Food and children's wellbeing in Ethiopia V Morrow
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I cannot attend class properly if I am hungry....’ : food and children’s well-being in rural Ethiopia Wellbeing and the Life Course: Intercultural and Intergenerational Perspectives Launch of Centre for Innovation and Research in Wellbeing University of Sussex 24th-25th September 2015 Virginia Morrow
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Food and children's wellbeing in Ethiopia V Morrow
- 1. ‘I cannot attend class properly if I am hungry....’ : food and children’s well- being in rural Ethiopia Wellbeing and the Life Course: Intercultural and Intergenerational Perspectives Launch of Centre for Innovation and Research in Wellbeing University of Sussex 24th -25th September 2015 Ginny Morrow
- 2. YOUNG LIVES • Multi-disciplinary study that aims to: - improve understanding of childhood poverty - provide evidence to improve policies & practice • Following nearly 12,000 children in 4 countries: Ethiopia; India (Andhra Pradesh & Telangana), Peru and Vietnam, over 15 years • Now covers 11-year period: first data collected in 2002, with 4 survey rounds. • Two age cohorts in each country: - 2,000 children born in 2000-01 (Younger Cohort) - 1,000 children born in 1994-95 (Older Cohort) • Pro-poor sample: 20 sites in each country, reflecting country diversity (rural-urban, diverse livelihoods, ethnicity)
- 3. AGES: 1 5 8 12 15 YOUNGERCOHORT Following 2,000 children OLDERCOHORT Following 1,000 children AGES: 8 12 15 19 22 Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 2002 2006 2009 2013 2016 VISUALISING THIS Same age children at different time points Qualitative nested sample 1 2 3 4 Linked school surveys
- 4. Qualitative research: Longitudinal qualitative data from a nested sample of both cohorts – 50 in each country Four rounds of data have been collected (2007, 2008, 2011, 2014) Methods include: interviews + children, caregivers, community members; group discussions, group activities, data gathered using creative methods Focus on children’s daily lives – well-being, transitions, experiences of services
- 5. Ethiopia 2013 (R4) survey: • Some improvement in stunting levels • Some improvements in dietary diversity (average number of groups of food) for children • By 2013, on average four of seven food groups accessed. • Increase in children consuming fruit & veg • Food insecurity – mixed trends – declined in SNNPR & Tigray, increased in Addis Ababa, Amhara & Oromia.
- 6. How does hunger affect children? • Data from discussions about well-being, services, change in communities since previous visit (food price rises), and poverty (i.e. food/nutrition not the focus) • 11 cases Qual 3 going back to Qual 1 • Quantity and quality of food, linkages to economic ‘shocks’ – illness, death, drought etc • Gendered dimensions • Links to social protection schemes PSNP
- 7. PSNP • Productive Safety Net Programme -2005 • To ensure food security for poor households • Public Work: adult able-bodied work in community in exchange for cash or food transfers • Direct Support: for households ‘without labour’ mainly elderly and disabled • Gender-sensitive (but not child-sensitive)
- 8. Kassaye, boy, Tach-Meret • Middle quintile – household not eligible for PSNP • Prioritised attending school over herding/ farming • Entrepreneurial in ways to improve family livelihood - buying chickens, selling eggs • Able to pay for expenses for school materials • “If I get enough to eat, I can attend classes properly and I can help them [parents] doing different activities”
- 9. … continued • You know, that we are led by God that unless He gives us enough rain, no one in the community can survive. Thus, as He has given us enough rain ... everybody was happy and we have been eating potatoes. • I am getting enough food, as much as I want. ... if I get good food and drink, I will do better in my school. I perform well in my classes. But if I feel hungry, I can’t attend classes well because my concentration will
- 10. Defar • Poor household, receiving PSNP • Father chronically ill • In 2007, a child with a good life is “one who wears and eats whatever he likes” • Started school reluctantly age 12 “my mother and father are getting old and nobody helps them with work except me” • Links between good health and nutrition • By 2011, he had left school: “I started working because I was hungry”
- 11. Sefinesh, girl, Leki • Raised by her grandparents • Household received PSNP support • Mother migrated for work to Addis Ababa and Gulf, sends money • Still at school, and by 2011 had (proudly) rejected several marriage proposals • “If we want to eat teff... we can get it... If we have no food, my grandmother goes to her family in Addis Ababa and she brings money...”
