Recent research on child migration has largely departed from the early trafficking narrative and has tended to highlight young people's agency and the ways in which children's migration can play a key role in their 'future-seeking'. While we acknowledge that Ethiopian girls migrating to the Middle East in order to undertake domestic work primarily move voluntarily for economic reasons, our research – which used a multi-layered, qualitative research approach with girls and their families in the West Gojjam and North Wollo Zones of the Amhara National Regional State – found that the financial, physical, and psychological costs of such migration can far outweigh the benefits. Indeed, we conclude that the earlier trafficking narrative may, in this case, represent the most appropriate lens through which to view girls' choices and experiences.

This article explores efforts to bridge multi-disciplinary research and policy engagement to tackle child poverty in the contexts of developing countries, based on the experiences of Young Lives, an international longitudinal policy-research project. It focuses on a case study involving the application of research evidence on child poverty to shape policy debates concerning Ethiopia's second-generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2006-2010). The discussion is situated within theoretical literature on the interface between knowledge, policy, and practice, which supports the conceptualisation of policy making as a non-linear dynamic process. It pays particular attention to the importance of understanding the political and policy contexts of Southern countries, rather than assuming that they should simply import Northern-derived models of advocacy. It concludes by identifying general lessons for translating research into social-policy change.

The complexities of intergenerational and gendered intra-household resource allocations are frequently overlooked in poverty reduction policies. To address this lacuna, this article focuses on links between macro-development policies and children's paid and unpaid work burden in Ethiopia. Using a mixed methods approach, quantitative household survey data results highlight the importance of household wealth and assets, family composition and access to education services, while the qualitative results underscore the role of culturally ascribed gendered and age-specific conceptualizations of work, parental attitudes and children's agency. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges national development plans need to address to tackle childhood poverty more effectively.

This paper emphasises that malnutrition cannot be tackled without understanding its causes. Child malnutrition remains a major public health problem in Ethiopia, yet the government has no specific nutrition policy. Levels of wasting (acute malnutrition) and stunting (chronic malnutrition) in children aged six to fifty-nine months are among the world’s highest. As long as so many children remain malnourished, Ethiopia will not achieve the first Millennium Development Goal – eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.

This paper describes childhood poverty in Ethiopia and reviews the policies expected to have an impact on childhood poverty. It identifies key stakeholders for the Young Lives study, describes the methods used during the first round of Young Lives research in Ethiopia, and presents preliminary results. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 168 out of 173 countries according to UNDP’s 2002 Human Development Index. About 44 per cent of Ethiopia’s population were living in absolute poverty in 1999/2000. Eighty nine per cent of children under five and 88 per cent of all children under fourteen lived under precarious conditions with limited or no access to basic services. Furthermore, with over 85 per cent of the population living in rural areas, the issue of rural poverty is of urgent importance. Food security is a key concern for rural households, and the majority of households in rural areas are not able to produce food to last throughout the year. Furthermore, 83 per cent of the rural population has no access to safe drinking water, compared to eight per cent of the urban population. The Ethiopian government has expanded its health-care services in the last five years. Although there have been improvements in access to maternal and child health-care, many children are still not receiving the vaccinations they require. Education has also seen improvements and overall net primary school enrolment has increased substantially. 66 per cent of children from the ages of seven to twelve remain out of school, however, and further improvements need to be made. Ethiopian policymakers stress the importance of economic development and argue that growth will reduce poverty and achieve economic stability. Policies relating to health and education have emphasised improved services and increased access and use. Decentralisation and good governance are also key aspects of government policy, and have been central in government measures aimed at restructuring Ethiopian political and economic systems and institutions since 1991. Based on Young Lives research in Ethiopia, the authors here present preliminary findings focusing mainly on urban and rural differences, and on differences based on the socio-economic status of the household. Provisional conclusions and implications for policy are drawn from the study related to questions of education, health, nutrition, access to services, household diversification, economic shocks, psychosocial well-being, and child labour.

One of the main objectives of the Ethiopian Poverty Reduction Strategy (2002-05) was to expand primary school enrolment and provide more equitable and higher quality education. However, only the access-related targets set out in the Education Sector Development Plans I (1996-2001) and II (2002-05), have been achieved. The quality of primary education has mostly declined, with marked shortages of qualified primary school teachers and textbooks, and increasing class sizes and dropout rates. There is little information on the possible determinants of educational attainment outcomes in Ethiopia, yet it is crucial to understand factors affecting the quality of education. This paper addresses some key factors influencing children’s education completion rates and achievement scores. It looks at the relative importance of the school and family environment and individual child characteristics in determining child grade completion or dropout in primary school; the relative importance of investment in school quality in determining students’ educational achievement; and the extent to which the Education Sector Development Programme reflects the determinants of children’s primary school completion rates and educational achievement scores identified in this paper. Based on quantitative and qualitative data collected by the Ethiopia Young Lives study on childhood poverty, this paper involves survey data from 1,000 households with eight-year-old children collected in 2002 and qualitative data collected in 2005. Its key findings are that school completion rates are shaped by birth order, sex of the child, household wealth, household composition, parental education, school access, school quality and post-1996 policy changes. Additionally, it presents findings that children’s educational achievement is significantly affected by sex of the child, child labour, child satisfaction with school, caregiver social capital (social networks and support), parental education levels and household wealth. The author draws on research findings to propose a number of implications for the second round of the Education Sector Development Programme. These include measures to combat poverty, improve childcare and school systems and promote gender equality, adult education, educational quality, community mobilisation and child participation.

Ethiopia is one the world’s poorest countries with one of the highest rates of child malnutrition. The poor nutritional status of Ethiopian children is well documented, but the causes and relative importance of various determinants of malnutrition are not well understood. Ethiopia thus lacks an integrated cross-sectoral policy to guide nutrition programmes and interventions. While the literature on child malnutrition suggests gender- and location-related differences in malnutrition rates, this has not been investigated in detail, particularly in Ethiopia. Other factors such as household composition (sex and age), social capital, marital status, economic shocks and food aid are presented in the literature, but their impacts are little discussed. This paper shows that priority should not be given to one element of infant malnutrition – such as food security, public health or gender. Ensuring better nutrition for children requires a strategic, evidence-informed combination of approaches. Based on Young Lives research in Ethiopia, it explores some of the less obvious factors affecting children’s nutritional status. The overall objective is to examine the causes of children’s nutritional status using weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), an internationally accepted indicator. The paper focuses on considering differences between boys and girls and urban and rural areas. Since many of these children are engaged in paid or unpaid work, an attempt is also made to find out whether there is any relationship between child wasting (acute malnutrition with low weight-for-height) and child work.