Alula Pankhurst (PhD) is the Country Director of Young Lives, a position he has held since 2010. Young Lives is an international research initiative focused on childhood poverty, established in 2000 and active in four countries, including Ethiopia. The project is coordinated by a team at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development.
Alula, a British scholar and social development consultant whose work primarily centers on Ethiopia and Ethiopian studies, was born in 1962 and raised in Addis Ababa.
Pankhurst graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Arabic and Ge’ez. He obtained his MA in 1986 and earned a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester in 1989. He has held various roles in Ethiopia over the years, including serving as an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Addis Ababa University for 16 years.
He noted that while he no longer teaches, he continues to advise and examine graduate students.
In an interview with Abraham Tekle of The Reporter, Pankhurst shared the details of a recent study conducted by Young Lives, which examined the links between conflict, poverty, education, employment, family planning, and nutrition.
He emphasized that education and public awareness are essential to addressing the country’s current challenges and discussed the psychological impact of ongoing conflict on women and children, the disruption of education, and the rise in sexual violence and child labor.EXCERPTS:
The Reporter: Young Lives recently conducted three surveys focused on education, health, family planning and employment. Could you share the key findings from each of these surveys?
Alula Pankhurst (PhD): I think it would be better to look at them separately. In terms of education, we have seen that there has been a decrease in tertiary education enrollment and concerns about a fall in the levels of education. There have been relatively good developments in terms of women’s self-access to education—it has increased to some extent, though less so in the higher levels [of education].
The main issues are the question of quality, the decrease in quality, and the question of what happens in tertiary education, where there seems to be a bottleneck. We have omitted things to do with the entrance exam—the university entrance exam—but certainly, we have noted that. And comparing the two cohorts, we can see that there has been progress. Yet, there is a gap.
On health and nutrition, we see that undernourishment is still—though it has been increasing—an issue, with large proportions of the population still facing undernutrition and malnutrition. The food security problem has been serious, particularly in areas affected by conflict in Tigray and Amhara. We also saw much lower access to education in the two conflict areas, in Tigray and Amhara.
We also looked into a lot about mental health. And again, the symptoms of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder were very much in evidence in these conflict areas. High levels of anxiety and depression, generally among young people—probably a lot of worries about being able to establish their own households, all the constraints of rural areas, being able to find land or being given land when the parents haven’t got enough land to give them.
And then all the worries about finding jobs in urban areas and transitioning from being dependent on your parents to having your own household and getting married and having children. The transition has become particularly difficult for these young people because we had a series of crises—interrelated crises—starting with COVID, and then a lot of climate-related shocks with droughts, and then the conflict in the north of the country, unemployment, and the standard of living, and inflation. All of this has meant that young people’s normal transition—from learning to earning and from being dependent on their family, their parents, to setting up their own household—which is never very easy, has been particularly difficult for these young people.
We see a difference between the older cohort, who made that transition a bit earlier before this series of crises, and the younger cohort who are now 25, and they’ve gone through a very, very difficult period. So yes, we’ve highlighted a lot of the questions about the mental health burden for young people transitioning to adulthood. And then work and family life, with a third fact sheet also highlighting the questions of access to work and unemployment, and constraints facing young people, and opportunities to set up businesses or find jobs being relatively limited—and again, in the conflict areas, even much, much worse.
We’ve generally seen that there has been quite a difficult transition for young people to set up their household, to find work, and even finding housing for young people in urban areas is very, very difficult. And in rural areas, the parents haven’t got enough land to share. So, that transition to becoming self-sufficient is something which is delayed for many young people, making it a particularly difficult time for young people in their 20s.
What is your perspective on the potential implications of a recent WFP report indicating critical funding shortfalls?
We were talking to young people in their 20s, and so we were not really looking at the malnutrition of young children at this round, although many of them have children. But food insecurity in the households was something we measured, and that was clearly something that was quite a problem. One of the main ways of dealing with this is the safety net—the PSNP safety net. And if that is facing problems of funding and being scaled down, that is going to affect the more vulnerable people.
Because one of the most important findings of Young Lives is that when you look at the young people’s progression from their early childhood to early adulthood, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds—rural compared to urban, poorer households compared to wealthier ones—have far less good outcomes, whether it is in terms of education, jobs, their own households, food security, and so forth. The early deprivation in childhood has long-term implications up to adulthood. And so, that means that we can say quite confidently that one really has to work hard on improving food security, having safety nets.
