 14days while police conduct an investigation, if a panel of judges order it, and for additional14-day periods while the investigation continues. In practice and especially in the outlyingregions, authorities regularly detain persons without a warrant, do not charge themwithin 48 hours, and— if persons are released on bail—never recall them to court.There were reports that in small towns, persons were detained in police stations forlong periods without access to a judge and that sometimes these persons’ whereaboutswere unknown for several months. Thousands of criminal suspects remained in detentionwithout charge; many of the detainees were accused of involvement in opposition parties’activities. Often these lengthy detentions are due to the severe shortage and limitedtraining of judges, prosecutors and attorneys. However, detainees often remain in custodywithout charge or without bail for long periods in high profile cases that are considered

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somewhat political, including those detained for corruption or detainees who areopposition members.

Courts

The constitution provided for Ethiopia’s first independent judiciary. Traditionally, theSupreme Court and various lower courts were the responsibility of the Ministry of Lawand Justice. After Haile Selassie’s overthrow, much of the formal structure of the existingjudicial structure remained intact. Over the years, regional and district level courts werereformed somewhat. However, the new constitutional provisions had the potential tochange Ethiopia’s national judicial system significantly. The constitution stipulated thatjudicial authority was vested in “one Supreme Court, courts of administrative andautonomous regions and other courts established by law.” Supreme Court judges wereelected by the National Shengo; those who served at the regional level were elected byregional Shengos (assemblies). In each case, the judges served terms concurrent withthat of the Shengo that elected them. The Supreme Court and higher courts at theregional level were independent of the Ministry of Law and Justice, but judges could berecalled by the relevant Shengo.

The Supreme Court was responsible for administering the national judicial system. Thecourt’s powers were expanded to oversee all judicial aspects of lesser courts, not justcases appealed to it. At the request of the prosecutor general or the president of theSupreme Court, the Supreme Court could review any case from another court.Noteworthy is the fact that, in addition to separate civil and criminal sections, the courthad a military section. In the late 1980s, it was thought that this development mightbring the military justice system, which had been independent, into the normal judicialsystem. However, it became evident that it would be some time before the SupremeCourt could begin to serve this function adequately.

Between 1987 and 1989, the government undertook a restructuring of the SupremeCourt with the intent of improving the supervision of judges and of making theadministration of justice fairer and more efficient. The Supreme Court Council wasresponsible for overseeing the court’s work relating to the registration and training ofjudges and lawyers. The Supreme Court Council’s first annual meeting was held inAugust 1988, at which time it passed rules of procedure, rules and regulations forjudges. Although the government reported that, the courts were becoming more efficient.Chapter 15 of the constitution established the Office of the Prosecutor General, whichwas responsible for ensuring the uniform application and enforcement of law by all stateorgans, mass organizations and other bodies.

A notable feature of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia isthat it accords a dignified and crucial position to the Judiciary. Ethiopia’s judicialmachinery is well ordered and well regulated, with the Supreme Court at the apex. TheEthiopian Government is federal in nature. Ethiopia has a dual system of courts - aFederal Judiciary with the Supreme Court at the top along with a separate and paralleljudicial system in each Regional State. The Federal Supreme Court, the Federal HighCourt and the Federal First Instance Court constitute a single Federal Judiciary, havingjurisdiction over all cases pertaining to federal matters. There is a similar court structurein each Regional State that has jurisdiction over all regional matters. The Judiciary inEthiopia has been assigned a significant role. It interprets and applies all the laws of theland.

To enable the courts to discharge their functions impartially, without fear or favor, theconstitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia contains provisions, which



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guarantee and safeguard independence. Thus, independence of the Judiciary is enshrinedin the Constitution for the first time, which is rightly considered a historic landmark. Thejudges of the Federal Courts are appointed by the House of Peoples’ Representativesand the Regional State judges are appointed by the Regional State Council, afterconsultation with those most competent to advise on the subject - the Federal JudicialAdministration Commission and the State Judicial Administration Commission.

Once appointed, the judges hold office until they reach pension age, which is sixty (60)years according to the law, and thus their tenure is independent of the will of the executive.A special procedure has been laid down for removal of judges on the grounds ofincompetence, inefficiency or misbehavior. The legal provisions concerning the Judiciarygoes a long way in establishing within Ethiopia a government according to law. In thepast several years, the courts have been allowed to work in an atmosphere ofindependence of action and judgment and are insulated from all kinds of pressure,political or otherwise. Judges are supposed to exercise their function in full independenceand shall be directed solely by the law. The Federal Supreme Court draws up andsubmits the Federal Court budget to the House of Peoples’ Representatives for approvaland, upon approval, administers the budget.

Hence, the Judiciary in Ethiopia constitutes a constitutional organ, which acts as acountervailing power to the Executive and the Legislature. The court is playing animportant role in keeping a responsible system of government in proper working orderand protecting the rights of the people. Presently, the Constitution provides for anindependent judiciary; however, the judiciary remained weak and overburdened.Although the federal and regional courts continued to show signs of judicial independence,in practice severe shortages of adequately trained personnel in many regions, as well asserious financial constraints, combined to deny many citizens the full protection providedfor in the Constitution.

The federal High Court and federal Supreme Court hear and adjudicate original andappeal cases involving federal law, trans-regional issues and national security. Theregional judiciary is increasingly autonomous, with district, zonal, high and supremecourts mirroring the structure of the federal judiciary. In 2000, the president of thefederal High Court created two new three-judge benches at the High Court level tohandle criminal cases. The Special Prosecutor’s Office has delegated some of the warcrimes trials to the supreme courts in the regions where the crimes allegedly werecommitted, which has increased the efficiency of the process.

The Constitution provides legal standing to some preexisting religious and customarycourts and gives federal and regional legislatures the authority to recognize other courts.By law, all parties to a dispute must agree before a customary or religious court mayhear a case. Shari’a (Islamic) courts may hear religious and family cases involvingMuslims. In addition, other traditional courts still function. Although not sanctioned bylaw, these courts resolve disputes for the majority of citizens who live in rural areas andwho generally have little access to formal judicial systems.

The Constitution provides that persons arrested have the right to be released on bail.Certain offenses such as capital crimes and corruption are not bailable.

3.6 PRISON LIFE IN ETHIOPIADetailed information on Ethiopia’s prison system was limited. Only generalized datawere available on prison installations. Although the imperial regime achieved someprogress in the field of prison reform, most prisons failed to adopt modern penological

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methods. Government- published figures on prison populations since 1974 wereconsidered incomplete and misleading. Amnesty International, the London-based humanrights organization and a few individuals who survived detention and escaped from thecountry have described prison conditions in a critical light.

