NGOs in Ethiopia are increasingly being perceived as important actors in the urban arena. Can they reach the urban poor effectively and efficiently? Research by INTRAC - the International NGO Training and Research Centre suggests that the majority of NGOs in Addis Ababa do not reach the most marginalised and impoverished social groups.

Urban poverty in Ethiopia has presented NGOs and the Ethiopian government with a unique challenge. Addis Ababa is growing at a rate of over five percent a year. Rapid urbanisation has been accompanied by growing numbers of poor people and a parallel increase in the social and economic needs of local communities. Unemployment remains high whilst nearly half the population earns less than what is needed to buy enough food for basic subsistence. A fifth of the city’s population has no access to safe water while many people lack adequate toilet facilities and waste disposal systems.

An assessment of 33 NGOs working on poverty issues in Addis Ababa shows that the most frequent programme options are service delivery and training. A small number of NGOs focus on shelter, sanitation and infrastructure. Key findings include:

• Two thirds of the NGOs studied stated they had met over half their anticipated outputs. Ten percent claimed a target accomplishment rate of over 80 percent and a further 30 percent said that they had failed to achieve half their targeted outputs.
• Programmes in income and employment generating activities (IEGA), shelter upgrading and HIV education have fared less well in terms of tangible and quantitative successes than basic health and education services.
• There is no statistical correlation between NGO age, the level of funding, the sector of activity and an NGO’s rate of target accomplishment.
• NGOs employed in fewer sectors of activity seem to report better performance ratings.
• Few NGOs are reaching the poorest, the elderly, or the disabled.

Policy implications include:

• NGOs and their donors should attempt to understand different approaches to promoting and sustaining community participation throughout the entire project cycle
• The need to set up a joint NGO committee to examine the possibility of establishing an NGO Municipal forum
• Exploring the possibility of undertaking joint collaborative endeavours targeted at the institutional level
• Establishing a joint NGO community to investigate the needs of smaller indigenous NGOs
• Clarifying the urban strategies of NGOs' donors.

Source(s):
‘Squaring the Urban Circle: NGOs and Urban Poverty Alleviation in Addis Ababa,’ INTRAC Occasional Paper Series Number 24, by L. Thomas and J. Taylor, February 2000 Full document.

Funded by: UK DFID (Escor), DGIS

id21 Research Highlight: 12 April 2002

Further Information:
Leo Thomas
INTRAC
PO Box 563
Oxford OX2 6RZ
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 201 851
Fax: +44 (0) 1865 201 852
Contact the contributor: intrac@gn.apc.org

INTRAC, UK

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'Targeting urban poverty in India - can NGOs and the state cooperate?'

Further research is available from the International Society for Third-Sector Research

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