School feeding is another thing. We were able to show that young people, children who did get access to food, can recover from stunting and malnutrition. So, it is quite important to have interventions not just in the first 1,000 days—which is obviously the best time to avoid malnutrition—but even later interventions, when children are in preschool and in primary, can do that. And we also were quite concerned that malnutrition in adolescents can have effects on the next generation.
If girls get pregnant in adolescence and they are malnourished at that time, then the likelihood of their children facing malnutrition and being underweight, being born underweight, and facing the kinds of deprivation rises. We can see that there are cycles of the intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality. That’s a second window. The first window is: you work on the infant. You try to ensure that there is supplementary feeding for the mother and the infant—the breastfeeding children don’t get malnourished. In a second window—you see that children can recover if they get good food when they are still quite small. And so that is where school feeding is really important.
And a third window in the life cycle is adolescence, and particularly adolescent girls—making sure they have adequate nutrition. Because we were also looking back, we were able to show that young women who had children—when we looked at the mothers of the children we’d been studying—and when we found that we studied the mothers even before they gave birth, and if they were malnourished, then the likelihood of the intergenerational transmission of malnutrition, and their children then being malnourished, clearly had long-term impact.
We’re talking not just about short-term problems, but ones which can go on through childhood to adulthood. And that’s why it’s really particularly important to have a focus on nutrition interventions to ensure that adolescent girls have a balanced diet at the time when they are pregnant and having their children.
Considering your expertise and the body of research you’ve conducted, what are the main etiological factors for violence against children and mothers in Ethiopia? What specific interventions, supported by evidence, have proven effective in mitigating this violence?
Well, our study doesn’t go directly to the causes of violence, and of course they are very multifaceted and interconnected. But, you know, when we have cycles of fighting going on in different regions and different sides becoming engaged in conflict, a sad side of that is that—even if the men, being fighters, are killed—we do find that violence against women and children is not uncommon, sadly, in war situations.
Violence against women—rape during the war context—and children not getting enough food is a particularly big risk in conflict situations. And so, the foundation, before you can start talking about growth and development, you have to first begin to address the conflict and find ways of reconciliation and moving forward. And that is something that needs to be done at a national level, involving elders and involving the different parties who are involved in conflict to try and settle the dispute, because that’s the minimum.
Without that, you can’t—even if you have good remedial programs, even if you have programs that involve food security and safety nets, even if you have credit programs for young people to have jobs and to be able to start businesses—if there isn’t the basic peace, then none of this will work.
So, it’s quite clear that that’s the starting point. It’s the thing without which you can’t do anything else. And what our study clearly demonstrates is that on all the indicators, the young people we talked to in Tigray and in Amhara had the worst outcomes in nutrition or education or work. All that has knock-on effects coming from the conflict, and so that has to be something that is given top priority.
Given the concerning escalation of gender-based violence in Ethiopia, particularly impacting school-aged girls, what are the most critical measures that should be implemented to strengthen response mechanisms and provide effective support?
This is a societal issue of violence against women. And part of it is a question of awareness-raising and education. In the context of war, it is clearly something that—an international convention tries to protect civilians and innocent people from the violence—but often there is collateral violence, and women and children often get caught up in the crossfire between opposing parties. So, it’s really important to try and think of ways in which that can be minimized.
And even outside the context of conflict, gender-based violence is a serious problem—whether it be the ways in which there are cases of young women being made to marry early, or having to undergo, against their consent, genital cutting, or various other ways in which girls are disadvantaged by not being able to continue their studies because their families think they would just get married or want them to get married.
Even the question of access to services by young women, and the gender aspect of work. One of our important findings was that young women work so much more in unpaid care work—three hours more than men. And so, that shows the sorts of inequalities of a patriarchal society, where women, even if they are employed, in addition have domestic duties that are way above the work that men do.
So, changing attitudes in society through awareness-raising, through legislation which gives women more rights is very important. And if women don’t have the opportunity or possibility to have support through child care or crèches and kindergartens—if that is not given a lot of importance—then women can’t engage properly in the workforce and earn money and be independent from being subservient to men in the household.