Historically, prison life in Ethiopia was gloomy and for political prisoners extremelybrutal. The so-called process of rehabilitation often consisted of severe beatings,exhausting work and calisthenics, and political indoctrination. A public confessionnormally was proof of rehabilitation; in some cases, a political detainee’s willingness totorture fellow prisoners was regarded as an indication of his penitence. Recreationalfacilities were rare, and no program existed to assist prisoners after their release.Punishment was the major concern of prison officials. Conditions in smaller, more remoteprisons were worse than in the prisons of Addis Ababa, and peasant association jailswere worse yet. As part of a program in the late 1970s to expand and improve theEthiopian prison system, the Cuban government reportedly constructed new prisonsthat included facilities for solitary confinement.

Although conditions in Addis Ababa’s Central Prison improved somewhat by the late1980s, most prison facilities remained substandard. In 1989, Amnesty Internationalreported that individuals incarcerated in government-operated prisons were held inpoor and sometimes harsh conditions. However, the report noted that prisons weresubject to formal regulations, and there were few reports of torture.

Emphasis in larger prisons was placed on work during confinement for criminal offenders,but these activities generally were limited to individuals serving long sentences. Prioritywas given to production, and there was little effort to provide vocational training. Thelargest prison industry was weaving, which was usually done on primitive looms. Theprison weavers produced cotton material used for making clothes and rugs. Carpentrywas a highly developed prison industry, and inmates produced articles of relativelygood quality. Other prison industries included blacksmithing, metalworking, jewelrymaking, basket weaving, flour milling and baking. Those short-term prisoners notabsorbed into established prison industries worked in gardens that provided food forsome of the penal institutions.

Although prison industries were not geared to rehabilitation, some inmates acquireduseful skills. In certain cases, the government permitted work furloughs for some classesof political prisoners. Most prison guards were military veterans who had receivedsmall plots of land in exchange for temporary duty at a prison. Under this system, theguards changed frequently as the duty rotated among a number of such persons livingnear a penal institution.

Presently, prison conditions are poor, and overcrowding remains a serious problem.Prisoners often are allocated fewer than 21.5 square feet of sleeping space in a roomthat may contain up to 200 persons. Prison food is inadequate, and many prisonershave food delivered to them every day by family members or use their own funds topurchase food from local vendors. Prison conditions are unsanitary, and access tomedical care is not reliable. There were some deaths in prison during the year due toillness and disease. Prisoners typically are permitted daily access to prison yards, whichoften include working farms, mechanical shops and rudimentary libraries. Visitorsgenerally are permitted; however, some family members were not permitted to visitrelatives detained at Zeway prison. Prison letters all must be written in Amharic, makingoutside contact difficult for non-Amharic speakers; however, this restriction generally isnot enforced. Female prisoners are housed separately from men; however, juveniles



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sometimes are incarcerated with adults. Unlike in the previous year, there were noreports that prison guards raped female prisoners. In September 2000, the prison guardarrested for raping a female prisoner in 2000 was convicted and sentenced to 13 yearsin prison during the year.



1) Describe the status of Supreme Court in Ethiopia.

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3.7 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDRENWomen

Domestic violence, including wife beating and marital rape, is a pervasive social problem.While women have recourse to the police and the courts, societal norms and limitedinfrastructure inhibit many women from seeking legal redress, especially in rural areas.Social practices obstruct investigations into rape and the prosecution of the rapist, andmany women are not aware of their rights under the law. It is estimated that there aremore than 1,000 rapes a year in Addis Ababa alone; however, only 168 rape convictionswere handed down nationwide from September 1999 to September 2000. The numberof reports by rape victims to police and the amount of press reporting of rape caseshave increased. For example, there were several articles in the government press aboutviolence against women during the year. The major exception is in cases of marriage byabduction where the perpetrator is not punished if the victim agrees to marry him (unlessthe marriage is annulled); even after a perpetrator is convicted, the sentence is commutedif the victim marries him. Rape sentences have increased incrementally from 10 to 13years, in line with the 10 to 15 years prescribed by law; however, rapists generallyremain in prison for a period of between 7 and 10 years. A prison guard arrested forraping a female prisoner in 2000 was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison.There were credible reports that members of the military who were redeployed fromborder areas to other regions sexually harassed and raped some young women.

Although illegal, the abduction of women and girls as a form of marriage still is practicedwidely in the Oromia region and the SNNPRS. Forced sexual relationships oftenaccompany most marriages by abduction, and women often are abused physically duringthe abduction. Abductions have led to conflicts between families, communities andethnic groups.

The majority of girls undergo some form of female genital mutilation (FGM), which iscondemned widely by international health experts as damaging to both physical andpsychological health. The National Committee on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia(NCTPE) conducted a survey that was published in 1998, which indicated that 72.7percent of the female population had undergone FGM, down from an estimated 90

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percent of the female population in 1990. Clitoridectomies typically are performed 7days after birth and consist of an excision of the labia.Infibulation-the most extremeand dangerous form of FGM-is performed at any time between the age of eight and theonset of puberty. The law does not specifically prohibit FGM, although it is discouragedofficially, and the Government has been supportive of the NCTPE.

The Government also is working to discourage the practice of FGM through educationin public schools. Thousands of women traveled to the Middle East as industrial anddomestic workers. There were credible reports that some female workers were abusedin these positions.

Children

Societal abuse of young girls continues to be a problem. FGM is performed on themajority of girls. Other harmful traditional practices surveyed by the NCTPE includeduvulectomy, milk-teeth extraction, early marriage, marriage by abduction, and foodand work prohibitions. A new family law adopted in 2000 defines the age of consent as18 for both females and males; however, early childhood marriage is common in ruralareas where girls as young as age 9 are subjected to arranged marriages. In the Afarregion of the east, young girls continue to be married to much older men, but thistraditional practice is coming under greater scrutiny and criticism. Pregnancy at an earlyage often leads to obstetric fistulae and permanent incontinence. Treatment is availableat only one hospital in Addis Ababa that performs over 1,000 fistula operations a year.It estimates that for every successful operation performed, 10 other young womenneed the treatment. The maternal mortality rate is extremely high due, in part, to foodtaboos for pregnant women, poverty, early marriage, and birth complications related toFemale Genital Mutilation, especially infibulation. currently there are more than threeother Fistula Hospitals under construction in the other parts of the country.

