Linear trends are assumed to forecast the costs of programmes for which future data is unavailable.3 Under the costed scenario, real expenditure on social protection programmes is projected to increase from ETB 25.5 billion in 2016/17 to ETB 44.7 billion in 2025/26. As Chapter 1 demonstrates, social protection spending between 2012/13 and 2015/16 was stable at around 1.4% of GDP once emergency assistance was excluded. As a result, the fifth scenario projects the cost of maintaining social protection spending at 1.4% of GDP and assumes that humanitarian relief will be considered a distinct area of spending. The costed scenario is not affected by GDP growth but nonetheless increases in real terms over this period. As a result, they can be netted out from total social protection expenditure when calculating the level of tax and non-tax revenues and external assistance needed to finance future social protection spending. Social protection spending that is financed solely through general revenues is hereafter termed “net social protection spending”.