And Ethiopia has a low women’s workforce engaged in productive activity. Of course, women are doing all the unpaid work—a very large proportion of that—but for women to become more engaged in productive activity requires a lot of promotion and access to education and training. In addition, credit programs also have child care facilities that enable them to spend time in productive activity.
The recent AU report highlights a concerning convergence of factors impacting children: the recruitment of children as soldiers. Other reports also indicate that child marriage driven by ongoing conflicts and child labor as largely stemming from economic deficienciesis growing more common. What is your analysis of these interconnected issues, and what far-reaching implications could they have for African countries, including Ethiopia?
When we talk about child marriage, there are two very different kinds of phenomena. On the one hand, in some cases, families impose early marriage on girls—taking them out of school and marrying them off, sometimes completely against their will. But we also found that young women themselves sometimes choose to get married early, particularly when they lack opportunities for continued education or training, or when there are no work opportunities available. In such cases, early marriage can seem like the only viable path. To address this, it’s essential to expand the range of opportunities available to young women.
Another factor that can prompt early marriage is early pregnancy. This points to a need for much greater efforts around sexual and reproductive health—both in schools and through community-based services. If young women do not have access to information and contraception, they may become pregnant unintentionally. When that happens, they may face dangerous and unsafe abortions—often because they are afraid to talk to their families. They might turn to traditional healers or try to self-induce abortion, which can be fatal.
If they do become pregnant, they may be pushed into marriage, choose to have the child and raise it as a single mother, or face the risks of unsafe abortion. This highlights how critical access to adolescent sexual and reproductive health services is for addressing child marriage. So, rather than trying to ban child marriage outright or prevent young women from marrying, it is more important to ensure they have the services and support they need to make informed choices—even if they are not yet of legal age. Expanding access to education, work, training, and credit can empower girls to delay marriage because they have real alternatives.
Providing such alternatives enables them to choose when to marry, delay conception, and avoid having children too early—especially when their bodies are not ready for it. Access to reproductive health services also allows them to space out their pregnancies, participate in the workforce, and reduce the number of children they have over time. So, while the question of child marriage is complex, it is closely connected to broader issues—sexual and reproductive health, education, work, and even migration.
And likewise with child labor, it’s also quite a complicated topic. In many contexts, particularly in rural areas and among poor families, children are socialized into working early and contributing to the household. They are often proud to work for their families. Some of the young children we talked to actually earn an income through small trade activities, which allows them to cover their educational needs—to buy exercise books, uniforms, and so forth. In some cases, it’s the children’s own work that enables them to continue their studies.
Here, the simple idea that child work should be banned or stopped may not always be the best option for these children, nor is it necessarily what they want. We need to listen to families and children to understand their needs, especially in poor households where the family depends on children’s contributions to make ends meet. In some cases, children gain skills from working that lead to career opportunities, and they go on to do well in life.
Therefore, we should be cautious when discussing the idea of stopping child labor. What we should try to stop is excessive child work—long hours that interferes with schooling – or work in hazardous or dangerous conditions. Of course, as you mentioned, the issue of child soldiers is completely different—that is totally unacceptable and widely condemned under international conventions.
Rather than banning all child labor, it is more productive to focus on preventing excessive and exploitative child labor. Outright bans often drive child labor underground, where it becomes harder to monitor or address. At the same time, awareness-raising and protective measures are needed to address the worst forms of child labor.
A good example is the situation of domestic child workers—children who come to towns and work in households under very poor conditions. They often have no time off, sometimes do not get paid, or the wages are given to their parents or middlemen. This kind of exploitation clearly needs to be addressed. But we must avoid using this issue to say that all child work should be stopped. Some forms of work are positive, useful, and character-building, and they play an essential role in family survival. So, I would not want to present it in black and white terms. We should not say we must completely stop children from working.
Drawing upon your expertise in community-based social research, what are some concrete strategies for effectively leveraging existing traditional institutions within Ethiopia to advance and protect children’s rights?
Well, it requires cooperation at different levels and across different institutions. Clearly, there are government institutions that have a mandate to work on this topic—especially the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, which, in collaboration with international organizations like UNICEF, plays a very big role in promoting policies that are pro-children and support poor children.