There are approximately 200,000 street children in urban areas, of which 150,000reside in Addis Ababa; however, the figures are difficult to estimate, and observersbelieve the problem is growing. These children beg, sometimes as part of a gang, orwork in the informal sector. Government and privately run orphanages are unable tohandle the number of street children, and older children often abuse younger children.Due to severe resource constraints, abandoned infants often are overlooked or neglectedat hospitals and orphanages. There are a few credible reports that children are maimedor blinded by their “handlers” in order to raise their earnings from begging.

Child prostitution continued to be a problem and perceived widely to be growing.There are no laws that criminalize child prostitution in general. The National SteeringCommittee against Sexual Exploitation of Children is chaired by the Children, Youth,and Family Affairs Department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. In 1999, thecommittee reported that child prostitution is on the increase especially in major urbancenters, however, there are no statistics available. NGOs report that girls as young asage 11 are recruited to work in houses of prostitution where they are kept ignorant ofthe risks of HIV/AIDS infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. There havebeen reports that the large-scale employment of children, especially underage girls, ashotel workers, barmaids and prostitutes in resort towns and rural truck stops.

‘Social workers’ noted that young girls are prized because their clients believe that theyare free of sexually transmitted diseases. The unwanted infants of these young girlsusually are abandoned at hospitals, police stations, welfare clinics and adoption agencies.There were numerous anecdotal accounts of young girls going to the Middle East to



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work as domestic workers and nannies, some of whom were abused, including sexually.Factors aggravating the problem of child prostitution are pervasive poverty, migrationto urban centers, early marriage, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, andlimited educational and job opportunities. There are several NGO’s that work withchild prostitutes, including the Forum on Street Children-Ethiopia, which provides shelterand protection for child prostitutes trying to get off the streets.

3.8 HUMAN AND DRUG TRAFFICKINGHuman Trafficking

The law and the Constitution prohibit trafficking in persons; however, Ethiopia is acountry of origin for trafficked women, and there are reports of internal trafficking.Unlike in previous years, there were no reports that rural families sold their daughters tohotel and bar owners on the main truck routes; however, the practice is believed toexist. In 2000, there was a report that a girl was sold by her father to a local man inexchange for cattle; the girl’s mother brought the case to the EWLA. The case wasprosecuted in the courts, and the father was convicted and sentenced to 2 years inprison; this was the first case of this kind. Although illegal, the abduction of women andgirls as a form of marriage still is practiced widely in Oromia regions and the SNNPRS.

The Government no longer acts as an employment agency for workers going abroad.Private entities now arrange for overseas work and, as a result, the number of womenbeing sent to Middle Eastern countries, particularly Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,and the United Arab Emirates, as domestic or industrial workers increased significantly.There reportedly is a network of persons based in the tourism and import-export sectorswho are involved heavily in soliciting potential clients, recruiting young girls, arrangingtravel, and fabricating counterfeit work permits, travel documents and birth certificates.

There continued to be credible reports that some domestic workers abroad weresubjected to abusive conditions, including sexual exploitation. In addition the employersof the domestics sometimes seize passports, fail to pay salaries, and overwork thedomestics, and some domestics were forced to work for their employers’ relativeswithout additional pay. Domestics have been forced to pay a monetary penalty forleaving their employment early. There are reports of confinement and obstruction ofcontacting family. Reports of abuse decreased after the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairsbegan reviewing the contracts of prospective domestic workers and denying exit visasif the contracts did not appear satisfactory.

Training programs have been implemented for police officers on the criminal aspects oftrafficking. These institutions have limited resources and jurisdiction to protect or intervenein cases of prosecution of offending employers. Various laws prohibit trafficking andprovide for fines and prison sentences of up to 20 years; however, there have been noreported prosecutions or investigations, due in part to limited resources. In 1999, theGovernment formed a committee to study trafficking in persons and develop anti-trafficking programs. The federal police’s Women’s Affairs Bureau, in collaborationwith the media, created a public awareness program on the dangers of migrating toMiddle Eastern countries. In 2000, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs opened a consulatein Beirut to assist women who were trafficked to Lebanon.

Drug Trafficking

Ethiopia is not an important country in money laundering, precursor chemicals productionassociated with the drug trade, or in the production of narcotic drugs, although the

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traditional stimulant, khat, is widely produced and exported throughout the region.Ethiopia is strategically located along a major narcotics transit route between SouthwestAsian producer countries and Europe. Ethiopia is a party to the 1988 United NationsDrug Convention.

During 1998, Ethiopia hosted a research team sponsored by the United Nations DrugControl Program (UNDCP) whose findings were that while heroin, cocaine and other“hard” drugs were not widely used, the consumption of cannabis, khat, and other mindaltering substances, such as solvents, paint and glue, was increasing. Another findingwas that the trafficking of illegal drugs through Ethiopia would likely increase becauseof the lack of effective drug control measures. The Ethiopian Counternarcotics Unit(ECNU) maintains an interdiction team at Bole International Airport, which is where itstwo drug sniffer dogs are primarily employed. The interdiction unit routinely screenspassengers, luggage, and cargo on flights arriving from “high risk” origins, i.e. Bangkok,New Delhi, Mumbai and Islamabad. The sniffer dogs are employed examining cargo,checked luggage and the arriving aircraft. These searches are conducted routinely witha degree of randomness. Overall, the ECNU needs more training, better facilities andimproved access to resources if it is to prove effective in meeting the growing challenge.

The drug of choice in Ethiopia is cannabis, especially among street children, prostitutes,students and youths, because it is inexpensive and easily available. Another problem isthe increasing cultivation and consumption of khat, which is legal in Ethiopia. Historically,khat was primarily limited to a small portion of the populace, principally Muslim males.The UNDCP researchers discovered that khat use is increasingly common outside thistraditional group, especially among women and children.

