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Essa Chanie Mussa

Social and Economic Policy Researcher

Essa is an Innocenti consultant based in Ethiopia and is an Assistant Professor at the department of Agricultural Economics, University of Gondar, Ethiopia. He is also a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at the Center for Evaluation and Development (C4ED) – Ethiopia. Essa works at the intersection of education, health, and behavioral economics, with particular interest in social protections, labor markets, and human capital. Currently, Essa is coordinating ongoing research activities under the Transfer Project on the Integrated Safety Net Program (ISNP) impact evaluations and the Gender Responsive and Age Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) research streams in Ethiopia. He holds PhD in Development Economics from University of Bonn, Germany.

Publications

Improving Children’s Health and Nutrition Outcomes in Ethiopia: Qualitative midline evaluation of the ISNP in Amhara
Publication

Improving Children’s Health and Nutrition Outcomes in Ethiopia: Qualitative midline evaluation of the ISNP in Amhara

Integrated social protection programmes are increasingly being pursued as more effective and efficient ways to improve children’s health and nutrition outcomes.
Improving Children’s Health and Nutrition Outcomes in Ethiopia: A qualitative mid-line evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Programme in Amhara
Publication

Improving Children’s Health and Nutrition Outcomes in Ethiopia: A qualitative mid-line evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Programme in Amhara

Integrated social protection programmes are increasingly being pursued as more effective and efficient ways to improve children’s health and nutrition outcomes.
Child Marriage and Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program: Analysis of protective pathways in the Amhara region
Publication

Child Marriage and Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program: Analysis of protective pathways in the Amhara region

Emerging evidence suggests that social protection programmes can have a positive role in delaying marriage for girls. But the pathways and design features by which programmes may influence child marriage outcomes remain unknown. This mixed-methods study explores whether and how the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, given its national reach and potential to address poverty, can also affect child marriage practice. It draws on descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from an ongoing impact evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Program (ISNP) pilot in the Amhara region. It finds that PSNP, through an economic channel, is effective in reducing financial pressures on families to marry off girls and in improving girls’ education opportunities. Income-strengthening measures must, however, be accompanied by complementary efforts – including girls’ empowerment, awareness-raising and legal measures – to transform deep-rooted social and gender norms and attitudes that perpetuate the harmful practice of child marriage.

Journal articles

Impact of community-based health insurance on health services utilisation among vulnerable households in Amhara region, Ethiopia
Journal Article

Impact of community-based health insurance on health services utilisation among vulnerable households in Amhara region, Ethiopia

Knowledge of and access to frontline workers among poor, rural households in Amhara region, Ethiopia: a mixed-methods study
Journal Article

Knowledge of and access to frontline workers among poor, rural households in Amhara region, Ethiopia: a mixed-methods study

Linking poverty-targeted social protection and Community Based Health Insurance in Ethiopia: Enrolment, linkages, and gaps
Journal Article

Linking poverty-targeted social protection and Community Based Health Insurance in Ethiopia: Enrolment, linkages, and gaps