Understanding the situation of children
Annual report 2018
Understanding the situation of children
Ethiopia faces various pressures due to its fast-growing population which has increased from 84.8 million in 2012 to 94.4 million in 2017. The country’s approximately 50 million children remained at a high risk of living in poverty and having limited access to essential services.
Impact of Climate Change in Ethiopia
Ethiopia remained vulnerable to the effects of climate change in 2018 and continued to experience droughts and floods. Despite improvements in rains and harvests in the first half of 2018, 7.95 million people required food assistance, and 307,604 children were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) by November 2018. Moreover, 536,321 people were displaced due to climate-induced causes across the country.
Health and Nutrition:
- Neonatal mortality in Ethiopia has declined over the last decade, from 37 deaths per 1000 live births in 2011 to 29 deaths per 1000 live births in 2016 (EDHS 2016). However, this still comprises 45 per cent of the under-five mortality rate
- Ethiopia experienced repeated disease outbreaks in 2018, such as acute watery diarrhea, measles and scabies. Compounded by conflict- and climate-induced displacement, the outbreaks highlighted structural weaknesses in the health and sanitation systems.
- 38.4 per cent of Ethiopian children are stunted, only 39 per cent of children aged 12-23 months received all basic vaccination, and 67 in every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday.
Education:
- Pre-primary education enrollment in Ethiopia which was just 9 per cent in 2010 has increased to 44.2 per cent in the 2017-2018 school year (Government of Ethiopia Education Statistics Annual Abstracts)
- More than half of the preschool-age children do not have access to pre-primary education to build a solid foundation for their school success.
- While enrollment in primary education has improved (which has tripled between 2000 and 2016), the transition from primary to secondary education remains a bottleneck, with rural students predisposed to dropping out of school and facing barriers in formal employment. Girls were at a disadvantage, with only 25 per cent of secondary school-aged girls attending secondary school.
WASH:
- According to the 2016 DHS, Ethiopia has more than halved the open defecation rate from 82% in 2000 to 34% in 2012 and 32.9% in 2016
- 93 per cent of children under-five do not have access to improved sanitation, with sanitation coverage far below the national average in some regions like Benishangul-Gumuz (98 per cent) and Afar (96 per cent).
- 38.4 per cent of children under five do not have access to improved water supply services, with certain regions facing further challenges in accessing water, such as Somali and Afar where this figure reaches 58.3 and 48.8 percent respectively.
Child Protection:
- Ethiopia’s progress to end child marriage in the past decade is one of the strongest among countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. The 2016 EDHS further analysis shows a decline in prevalence of child marriage from 59 per cent in 2005 to 40 per cent in 2016 (percentage of women aged 20 to 24 years who were first married or in union before age 18). The regions that have made the most progress in are Tigray, Amhara, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), and Addis Ababa.
- Four in 10 young women in Ethiopia were married or in union before their 18th birthday, with incidence of child marriage significantly higher in Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz and Somali regions, at more than 50 per cent.
- Nationally, 65 per cent of girls and women aged 15-49 have undergone Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting (FGM/C), with the highest prevalence in Somali (99%) and Afar (91%) regions.
- In Ethiopia, only three per cent of children under five have their birth’s registered with civil authorities.