The use of heroin and other hard drugs is currently quite low but increasing. Much ofthe increase in the availability and consumption of these hard drugs is caused by the“spillover” effect from the transiting of drug couriers through Bole International Airport.Bole is a major air hub for flight connections between Asia and Africa, and much of theheroin entering and/or transiting Ethiopia comes from Asia. Many of the flights requireup to a two-day layover in Addis Ababa, which permits the introduction of these drugsto the local populace. A major challenge for Ethiopia will be to effectively address andbalance domestic and international drug issues. Policy makers need to establish rulesand regulations that will strengthen the legal framework for drug control. Currently themaximum sentence for trafficking is two to three years, which does not serve as aneffective deterrent to using Ethiopia as a transit country. Additionally, Ethiopia lacks acentral coordinating body to coordinate anti-drug activities systematically.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest African countries. Faced with other competing demands,the government lacks sufficient resources to combat the narcotics trade. Domestically,while drug consumption is increasing, it is not yet viewed as a major problem.Internationally, the drugs transiting Ethiopia are not for domestic consumption and areprimarily destined for Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States, and thereforeare not viewed as a priority issue.

The various Ethiopian ministries and agencies involved in counternarcotics are dedicatedand committed, but hampered by insufficient resources, both human and material. Lackingtheir own resources, Ethiopia relies quite heavily on external assistance to combat narcotictrafficking, primarily the United States, Germany and the United Nations.



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Check Your Progress III


1) What are some of the major problems faced by girl children in Ethiopia?

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3.9 LET US SUM UPIn this third unit of the block, we have elaborately discussed various aspects of crimecorrections in Ethiopian context. Some of the important concepts examined and topicsdescribed include the overview of crime, definition of community policing, crime andcorrection in Ethiopia, criminal codes, incidence of crime, trends in crime, legal systemin Ethiopia, police, detention, courts, prison life in Ethiopia, violence against womenand children and human and drug trafficking in Ethiopian context. This unit has beenprepared keeping in view the requirements of students who may like to work as socialwork professionals in Ethiopia as well as for students from other countries who want togain knowledge about crime and corrections in Ethiopia.

3.10 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGSAbdi, A. A. &Cleghorn, A, (2005) (Ed.).Issues in African education: Social Perspectives.Palgrave Macmillan.





Every Child UK (2009).Missing: Children Without Parental Care in InternationalDevelopment Policy. Every Child UK, London. Retrieved December 23, 2012, fromhttp://www.everychild.org.uk/docs/EvC_Missing_final.pdf.



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UNIT 4 SOCIAL PROTECTION AND SOCIALSECURITY IN ETHIOPIA

Structure Dessalegn Negeri*

4.1 Objectives

4.2 Introduction

4.3 Principles of Social Protection Policy and Programme Responses

4.4 Social Security in Practice

4.5 Situation of Children in Ethiopia

4.6 Let Us Sum Up


4.1 OBJECTIVESAfter studying the three units on education, health, crime, corrections, it is apt that welearn about the concept of social protection and social security in Ethiopian context.The objectives of this fourth unit are:

to understand the principles of social protection policy and programme responsesin Ethiopia;

to examine social security in practice; and to learn the situation of children in Ethiopia.

4.2 INTRODUCTIONSocial protection is on the African agenda. UN declarations have long identified socialprotection as a basic human right. However, in recent years, African governments anddevelopment agencies have shown greater interest in translating this right into policiesand programs.

In 2006, representatives from 13 African governments under the auspices of theAfrican Union drafted the Livingstone Call for Action calling on African governmentsto increase their commitment to social protection and to develop costed nationalsocial transfer programs. Social protection forms a major element of the AfricanUnion social policy framework for Africa.

Development agencies increasingly recognize social protection as a means to combatpoverty and food insecurity, and to provide a platform for growth. Social protectionis a priority in the European Union’s current development policy. The UK’sDepartment for International Development’s (DFID) most recent White Papersees social protection as an essential basic service (alongside health, educationand water) and commits the UK government to a significant increase in spendingon social protection programs. The World Bank identifies social protection as akey strategy to alleviate poverty and promote equitable and sustainable growth.

Social protection programs can contribute to directly addressing the poverty and hungerMillennium Development Goal (MDG). Pensions, employment guarantee schemes, andchild, disability and unemployment benefits can all raise income and reduce the incidence


and severity of poverty and hunger. They can also reduce a household’s vulnerability toshocks and changes in life circumstances by smoothing consumption and protectinghousehold assets.

Social protection can play a transformative role in the lives and livelihoods of poorpeople. Some forms of social protection such as public works programs and cashtransfers can create community assets, stimulate local markets and generate incomeand employment multipliers. Social protection also has the potential to challenge existingpower relations and to strengthen the social contract between citizens and the state.

Social protection programs can play a significant role in the transition out of emergencyrelief. In circumstances of chronic poverty and food insecurity, predictable social transferscan help to address the structural dimensions of hunger and vulnerability and reduce theneed for ad hoc relief appeals.

Social security is the longest established of these terms. However, it is still primarilyassociated with the comprehensive and sophisticated social insurance and socialassistance machinery of the developed world. As such, it is seen by some asinappropriate to the debate in much of the developing world, where higher levels ofabsolute poverty, combined with financially and institutionally weak states, pose a setof fundamentally different challenges. The more recent terminology of safety nets (orsometimes more specifically social safety nets) is by contrast associated primarily withdeveloping countries. These terms imply a more limited range of interventions – notablytargeted social assistance (often now administered through social funds) – which haveoften been originally conceived as short-term, compensatory measures during structuraladjustment or other national crises.

Social protection has only come into widespread use relatively recently. For Lund andSrinivas, the term has the advantage of ‘the same encompassing tenor or umbrellasense as social security... [but also] the advantage, over social security, of being extensivelyused in both ‘more developed’ and ‘less developed’ parts of the world’ (Lund andSrinivas 2000: 14).

However, there is also a danger that different academics and development agencies usesocial protection with different definitions in mind (discussed in more detail below).Understandings of the meaning of social protection vary in a number of ways – betweenbroad and narrow perspectives; between definitions, which focus on the nature of thedeprivations and problems addressed, and those, which focus on the policy instrumentsused to address them; and between those, which take a conceptual as opposed to apragmatic approach to the task. Most definitions have a dual character, referring toboth the nature of deprivation and the form of policy response. Almost all definitions,however, include the following three dimensions:

they address vulnerability and risk, levels of (absolute) deprivation deemed unacceptable, and through a form of response which is both social and public in character.

For the purposes of this paper, use the following definition:

‘Social protection refers to the public actions taken in response to levels of vulnerability,risk and deprivation which are deemed socially unacceptable within a given polity orsociety.’

