DSW Ethiopia Advocates for Earmarking the ASRH Budget 

Four months into the new fiscal year according to the Ethiopian calendar, DSW Ethiopia renews its efforts to build up its networks with the decision makers who returned from recess and advocates on increased budget allocation for adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH). A half-day advocacy workshop with these stakeholders led by the adolescent champions took place on 28 November 2024 at DSW’s Youth Development Training Center.

About fifty-two participants, including one of the Vice Presidents of the Ethiopian Youth Council  took part in a plenary session featuring keynote speeches, a presentation and a panel discussion. “Given its bulging demographic reality, earmarking more budget for adolescent sexual and reproductive health has particularly significant development meaning in terms of harnessing the potential dividend in foreseeable future,” enthused Yusuf Muhammed, Vice President of the Ethiopian Youth Council, in his opening speech.

After each keynote speaker made their points consensually sharing the urgent needs of increasing budget for ASRH, the challenges remain in the absence of a budget line coded to itemise the allocation of resources. However, learning the practice from other countries such as Kenya was taken as a positive note among the participants.  

Bekelech Bayou, DSW’s Program Manager presented the experience from the Kenyan Parliament. According to Bekelech, Kenya is one of the earliest in sub-Saharan Africa to earmark budget for ASRH and qualify the allocation of resources with the budget line. This action not only led Kenya to accurately measure the outputs of SRH service utilization by young people in Kenya but has also improved the level of accountability among decision makers to track the effective use of the allotted resources vis-à-vis their intended outcomes on the adolescent SRH wellbeing. 

Logical comparisons between the practices in budget allocations tied to an identifiable budget line for ASRH in Kenya and the experience in the context of Ethiopia over the same issues were part of Bekelech’s presentation in which she cited recent studies. “As a matter of instance,” Bekelech emphasised that “with the adolescent population in Kenya standing at 21 million, it accounts 38 percent of the entire population for whose demographic groups’ SRH needs Kenya allocated 4 billion KSH in 2024. Similarly, the adolescent population in Ethiopia estimated at 30 million and it constitutes about 24 percent of the total population and in the same category of budget disbursement comparison, Ethiopia earmarked 3.2 billion ETB in 2024.” Note that the exchange rates between Ethiopian birr and Kenyan shillings stand at par.

Hence the difference won’t be limited to the 10 million more adolescent population lives in Ethiopia, who might relatively need extra millions of birr that ought to be earmarked for their SRH, but in the absence of a budget line assigned in the case of Ethiopia, there would be limited means to account and accurately measure the impact of ASRH wellbeing worth exacting the resources expended.

“Linking this comparative budget analysis taken from the Kenyan experience to the budget studies earlier conducted by DSW has given the participants clear perspectives of where the ASRH budget allocation in Ethiopia shortfalls,” explained Feyera Assefa, DSW Ethiopia Country Director, who refers to Adugna Amenu’s (DSW’s MELR Manager) detailed presentation of the budget studies in which an incremental trend in the health sector budget allocations was observed when compared with those of last year’s.

“Despite the positive trend seen in budgetary increment for health sector from year to year, the ASRH budget doesn’t stand on its own let alone to have a budget line. The other challenge lurks in a practice that shifts prioritisation of budget among competing issues in different sectors other than the SRH needs of adolescents. When we talk about the adolescent population in Ethiopia we must consider the latest age range being classified for what we refer to the youth groups. The new demographic reality in Ethiopia is characterized by an extension of age limit to 35 for the youth groups, up from previously ceiled to 30-years-of-age. This workshop should be able to produce the action points based on whatever progresses have been made, thus far, to become an important part of the input for the forthcoming national advocacy conference at which relevant heads of the standing committees of the Federal House of Peoples Representatives will participate,” Feyera quipped.

Youth for Health (Y4H), a three-year advocacy intervention is financially co-funded by the European Union to impact the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents in two piloted districts in Oromia and South-Ethiopia regions.