- 12. Haymanot, girl, Zeytuni • 2007: cared for her mother who was ill • 2008: she and her sister working in PSNP work • Complained about hard physical work • She was despondent and worried about food • One meal a day: • …we don’t have much food at home and we have to eat accordingly... [in the past] we had enough food… we used to eat bread and tea as breakfast, injera with wot as lunch, supper after school and then dinner.’
- 13. .. Continued • By 2011, Haymanot was married • “I am happy about my marriage because it was arranged by my family and I stopped doing paid work since marriage” • Life was better because ‘we have enough farm products’ • By 2014, had a baby, was divorced • She had returned to live with her mother • And planned to work, and raise her child.
- 14. Discussion • Concerns about food are so dominant, and food security so volatile, that trajectories – whether to stay at school, work, marry – are influenced by whether there is enough to eat. • Gender matters – restrictions on girls’ mobility • PSNP is supportive but has unintended consequences • Hunger is not only a political economy question; it also affects body, mind and social relations.
- 15. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & THANK YOU • Young Lives children, parents/caregivers as well as community leaders, teachers, health workers and others in communities. • Fieldworkers, data-managers, survey enumerators and supervisors, principal investigators and country directors in each country • Oxford team, especially Ina Zharkevich, who assisted with data analysis • Funders: DFID, DGIS, IrishAid, Oak Foundation, Bernard Van Leer Foundation. Thanks to...
- 16. FINDING OUT MORE… www.younglives.org.uk • Methods, ethics and research papers • datasets (UK Data Archive) • publications • child profiles and photos • e-newsletter FINDING OUT MORE
- 17. REFERENCES Abebe T and Kjørholt, A-T. (eds) (2013) Childhood and local knowledge in Ethiopia. Livelihoods, rights and intergenerational relationships. Akademik Forlag, Trondheim Bourdillon, M., and Boyden, J. (eds) (2014) Growing up in poverty. Palgrave. Crivello, G., Morrow, V., Wilson, E. (2013) Young Lives Longitudinal Qualitative Research: a guide for researchers. Young Lives Technical Note 26, Young Lives, Oxford. www.younglives.org.uk Morrow , V., and Crivello, G. (2015) What is the value of qualitative longitudinal research with children and young people for international development? Int Jnl Social Research Methodology 18, 3, 267-280 Tafere, Y., and Woldehanna, T. (2012) Beyond food security: transforming the productive safety net programme in Ethiopia for the well-being of children. Young Lives Working Paper 83.
Editor's Notes
- Not strictly nationally representative because we don’t cover better off households
- 1 States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. 2 In Peru, the Older Cohort consists of approximately 750 children. Qualitative research – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013
- All the children talked about the importance of food, here we focus on children who are deprived of food/who experience hunger and see how it impacts their everyday lives. All transcripts were read, and cases selected where children spoke about hunger, famine, food. After having found the interviews where children seem to have faced problems with nutrition, we selected especially hard cases so to say and the cases where children were more vocal. In other words, cases selected might be not representative but rather extreme. There are copious other examples where children talked about food and eating practices that deserve full analysis but outside the remit of this paper eg ‘scrumping’ or foraging.
- Food insecurity = the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. Stunting - Moderate and severe - below minus two standard deviations from median height for age of reference population.
- I am going to draw on four examples from Older Cohort and rural for this presentation
- Teff = important food grain, used to bake injera (kind of flat bread)
- The quality of their food had declined as had the number of meals per day they ate, and they were now eating only one meal a day. Interviewer : tell me in detail how your livelihood has changed? Haymanot: we used to plough our plot by paying daily labourers but now we have no money and we use sharecropping. ... we used to eat ambasha (bread) and drink tea but now we only eat injera [without sauce] and sometimes kolo. Interviewer: what is the reason? Haymanot: we don’t have much food at home and we have to eat accordingly... [in the past] we had enough food, sometimes injera and most of the time bread with wot....[now] sometimes I eat kolo all day. [previously] we used to eat bread and tea as breakfast, injera with wot as lunch, supper after school and then dinner. Interviewer: what about now? Haymanot: now we sometimes eat injera. Haymanot expected a better life than her parents have had: ‘I will live a better life if I am rich... I will be educated if I go to school, if not I will work... I will plough my own farm and own livestock’. She did not want her children to work and said ‘I will take care of them properly... I don’t want to be worried about my life’. When asked: ‘what do you worry about now?’ She replied ‘Our food’. The positive side to her marriage is that it meant she has a rest from working. The previous three years had been hard because she had given up her job to look after her mother, who was still ill. Haymanot was doing all the domestic work, and now living with her husband in the same community as her mother, but in a better house –and her life is better because ‘we have enough farm products’