Social protection deals with both the absolute deprivation and vulnerabilities of the

Social Protection andSocial Security

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poorest, and with the need of the non-poor for security in the face of shocks and theparticular demands of different stages of the life cycle (e.g. pregnancy and child rearing,marriage, death and funerals). As such, it encompasses as its core the two main broadfields of response mechanism, namely social assistance and social insurance. Scholarsdistinguished two components of social protection:

i) ‘Social assistance is defined as benefits in cash or in kinds that are financed bythe state (national or local) and that are mostly provided on the basis of a means orincome text. The concept also includes universal benefit schemes, i.e. those thatare tax based but do not use a means test.

ii) Social insurance is social security that is financed by contributions and is basedon the insurance principle. The essence of insurance is understood here to be theelimination of the uncertain risk of loss for the individual or household by combininga larger number of similarly exposed individuals or households into a commonfund that makes good the loss caused to any one member.

Response to risk and deprivation may take the form of strengthening collective,membership-based responses to risk; statutory instruments which enhance security;interventions which enhance access to employment and secure tenure of assets; anddirect interventions to ensure minimum acceptable standards of livelihood for thosewith insufficient assets to secure a livelihood. The field of social protection thusencompasses many different areas and traditions of policy response.

4.3 PRINCIPLES FOR SOCIAL PROTECTIONPOLICY AND PROGRAMME RESPONSES

Policy options should be:

1) Responsive to the needs, realities and conditions of livelihood of those who theyare intended to benefit;

2) Affordable in the context of short and medium term budget planning for the publicbudget – and in terms of not placing unreasonable burdens on households andcommunities;

3) Sustainable, both financially and politically – with a requirement on government toensure that the state’s role in social protection reflects an adequate level of publicsupport for interventions to assist the poorest;

4) Mainstreamed institutionally within sustainable structures of governance andimplementation whether within state or civil society structures;

5) Built on a principle of utilizing the capabilities of individuals, households andcommunities and avoiding creation of dependency and stigma;

6) Flexible – capable of responding to rapidly changing scenarios and emergence ofnew challenges (e.g. impact of HIV/AIDS), and of supporting individuals throughthe changing demands of the life cycle.

It is possible to derive a list of the various rationales for the development of socialprotection as a field of policy.

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The rationale for social protection policy

Variously, social protection is argued to be necessary in order to:

develop social support for reform programs,

promote social justice and equity – and make growth more efficient and equitable,

provide policy-led support to those outside the labor market/with insufficient assetsto achieve a secure livelihood,

provide protection for all citizens against risk (including financial crises),

ensure basic acceptable livelihood standards for all,

facilitate investment in human capital for poor households and communities,

enable people to take economic risks to pursue livelihoods,

promote social cohesion and social solidarity (social stability),

compensate for declining effectiveness of traditional and informal systems forenhancing livelihood security, and

ensure continuity of access for all to the basic services necessary for developinghuman capital and meeting basic needs.

A rationale for pursuing social protection in the context of international developmentwould be to promote dynamic, cohesive stable societies through increased equityand security.

Social Protection in Ethiopia

The Ethiopia Productive Safety Net Program provides a topical case study of a large-scale government-implemented social transfer program, in one of Africa’s poorestcountries. It is a ‘live example’ of the opportunities and challenges facing donors andgovernments as they seek to forge consensus over social protection.

Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) currently reaches over seven millionchronically food insecure people. It has two objectives. First, it aims to smoothconsumption and protect assets of chronically food insecure households by providingthem with predictable and adequate transfers of cash and/or food. Second, it aims tobuild community assets (e.g., roads, soil and water conservation structures, and schools)through labor-intensive public works – this is the ‘productive’ component of the PSNP.The goal to which the PSNP contributes is to ‘graduate’ people from food insecurity.This is to be achieved through a combined effort of the PSNP and complementaryprograms providing access to credit, agricultural extension and other services. ThePSNP works through government financial and food distribution channels. It isadministered through the Food Security Coordination Bureau (FSCB), part of Ethiopia’sMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The program provides a mix of cash and food transfers to participants. The PSNP hasboth a public works (conditional) transfer component and a direct (unconditional) transfercomponent. Most PSNP participants (80-90 percent) are required to contribute topublic works. They are paid for up to five days per month, per household member, forsix months each year. This contribution equals a maximum annual payment of $21 percapita. Households eligible for direct unconditional transfers are those who, in addition


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to being chronically food insecure, have no labor and no other sources of support.They may include disabled people, orphans, and people who are sick, elderly, pregnantor lactating.

The PSNP emerged from the frustrations, successes and lessons of over 20 years ofemergency appeals. Each year since the mid-1980s, the Ethiopian government has hadto ask international partners to provide emergency food relief for between one millionand 14 million Ethiopians. By the early 2000s, the Ethiopian government and mostinternational actors were increasingly convinced that they needed to move beyond theemergency appeal system. Relief was saving lives, but not livelihoods. It was costly andinefficient. It was overly focused on food. In addition, it was unpredictable: beneficiariestended to receive food aid several months later than it was needed.

This delay often contributed to the sale of assets and greater destitution and vulnerability.The consensus to move beyond the cycle of relief in Ethiopia was fuelled by five otherfactors:

1. Inappropriateness of existing approaches: It was increasingly recognized thatthe bulk of those receiving relief were chronically, not temporarily, food insecure.Most beneficiaries of relief suffered from hunger year after year, regardless ofwhether there was a drought or other shock. Targeting the chronically food insecurewith an emergency response was increasingly seen as inappropriate.

2. Evidence base for alternatives: There was an emerging body of experienceand expertise on alternative ways of addressing chronic food insecurity and providingsocial protection. Evidence on the effectiveness of cash transfers, good practiceon participant targeting, and the impact of public works programs all provideddonors and Government with a greater menu of options for moving beyond relief.

3. Champions: A number of individuals in donor agencies and NGOs had beenadvocating for a new safety net-based approach to deal with chronic hunger.

4. Government political incentives: The government faced significant politicalincentives to look for different ways of tackling hunger and vulnerability. Dependency: The primary incentive was the Ethiopian government’s strong

ideological commitment to reducing the perceived ‘dependency’ of individualsand households on long-term food aid. The highest levels of the Governmentand ruling party saw the safety net as a way in which this cycle of dependencycould be broken.

Electoral liability: The government came to power in 1991 with a strongpolitical mandate and ideological commitment to transforming the lives ofrural Ethiopians. However, after more than a decade in power, the number ofhouseholds needing relief had only increased. The persistence of hunger andthe shortcomings of other rural development programs were becoming apolitical liability, particularly with elections looming.

International image: At an international level, the recurrent high profileappeals and the portrayal of Ethiopia as a famine-stricken country were acontinual source of embarrassment to the country’s leadership.

