Ethiopia is an agrarian country where agriculture accounts for almost 85% of the total employment. Only 3.6% GDP is dedicated to health and life expectancy is 56 years (2012). 38.7% of the population lives below the poverty line1. This indicates that the majority of the population is unhealthy, poorly employed and very vulnerable to external shocks. In the absence of any form of basic safety nets, we can expect many Ethiopians to resort to debilitating coping strategies by undermining the importance of health, education. etc. Thus, there is a strong need for the provision of safety nets in these communities.
In the absence of insurance markets, Ethiopians found the establishment of informal community funeral associations, Idirs, an effective way to share risks. Idir guarantees socio-economic insurance to families of its members in the events of death and funerals through cash or labor contributions by the Idir members.
Idirs are socio-economic traditions that are both informal and bottom up thus enabling wider participation all over Ethiopia. They are so widespread today that they can be established by any community. They allow multiple memberships to diversify risks. Though the participation is mostly dominated by males, females can form their own Idirs as well. Idir, in fact, is becoming a critical source of social stability at a time when deaths from HIV/AIDS are increasing at an alarming rate among the Ethiopian youth. With risings mortality rates, Idirs guarantee victims respectful burials and ensure financial support to their families. Idirs have well defined rules and obligations, election system, membership status and hierarchies. In an environment where little or no markets exist to support the poor against shocks, association with Idirs resembles buying life insurance for their families.
Association with NGOs:
Though the city government has established Idir councils, more recently, NGO’s have been interested in capitalizing Idirs to achieve their greater goals for Ethiopia’s development. Because of cross cultural nature and widespread integration, Idirs form a perfect choice for the NGOs to channel their development work plans. Local NGOs and other organizations like ACORD or Catholic Relief Services (CRS) are already capitalizing this informal community network for broader development goals such as health, education, HIV prevention. The advantages to engage funeral societies into broader development activities are substantial, however, one ought to give more thought before using them as a channel to reach ‘broad development goals’.
If large investments are to be made within the Idirs to reach development goals, then its shortcomings should be considered as well. For starters, the informal nature would lack the formal enforcement capacity that a typical development project mandates in terms of meeting deadlines, activities, etc. On the same lines, there will be limited levels within and, differing levels across Idirs with respect to their financial, human and institutional capacity as they evolve to meet larger objectives.
What becomes of conflicts between the beneficiaries of the Idir i.e. the entire community which holds its membership and the beneficiaries of a specific development program? For example, if a project is targeted particularly towards farmers then one also needs to consider the consequences for the unskilled laborers working within the same community. If women rights are the development mandate, NGOs would face trouble in working through an Idir that has pre-established male leaders who exercise more influence and decision making power than the women. Thus in this way, the limited nature of Idir also serves as its own drawback.
Conclusion:
For small-scale community based projects, Idirs may be an ideal solution as they stimulate discussion within the local villagers, have a participatory spirit which encourages sustainability and social cohesion. However there is danger in using these indigenous institutions as an avenue for development. There is very little empirical research on how their functioning would unfold if we use them to implement development initiatives. Also, we know very little about how these associations function in times of drought when the need to inject NGO money is high but at the same individualism over community support is preferred. A role that some NGOs can play would be to enable them to be more self-reliant and sustainable. Or they could be used a channel only for reaching out and sensitizing the communities about development interventions. The former can be done through trainings on monitoring and evaluation, reporting, etc. so that the results of Idirs’ work are recorded and advocated for. However, if we proceed without proper research about the possible consequences of any intervention, we may find ourselves with a defunct informal social institution.
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