Transcript Triangulating research, policy engagement and practice to

Young Lives experiences in
mainstreaming children into Ethiopia’s
national poverty reduction strategy
Nicola Jones (SCUK London)
Bekele Tefera (SCUK Ethiopia)
Tassew Woldehanna
(Dep. Of economics, AAU, Ethiopia )
For SARPN Workshop
20-21 November 2006, Pretoria, SA
Presentation format
• ingredients of success
– Quality evidence
– Intent matters
– Policy and advocacy environment
– Networking and identifying key players
– Framing research messages
• Aligning MDG and PRSP
• Conclusions: lessons learned
Mainstreaming children into
national poverty strategies
• This presentation draws on research to
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evaluate efforts made by YL in Ethiopia to
look at the impact of PRSP I (SDPRP) on
child welfare
IDRC grant was given to assess impacts of
PRSP I (2002-5) on child well-being:
structured around MDG themes: education,
nutrition and child labour
We also carried out child-sensitive critiques
of PRSP I and compare it with other 10
countries
Mainstreaming children into
national poverty strategies
• It was an 18 months program involving
– Multi-disciplinary mixed method research: economists,
sociologist, political scientists and use of Q2
– Quantitative analysis of YL first round data with 3000
children
– New qualitative data (sub sample of 20 sites)
– Analysis of national and sub national policy framework and
implementation practices
– Develop video documentary and photograph projects
– We engaged in multi-pronged communication,
dissemination: seminars with key stakeholders; capacity
building workshops with national and state level policy
practitioners
• Coincides with development of PRSP II (PASDEP)
Frequency of
Category/ term
(300 pages long document)
Children (food poverty: wasting/ stunting/ malnutrition;
education; dependency ratio; family health services)
59
Infants – (mortality and morbidity)
9
Child labour / work
0
Childcare
1
Child-headed household
0
Violence (against women impacting on children)
2
Girls (education, fetching water, harmful
traditional practices)
24
Boys
12
Daughters (education)
3
HIV/AIDS education and prevention for out-ofschool youth and street adolescents
2
Women or Male/female head, or gender
165
Ingredients for success
• Literature on research and policy influencing
has identified a # of key ingredients (Court
and Maxwell, 2005):
– Importance of credible quality research
– Intent to shape policy
– Understanding the socio-political context of
research up-take
– Identifying and networking with key actors
– Importance of context-appropriate framing of
messages
• We have evaluated our efforts to
mainstream children in national PRS based
these 5 criteria.
Quality evidence
• In Young Lives project, we have sought to ensure quality of the research
across 3 dimensions: research sample, integration of quantitative and
qualitative methods, analysis from multidisciplinary perspectives
• Research sample
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3000 households in five most-populous regions: cover wide diversity of agroecologocal zone, livelihood pattern, cultural and religious traditions, human deve.
levels and ethnic compositions
Qual. Using sub sample
• Integrating quantitative and qualitative methods
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Quantitative (econometrics): Aggregating determinants of childhood poverty
Qualitative research provides richer definition of poverty, provides us a greater
explanation of the results obtained from quant, which otherwise looks counter
institutive. E.g. education, child labour, caring younger sibling
• Multi-disciplinary analysis
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Involve economists, political scientists, sociologist. And anthropologists
Helps us to provide convincing cases to wider audience
Econometric analysis provided currency in the language of power (MF, WB)
Contextual sociological analysis (in-depth case studies) enables us to translate the
more technical analysis into a more compelling human-cantered narrative
Hence it enables us to reach broader civil society and public audience,
Intent matters
• Through the process of Knowledge creep, research may reach policy
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stakeholders (Crew et al., 2005), perhaps by chance. However, this will
take more time and it may not be timely. Message may not reach in a way
we want them.
But research explicitly designed to influence policy will have better chance
of success than research that relies upon chance or accident to shape
policy (Saxena, 2005).
Understanding this, YL partnership is designed with DFID’s spirit of getting
research to users and beneficiaries
YL is a partnership project between research consortium and an
international NGO aimed at explicitly producing policy-relevant research in
order to improve policies that will enhance child welfare. The same at
country level
Our research initially aimed to critically look at PRSP I and influence PRSP II
Time constraints: we had to finish our working paper and conduct
dissemination before government’s drafting deadline
Context: Ethiopian policy context
• In order to engage effectively with policy makers and
practitioners, it is important to understand how policy
decisions are made; who have the more political power, and
which issues are politically sensitive.
– Hence see if the policy process consultative or technocratic.
– What is the balance of power among key political institutions?
Where are the best points of entry for dialogue and influence?
– Are Civil society-state relationship constructive/complementary or
antagonistic?
• Ethiopia:
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disproportionate influence of MoFED (sector ministries)
technocrats
limited civil society consultations in PRSPI process;
limited awareness of need for child-sensitive development policies
among CSOs
Government was well aware of child rights
Donors have a negotiation power with the GO
Context: Ethiopian policy context
• Elections – strain civil society-state relations and
overshadow PRSP consultations
– Which one to approach CSO or MoFED and how to do with
Donors?
• Dilemma of seeking path of greatest influence
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versus solidarity with local civil society
Be more flexible and use situation specific approach
Importance of cooperative but separate identity for
research-policy initiatives
– We learned to advocate separately : CSO, Donor and GO
– And conduct dissemination at the very local level
Identifying and networking with key players
• Experience tells us that research result has to be owned by GO, community
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and the public at large
In Ethiopia this issue was handled by making the research be housed under
EDRI and dissemination by SCUK and MOLSA and all get guidance by
advisory panel (PRSP technical committee chairperson members and
representative of NGOs and CSOs).
YL strategy of promoting stakeholder buy-in
– Government partners
– Advisory panel
• Formal and informal discussion with key decision-makers get advice on how
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to disseminate
We involved people from advisory panel in the dissemination at national
and local level
We have leaned also to
– work with sector ministries and make child mainstreaming be presented by
sector ministries to MOFED;
– and use known but politically independent (by the eyes of GO) academicians and
researchers
Framing research messages
• Culturally and audience-appropriate discursive
tactics
– Use of international standards and conventions
• Construction of pithy but not overly simplified
messages
– Borrowing from the language of gender mainstreaming
• Proactively teasing out policy implications from
research messages
– e.g. ADLI may result into child labour ; hence child labour
as to be monitored over time
• Specificity of policy-related messages
– Productive safety net example
Linking MDG to PRSP
• Young Lives has not face problem in the regards
• During PRSP I GO started to link it
– Wrote report
– UNDP provide awareness workshops
– GO is very positive on MDG
• PRSP II already worked with MDG
• Young Lives choose it research topics around
MDG themes
Component
s of
Welfar
e
Intermediate
/outcome
Indicators
Millennium
Development Goals
(MDGs) and Targets
Poverty &
Inequa
lity
Poverty
headcount
(P0)