Access to reliable resources: On the other hand, the prospect that a safetynet might entail the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in assistancethrough government channels was a significant incentive to proceed.

5. Donor incentives: Donors were fatigued by decades of providing emergencyrelief. Most wanted to move off the annual round of appeals to a more effective,

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predictable and developmental form of assistance. The shift by several large donorsfrom project aid towards budget support made a large Government-run safety netprogram an attractive way forward. However, individual donors faced differentincentives and held different institutional positions about the character of socialprotection.

The need for change was brought into sharp focus by the 2002-3 food crises in whichup to 14 million people, the largest number ever, and needed emergency support. Thiscrisis prompted action from the Prime Minister: in June 2003, he convened a meetingwith donors and NGOs to explore long-term solutions to food insecurity. The result ofthis meeting was the ‘New Coalition for Food security’.

The report of the New Coalition envisaged a Food Security Program comprising threeelements: resettlement, support to household economic growth, and a safety net forchronically food insecure people. This program would complement the emergencysystem, which still addressed the transitory food insecure population. The Food SecurityProgram was aimed at shifting millions of people out of the emergency relief program,while also enabling them to graduate out of the safety net and into sustainable foodsecurity. Donors embraced the safety net but were skeptical about the other componentsand did not back them. The government subsequently funded these other two elementsitself.



1) List out the rationale for social protection policy.

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4.4 SOCIAL SECURITY IN PRACTICESocial security means any kind of collective measures or activities designed to ensurethat members of society meet their basic needs and are protected from the contingenciesto enable them maintain a standard of living consistent with social norms.

The social security concept has been changing with time from the traditional ways ofsecurity to modern ones. As societies became more industrialized as a result of industrialrevolution in the 19th century and more people became dependent upon wageemployment, it was no longer possible to rely upon the traditional system of socialsecurity.

The negative impact of industrialization and urbanization attracted the attention of policymakers to formalize social security system that addressed the emerged social issues.

Social security is defined in its broadest meaning by the International LaborOrganization (ILO) as -


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“The protection measures which society provides for its members, througha series of public measures against economic and social distress that wouldotherwise be caused by the stoppages or substantial reduction of earningsresulting from sickness, maternity, employment injury, unemployment,disability, old age, death, the provision of medical care subsidies for familieswith children.”

Social security is a program of oldage,unemployment, health, disability, and survivorsinsurance maintained by the U.S. federal government through compulsory payments byspecific emplo yer and employee groups. It is the theory or practice of providing economicsecurity and socialwelf are for the individual through government programsmaintainedby moneys from public taxation. In the developed countries because of the social security’sincome intensiveness as discussed previously, has positive impact in their society’s socialsafety net. This has happened because of the Nine Guiding Principles of Social Securityas Robert Ball discussed.

The Former US Social Security Agency Commissioner Robert Ball discusses the guidingprinciples that have made Social Security the most durable, successful and populargovernment program of the last 70 years. Many other accomplishments andadjustments have taken place within a framework consisting of nine major principles.Social Security is universal; an earned right; wage related; contributory and self-financed;redistributive; not means tested; wage indexed; inflation protected; and compulsory.

a) Universal: Social Security coverage has been gradually extended over the yearsto the point where 96 out of 100 jobs in paid employment are now covered, withmore than 142 million working Americans making contributions in 1997 [154million in 2003]. In addition, the goal of complete universality can be reached bygradually covering those remaining state and local government positions that arenot now covered.

b) Earned right: Social Security is more than a statutory right; it is an earned right,with eligibility for benefits and the benefit rate based on an individual’s past earnings.This principle sharply distinguishes Social Security from welfare and links theprogram appropriately, to other earned rights such as wages, fringe benefits, andprivate pensions.

c) Wage related: Social Security benefits are related to earnings, thus reinforcingthe concept of benefits as an earned rights and recognizing that there is a relationshipbetween one’s standard of living while working and the benefits level needed toachieve income security in retirement. Under Social Security, higher-paid earnersget higher benefits, but the lower-paid get more for what they pay in.

d) Contributory and self-financed: The fact that workers pay ear-markedcontributions from their wages into the system also reinforces the concept of anearned right and gives contributors a moral claim on future benefits above andbeyond statutory obligations. In addition, unlike many foreign plans, Social Securityis entirely financed by dedicated taxes, principally those deducted from workers’earnings matched by employers, with the self-employed paying comparableamounts. The entire cost of benefits plus administrative expenses (which amountto less than 1 percent of income) is met without support from general governmentrevenues.

The self-financing approach has several advantages. It helps protect the programagainst having to compete against other programs in the annual general federal

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budget—which is appropriate, because this is a uniquely long-term program. Itimposes fiscal discipline, because the total earmarked income for Social Securitymust be sufficient to cover the entire cost of the program. In addition, it guardsagainst excessive liberalization: contributors oppose major benefit cuts becausethey have a right to benefits and are paying for them, but they also oppose excessiveincreases in benefits because they understand that every increase must be paid forby increased contributions. Thus, a semi-automatic balance is achieved betweenwanting more protection versus not wanting to pay more for it.

e) Redistributive: One of Social Security’s most important goals is to pay at least aminimally adequate benefit to workers who are regularly covered and contributing,regardless of how low-paid they may be. This is accomplished through aredistribution formula that pays comparatively higher benefits to lower-paid earners.The formula makes good sense. If the system paid back to low-wage workersonly the benefit that they could be expected to pay for from their own wages,millions of retirees would end up impoverished and on welfare even though theyhad been paying into Social Security throughout their working lives. This wouldmake the years of contributing to Social Security worse than pointless, since theearnings paid into Social Security would have reduced the income available forother needs throughout their working years without providing in retirement anyincome greater than what would be available from welfare. The redistributionformula solves this dilemma.

f) Not means tested: In contrast to welfare, eligibility for Social Security is notdetermined by the beneficiary’s current income and assets, nor is the amount ofthe benefit. This is a key principle. It is the absence of a means test that makes itpossible for people to add to their savings and to establish private pension plans,secure in the knowledge that they will not then be penalized by having their SocialSecurity benefits cut back as a result of having arranged for additional retirementincome. The absence of a means test makes it possible for Social Security toprovide a stable role in anchoring a multi-tier retirement system in which privatepensions and personal savings can be built on top of Social Security’s basic, definedprotection.