This collaboration is necessary not only at the federal level, but also at the regional, woreda, and local levels. Government institutions are important in establishing safeguards that can help prevent child labor and child marriage and can play a very significant role in this regard. In addition to that, there is also a role for the legal institutions—such as the courts and the police—to set precedents and take action to stop the worst forms of exploitation and violence.
Much more important is working through communities—working with community leaders, working with religious leaders. And I think much of the violence against women and girls is perpetrated by men and very often by their own fathers, lovers, and husbands—not just by men they don’t know.
Changing the attitude of men, even starting in school, by promoting positive masculinity and encouraging young men to value women who are educated, independent, and who support them in finding work and finishing their education—is essential.
So, it requires a whole societal change, which means working at different levels. And it’s not just about talking with or working with women and girls. It may be just as important to talk to community leaders, religious leaders, men, and boys as it is to work with the girls. I think it all comes down to education and creating awareness in the general public.
Given the widespread displacement caused by ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia, what are the key ways in which internal migration and displacement undermine children’s rights, specifically their access to education, healthcare, and other essential services?
It’s a very serious issue. When you migrate outside your region because of fighting, you then often lose your right of access to services. You can’t easily get an ID, and without a Kebele ID, you can’t get access to even basic food. Perhaps the difficulty is opening a bank account, because you haven’t got an ID from that area. And so, the question of migrants is really quite serious—not just refugees from other countries, which is a big issue, but the internally displaced people (IDPs) are very often neglected. If they end up in camps, they often have very poor conditions and little access to food. Often, they are either not allowed to or can’t work. And so that is a very difficult situation.
And of course, wherever you have the families in this difficult situation, it is the women and children who suffer most—because the women have to go and collect water and fuel and work at home and look after the elderly and look after the children. And the children, if they don’t get the basic nutrition, if their access to education is limited, they are the ones who are going to be impacted. Access to healthcare is limited, the risks of disease and even death, malnutrition and morbidity, increase in IDP camps and refugee camps.
And so having the kind of legal framework and assistance modalities and having the ways in which social protection activities cover migrants is essential. And then also, of course, after displacement, there is the question of what happens after that—are the people who have been displaced able to go back to where they came from? Or can they stay and become integrated in places that they have moved to? Or can they be resettled in another place? Those are very important and complex issues. So, the question of displacement as a result of conflict, displacement as a result of development projects, displacement as a result of drought—all these things mean that there’s a very high burden, and Ethiopia has a very large proportion of displaced people. And they are often forgotten or their rights not sufficiently given attention.
And in particular, this affects women and especially children even more, because they are more vulnerable. If they are staying in camps, they will be more affected by bad weather, rain, lack of sanitation facilities, limited access to healthcare, not getting the proper vaccinations, or the children not going to school. And so much more emphasis on Ethiopia thinking through and having proper migration policies that safeguard the rights—any constitutional rights—of people to live and work in any part of the country and as a citizen is something which doesn’t seem to be given the kind of importance it probably deserves.
What key solutions would you recommend exploring to address these issues comprehensively?
I think one has to think of it partly sectorial and otherwise. There are also policy issues and program issues. Young Lives identified particular bottlenecks and problems in the education system, and so trying to make sure that we improve the context of quality of education and tertiary education. But also, we have, in earlier rounds, shown a lot of how critical and important access to preschool is, because that’s the foundation.
And part of the problem why we see a crisis in the education system is that children are not learning the foundational skills that they need, and that is also linked to nutrition. If they don’t get adequate nutrition, they don’t learn properly, and so that links to the question of school feeding, and it also links to social protection for families that are facing a food shortage. And so that requires really targeting and addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.
Ethiopia once had a stronger pro-poor agenda, and the international commitment to “Leave No One Behind” remains highly relevant today. This is especially important given the continued marginalization of certain groups—particularly along gender and age lines—and the specific challenges faced by displaced populations. Strengthening social protection systems and ensuring they are effectively linked to education and health services is critical.
These services must be responsive to the distinct needs of women and children and include safeguards against violence, especially in contexts of conflict, post-conflict, and displacement. These areas demand urgent and sustained intervention. In addition, the severe challenges young people face in transitioning from education to employment, along with the growing mental health crisis—exacerbated by conflict—must also be prioritized.