Food
povert
y
% of people
below the
food poverty
line
MDG 1
MDG1 : Halve, between
1990 and 2015, the
proportion
of people who suffer
from hunger
Education
Net Enrolment
ratio
MDG2: Ensure that, by
2015, children
everywhere, boys and
girls alike, will be able
to complete a full
course of primary
schooling
MDG 1: Halve,
between 1990 and
2015, the proportion of
people whose income
is less than one dollar a
day
Current Status in
Ethiopia
(2004/05)
SDPRP
Indicativ
e
Target

P0=39 by
2004/05
Po=34 in
2009/10

P0=39 by
2004/05

P0=39 by
2009/10
Conclusions: lessons
• Need for flexible advocacy and
dissemination strategies
• Research-based advocacy can help to
by-pass “the political”
– Critiques are palatable if backed by
evidence from a large, diverse sample
– E.g. PANE versus YL
New lessons cont.
• Importance of sustainability of researcher/
advocacy linkages
– Can build on credibility rather than establishing
anew for each research endeavour
• Proactively fostering research ownership
through a “stakeholder as partner” model
– Invite policy-makers to present on your topic
• Capacity building as a tool to shape the
politico-institutional context
– Civil society, weak political institutions, media
New lessons cont.
• PRSP is the main national development
plan
– Federal GOs
– NGOs
– Sub-national GO
– Ordinary people