g) Wage indexed: Social Security is portable, following the worker from job to job,and the protection provided before retirement increases as wages rise in general.Benefits at the time of initial receipt are brought up to date with current wagelevels, reflecting improvements in productivity and thus in the general standard ofliving. Without this principle, Social Security would soon provide benefits that didnot reflect previously attained living standards.

h) Inflation protected: Once they begin, Social Security benefits are protectedagainst inflation by periodic cost-of living adjustments (COLAs) linked to theConsumer Price Index. Inflation protection is one of Social Security’s greateststrengths, and one that distinguishes it from other (except federal) retirement plans.No private pension plan provides guaranteed protection against inflation, andinflation protection under state and local plans, where it exists at all, is capped.Without COLAs, the real value of Social Security benefits would steadily erodeover time, as is the case with unadjusted private pension benefits. Although aprovision for automatic adjustment was not part of the original legislation, theimportance of protecting benefits against inflation was recognized, and over theyears, the system was financed to allow for periodic adjustments to bring benefits


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up to date. However, this updating was done only after a lag. Provision for automaticadjustment was added in 1972.

i) Compulsory: Social Security compels all of us to contribute to our own futuresecurity. A voluntary system simply would not work. Some of us would savescrupulously, some would save sporadically, and some would postpone the day ofreckoning forever, leaving the community as a whole to pay through a much lessdesirable safety-net system. With a compulsory program, the problem of adverseselection—individuals deciding when and to what extent they want to participate,depending on whether their individual circumstances seem favorable—is avoided(as is the problem of obtaining adequate funding for a large safety-net programserving a constituency with limited political influence).

The importance of that role would be difficult to exaggerate. Today Social Security isthe only organized retirement plan—the only assured source of retirement income—forfully half of the total workforce. Moreover, it is the base upon which all that are able todo so can build the supplementary protection of pensions and individual savings. SocialSecurity continues to be the most popular and successful program in America’s historybecause its guiding principles enable it to work exactly as intended: as America’s familyprotection plan.

4.5 SITUATION OF CHILDREN IN ETHIOPIAEthiopia is a country whose young population is about half of the total populationaccording to the housing and population census report (CSA 2008). These childrenwere exposed to various social, cultural, political and economic system of the country.In addition, among the total population women are also half of the total population whoneed the protection and support from the formal structures. The government of Ethiopiahas formulated a developmental social welfare policy in 1996, which tried to addressthe most vulnerable social groups such as children, youth, women, elderly and peoplewith special needs. This policy instrument was in practice for a long period in the country.However, the policy instrument requires amendment because of the size and magnitudeof the problems these groups are facing.

With regards there many structural adjustments and restructuring of the Ministry ofLabor and Social Affairs (MOLSA) which used to facilitate the case of all the vulnerablegroups. Hence, now currently ministry of women, child and youth has been establishedwith a proclamation and thinking the formulation of policies for each section of thesegroups. Whereas the MOLSA has taken part in reviewing and developing a new socialprotection policy for the elderly and people with special need groups.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989 is the first binding internationallegal document adopted by the United Nations (UN) in relation to child rights. Itcontributes to the promotion and protection of the rights of the child in many ways.First, the CRC follows a holistic approach to the rights of the child by addressing allmatters that pertain to the need, well-being, health, overall development and protectionof the child. It deals with all aspects of the rights of the child: civil and political; economic,social and cultural. The convention vastly echoes the interdependence, indivisibility,interrelation and universality of human rights as the UN declared them to be in theVienna Declaration and Program of Action of 1993 ( MOFED,2006).

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), which wasadopted under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and entered

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into force in November 29, 1999 further entrenches the rights of children. It takes intoaccount the African reality and vests in the child various rights not recognized in theCRC. It also imposes some obligations on the child. Ethiopia acceded both treaties. Itacceded to the CRC without any reservation on the 14 of May 1991. The statement ofaccession was published in 1992 in the NegaritGazeta, which was the official lawgazette of the then existing Government. It also was acceded the ACRWC (MOFED,2006).

Factors underlying the vulnerability of children and lack of appropriate parental careinclude HIV and AIDS, natural disasters, internal migration, and chronic poverty. Thesefactors have been documented as the main reasons children lack parental care on aglobal level and, more specifically, on the African continent. The same paradigm maybe applied to the situation in Ethiopia. With approximately five million orphaned andvulnerable children, the need for alternative care options for vulnerable children is growing(DHS, 2005). According to FHI study of Ethiopian children alternative care in 2010 incollaboration with many NGOs, the main factors influencing the number of orphanedand/or unaccompanied children in Ethiopia are HIV and AIDS and related illnesses,and severe poverty.

The development of new child care institutions (by nongovernmental and/or faith-based institutions) has been increasing over the past several years, but thedevelopment of other alternative care options has not been growing at the samepace.

Little emphasis has been placed on developing other alternative care options, suchas kinship care or foster care.

Community members, childcare management and staff, and some authorities havea positive perception of institutional care, and are not aware of the negative effectscaused by institutionalization.

There are limitations in supervision of childcare institutions by authorities and minimalknowledge of and adherence to the minimum care standards outlined in the NGAC.

There are limitations regarding uniform structures of accountability and oversightfrom the three main governmental institutions involved in the child protection system(Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Labor And Social Affairs, and Ministry ofJustice).

The government oversight bodies (mainly BOWA and BOLSA) do not have thefinancial and human resources to implement their mandated responsibilities, andtheir relationship with childcare institutions is mostly confined to reporting.

Quality care is compromised in many childcare institutions, due to limited financialresources, lack of supervision and minimal awareness about child developmentissues.

Children residing in institutions are subject to discrimination from communitymembers, experience psychosocial problems, and are frequently subjected tophysical, sexual, and psychological abuse and exploitation while in institutionalcare.

Current procedures within institutions inhibit interaction between children and theirfamilies. This results in an increase in the likelihood of extended institutionalizationand limits possible reunification.


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A significant number of childcare institutions (62.1 percent) did not have adequatedocumentation or case planning for each child. The limited emphasis on thetemporary nature that institutionalization should have, increases the likelihood thatchildren will not be reintegrated or placed in a family-based care situation.

Children who have left institutional care frequently feel they do not have thenecessary skills to cope with life outside of the institution.

Implementation of family preservation initiatives that combine parent educationand family income strengthening appear to have positive effects on preventinginstitutionalization of children.

Foster care strategies, whereby an institution identifies, trains and supports a familywilling to take in an unaccompanied child with regular financial and material supportfrom the institution, is found to be an acceptable form of alternative care andreadily fits into current cultural practices.

