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Towards shock-responsive social protection: lessons from the COVID-19 response in Ethiopia

National and international restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19 led to an economic downturn in Ethiopia which is likely to have pushed an additional 15 million people below the poverty line. This report documents the Government of Ethiopia’s social protection response to mitigate some of the negative impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations. It also analyses the factors that enabled and constrained the effectiveness of the response, at the policy and operational levels, and finds that a more extensive and timely response was undermined by a lack of financing and a social protection system that was designed to respond to droughts but was unprepared to respond to a novel type of shock such as COVID-19. Finally, the report provides an assessment of the response in terms of coverage, adequacy, comprehensiveness, timeliness and gender and social inclusion considerations.