Social Protection Coverage in Ethiopia A Fact-Finding Report Based on the ILO-Social Security Inquiry (SSI) Data Collection Tool

This fact-finding report provides a comprehensive baseline of the country's social protection schemes, expenditures, and institutional frameworks by utilizing the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Social Security Inquiry (SSI) data collection tool to monitor Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 1.3.1. Jointly supported by the ILO and Ethiopia's Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, the document highlights a stark contrast between rapidly expanding health and nutrition initiatives and lagging cash benefit coverage. Key highlights reveal that while the Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) has successfully expanded to cover 40.1% of the population and the School Feeding Programme has scaled up dramatically to feed 7.6 million children, overall cash-based social protection remains critically limited, covering just 5.8% of the population when in-kind programs are excluded. Furthermore, the report underscores severe structural gaps and gender inequalities driven by a massive informal economy, noting that 94.2% of the population is left without any cash benefits, a mere 4.2% of older persons receive a pension, and only 0.3% of individuals with severe disabilities are reached. To bridge these gaps, the report concludes with an urgent call to boost domestic financial investments, lower dependency on external donors, and establish a centralized, digitized national database to improve cross-agency coordination and real-time data tracking.