There is a general lack of understanding of the relevance of domestic adoption(i.e., the relevance of legally formalizing the relationship between a caregiver andan unrelated child for whom they are caring on a permanent basis). Current domesticadoption procedures also are perceived to be cumbersome and intimidating forEthiopian families interested in national adoption.

Efforts targeting the creation of a family-like atmosphere, through self-containedhomes within the child care institutions, community integration of institutions andinstitutionalized children, training of institutional staff and clear understanding ofand adherence to minimal standards of care appear to have a more positive effecton children.

In Ethiopia, as in most traditional societies, a strong culture of caring for orphans, thesick, the disabled, and other needy members of the community by nuclear and extendedfamily members, communities, churches, and mosques has existed for centuries. Basedon cultural and religious beliefs, provision of care to orphaned, abandoned, andvulnerable children has been seen as the duty of the extended family system amongmost of the ethnic groups in the country. Thus, child welfare services in Ethiopia emergedas a result of traditional practices among the various ethnic groups.

Fragmented historical records reveal that among the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups,adoption has been exercised since the 15th century. However, it was only in 1960 thatthe Ethiopian Government officially recognized adoption through Proclamation Number165. The official word for adoption is Guddifachaa in Ethiopia. It is derived from theOromo word guddisa (upbringing). Among the Oromo (the largest Ethnic group inEthiopia about 40 per cent), adoption focused on the continuation of parental lineage,thus the emphasis was on the adopter and on the adoptee. Since lineage is preservedthrough male descendants, the most widely adopted children tended to be males. In thetraditional Oromo culture, families who do not have male offspring often adopt a son ofan extended family member or member of the same clan. Daughters are also adopted(e.g. in the case of infertility).

In addition to madego (foster care), the Amhara have two types of arrangements thatprovide orphans and neglected children with minimum protection. These are yetutlij(“breast child”) and yemarlij (“honey child”). In this case, the fostered child, usually anorphan or the child of parents who are not able to care for him/her, receives properfeeding and attention but does not receive the same treatment as biological children. In

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this instance, there is a religious connotation or motive behind taking in another child.The emphasis is on the salvation of the soul of the adoptive family; therefore, the fate ofthe adopted child is given less attention.

The advent of urbanization, recurrent drought, famine, and HIV/AIDS has claimed aheavy toll on human life in Ethiopia during the past three decades. As a consequence,thousands of children have been left unaccompanied and in need of care. The severedrought of 1984-85 is recognized as the catalyst for the proliferation of institutionalcare in Ethiopia. Many childcare institutions were established by both governmentaland nongovernmental organizations in response to the drought. Prior to this period,very few institutions were initiated and these were mostly faith-based, supported bylocal elite philanthropists.

In an effort to find an immediate solution to the growing numbers of unaccompaniedchildren, institutional care was seen as a quick alternative to family-based care, particularlyfor those children who were left unaccompanied as a result of the death of their parentsfrom famine and those who were put into temporary shelters. Approximately 31 percentof the institutions in operation today were started during this time.

Immediately after the 1984 famine, approximately 21,000 children in 106 institutionswere cared for in institutional settings, a record number. According to FHI, 2010 studyrevealed that, as of December 2008, there were 6,503 children in 87 institutions. It isimportant to note that these institutions only provided long-term childcare. The studydid not assess institutions for children whose permanent plan was inter-country adoption.Currently, because of the Ethiopian government’s guidance to discourageinstitutionalization of children, there are only three government institutions operating inEthiopia. In January 1986, the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) created adirective aimed at deinstitutionalizing children through reunification and reintegration.

From 1986 to 1990, a large-scale reunification program took place, resulting in thedecline in the number of residential childcare institutions. However, this guidance hasnot influenced nongovernmental and faith-based organizations, which continue to operatechildcare institutions and, in some cases, open new institutions.

Since there are no comprehensive and adequate data, the prevalence of worst forms ofchild labor in Ethiopia is not known. The appropriate strategy to reduce child labor andimprove their working conditions to acceptable standards and at least to eliminate theworst forms of child labor is to tackle the root causes notably poverty and its relatedproblems that force children to labor. In 2005, it was estimated that there were 4885337orphans aged 0-17 years of which 744,100 were AIDS orphans.

The OVC Plan of Action has been developed to guide all stakeholders in addressingthe issue of OVC care and support in a holistic, coordinated and integrated manner.OVC Task Forces were established by the Government at both Federal and Regionallevels to facilitate the implementation of the plan. Development of an integrated strategyand plan of action for street children remains a challenge for the sector (MOFED 2006).

The justice organs Professionals Training center that was established recently has startedto provide a course on human rights. At the present Ethiopia has no civil registrationand vital statistics system in place. Children are subjected to physical violence in privateas well as in public life. Sexual abuse is a common form of violence perpetrated onchildren. For these and other developmental condition of the country, the justice systemfor the wellbeing of children is not yet developed in Ethiopia. To redress the situation,


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the Federal Supreme Court in collaboration with various NGOs, has established the“Juvenile Justice Project Office (JJPO) in June 1999. It is reported that a divisionwithin the Federal First Instance Court has been designated to handle cases of juvenilesin Addis Ababa.

By way of intervention, the government has performed the following: It has providedappropriate and relevant policies and laws. MoLSA has prepared and is implementingthe National Action Plan for Children, National Action Plan on OVCs (2004-2006)and the National Action Plan on Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children (2006-2010) (MOLSA, 2005).



1) Describe the situation of children in Ethiopia in about hundred words.

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4.6 LET US SUM UPAn attempt was made in this unit to explain various aspects of social protection andsocial security in Ethiopia. Apart from presenting the concepts of social protection andsocial security, the unit also dealt with the principles of social protection policy andprogramme responses, social protection in Ethiopia, social security in practice and anelaborate discussion on situation of children in Ethiopia especially, the female childpopulation. Issues associated with orphan children in Ethiopia is also included in thisunit. On the whole, the content of this unit is very rich with the latest information onsocial protection and social security.






Every Child UK (2009).Missing: Children Without Parental Care in International

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Development Policy. Every Child UK, London. Retrieved December 23, 2012, fromhttp://www.everychild.org.uk/docs/EvC_Missing_final.pdf.










Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). 1 994a. Education sector strategy. AddisAbaba, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia,

Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE).1994b. Education and training policy ofEthiopia. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Transitional Government of Ethiopia





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