An Advocacy Workshop Validates AYSRH Budget Analysis Studies

On the 8th of March 2025, an advocacy workshop was convened at DSW’s Youth Development Training Centre to coincide with International Women’s Day (IWD), which took a moment to commemorate the date as the opening remarks of the validation workshop proceeded. A few months before its final phase, the Youth for Health (Y4H) project underwent its third validation of adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) budget analysis studies during the half-day advocacy workshop.

After a few poetic words of encouragement read out under the title of “Let Her Voice Be Heard & Laud” dedicated to IWD by Bekelech Bayou, DSW Ethiopia’s Program Manager, the validation workshop kicked off with Bekelech reminding the familiar stakeholders to stay engaged in the discussion. “We are set to validate the studies, based on which comprehensive findings we can generate further action points for advocacy activities involving the government stakeholders,” Bekelech emphasized as she invited a representative from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) to make his opening remarks.

Motuma Bekele, representing the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), recalled the enthusiasm when the project was launched three years ago to empower adolescents and youth to become champions of their cause, particularly with in terms of their engagement in advocacy for AYSRH budget allocations. “Ironically however,” Motuma noted, “as if being adolescents or youth made them immune to SRH vulnerabilities, the community at large had generally perceived young people as safe. That is why this project can contribute to changing attitudes, as many adolescent and youth champions are beginning to emerge and take an active role in advocacy for increased budget allocations for their SRH needs. We at the Ministry of Health recognise the relevance of this project in line with the FMoH’s national strategic objectives, which aim to empower young people to address their health issues,” Motuma remarked, emphasising the positive outlook for Ethiopia’s growing adolescent population.      

“Adolescents constitute one in four people in Ethiopia,” says Alemseged Gebrezgie (PhD) from the Center of Excellence, the consulting firm that conducted the budget analysis studies on behalf of DSW. “The relevance of this project could as well be defined in more serious ways, but the fact that the core target beneficiaries are among the largest demographic groups and the intervention depends on their ability to advocate and influence resources for their SRH well-being makes it all the more important,” said the lead researcher. “In conducting the budget analysis studies, we also determined three key programmatic elements to examine whether the intervention had triggered desirable outcomes in terms of SRH budget allocation, utilisation and implementation trends. The budget analysis studies mainly focused on and included such leading factors as demand and access to the services, the development of public sector capacity and the creation of an enabling environment through engagements in advocacy to influence the key stakeholders,” said Alemseged, explaining the methodology used to present the research findings.

The poor condition of the essential infrastructure linking some of the intervention areas has affected accessibility to the service and this has been greatly affected by the lack of direct AYSRH budget disbursement. Despite this, the champions remain proactive in their advocacy engagements and their efforts were more visibly intensified than in the past to reach out to the grassroots local government and federal parliamentarians have been more visible than in the past, as evidenced by the findings of the studies.

Far from getting any closer to either the Maputo Protocols or the Abuja Declarations, which set 15 percent of the GDP as the threshold for health spending in Africa, Ethiopia remains halfway below the threshold, joining most African countries except a handful of high achievers such as Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia, according to the findings.

The findings also indicated that the trends in overall budget allocations, including the health sector, show consistent increases from year to year, especially in the last three fiscal years, although a slight setback was observed this year. However, this was without necessarily adjusting the increase in allocation, expenditure, utilisation and implementation for inflation. There has been an increase in the level of engagement of adolescents and youth champions, who find an enabling environment for them to advocate and influence stakeholders. These progressive positive trends were observed during the course of the studies in the intervention districts in the South-Ethiopia and Oromia regional states.

Professor Teketel Yohannes, long-serving President of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS), reflects on the key findings of the studies, focusing on how to capitalise on the positive trends in budget increases for the health sector, and on the way forward, based on the recommendations of the budget analysis studies, to produce a policy brief for further engagement.    

As the team of panelists took their positions to absorb the questions, reflections, opinions and concerns of the participants, Berhanu Bero of Marie Stopes International – Ethiopia (MSI-E), one of the implementing partners along with Youth Network for Sustainable Development (YNSD) and DSW Ethiopia, linked the strength of the findings to the quality of the Terms of Reference (ToR) developed by DSW. He also expressed curiosity as to whether the findings could have identified the reason for the slight decrease in budget allocations this year.

Encouraged by the positive response from participants after his own early announcement of the IWD’s commemoration at the beginning of the validation workshop, Feyera Assefa, Country Director of DSW Ethiopia, enthused the positive side of the upward trend in health sector budgeting in general. “The budget studies quoted a government source as saying that Wonago district alone, where our intervention is based, has seen an increase in budget allocation of more than one hundred and forty percent, giving us a lot of room to capitalise on our advocacy efforts. However, in some of the districts where we continue to carry out advocacy work, there has been a slight difference compared to Wonago. As we validate the studies by focusing on the findings and the recommendations, we will be gathering powerful inputs that will contribute significantly to the way forward. More importantly, it is essential to note that the validation of the budget analysis studies does not supersede the impact assessment that will eventually be carried out in the near future as part of the end line evaluation. However, these studies will provide valid and relevant input for other related studies and supporting documents that will be produced in due course at the end of the Youth for Health project.

Co-funded by the European Union, the implementation of Youth for Health (Y4H) as a three-year program was originally distributed among six countries in Africa. Its country programme in Ethiopia has been implemented over the past three years in four districts in South-Ethiopia and Oromia regional states by three partner organisations, whose synergised efforts and expertise are equally shared between MSI Ethiopia, YNSD and DSW Ethiopia.