Background
Ethiopia has a broad and diverse civil society sector, working in many different areas. However, a common theme in all these organizations is the aim of reducing poverty. In light of this civil society is keen to engage with the government on the policies that could reduce poverty. Many organizations saw the launch of the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Policy (SDPRP) process, Ethiopia’s first PRSP, by the government as an opportunity to feed into policy processes.
In order to facilitate this participation, the NGOs’ PRSP Taskforce was established in 2001. This task force produced the ‘NGO’s perspective on PRSP for Ethiopia’ which outlined civil society’s perspectives on the necessary policies for poverty reduction and was shared with the government during the consultation process.
Following strategic planning workshops in 2004, aimed at strengthening CSO engagement in the SDPRP, the decision was taken to transform the taskforce into a strong and specialized network in order to facilitate the proactive and continuous involvement of civil society in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of poverty reduction programs and strategies for bringing sustainable development in Ethiopia.
Poverty Action Network of civil society organizations in Ethiopia (PANE) was established in March 2004 and legally registered with the Ministry of Justice in January 2005. It was re-registered as a consortium of Ethiopian Residents and Foreign Charities in accordance with Charities and Societies proclamation 621/2009 on February 12, 2010 and secured its re-registration certificated bearing number 1509. The Name of the Network has been slightly amended as ‘Poverty Action Network in Ethiopia (PANE). PANE currently has more than 50 Ethiopian Resident and Foreign charities as its members.