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Young Lives Newsletter
December 2024
Message from Young Lives Director, Marta Favara
As 2024 draws to a close, I am deeply proud of the team’s achievements this year, delivering ambitious research to policy impact amidst challenging times and multiple, interconnected global crises.
I have been honoured to lead Young Lives as Director since May, and to see one of my first priorities, a ground-breaking new Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks, quickly become a reality. Having swiftly secured seed funding, we are now poised to generate, for the first time, important policy-relevant evidence on the long-term effects of climate change and environmental shocks on human development across the life-course. I am particularly pleased that we have been able to rapidly connect to multidisciplinary networks both here in Oxford and beyond to work on this critical topic. Most recently, Young Lives participated in COP29, in Azerbaijan showcasing our evidence on the life-course and the inter-generational impacts of rainfall shocks on children’s nutritional health, physical growth, skills development and learning, and advocating for better social protection for disadvantaged households in disaster prone regions.
We have continued to drive Young Lives research to policy impact during 2024, both internationally and in our study countries. In March, in New York, we launched a new photo exhibition to convey our ground-breaking evidence on skills development and the potential for social programmes to remediate early disadvantage, and went on to work closely with leading thinkers at a high-level international policy event at Wilton Park, in support of the UK’s new Global Campaign for Women's Economic Empowerment.
I want to congratulate the Young Lives team in our study countries and in Oxford, who have worked incredibly hard to complete Round 7 of our long running survey, including pivoting to a phone survey where on-going conflict made face to face interviews impossible in Amhara, Ethiopia. Following months of impressively diligent work digesting the data, I am delighted that we will be sharing key findings early next year - watch this space! Next year, we will conduct further innovative research to understand more about young people’s education trajectories, including through interdisciplinary collaboration on poverty and skills development, as well as their family and work lives, physical and mental health and well-being, and the impact of shocks and crises.
I am so pleased to announce the launch of the next wave of qualitative research in Ethiopia in this newsletter. Alongside the recent 5th qualitative wave in Peru, findings from which you can read about below, this firmly rekindles Young Lives' mixed methods approach which is so key to both understanding young people’s lived experience through turbulent times, and generating policy-relevant research to improve lives.
And so, with a dedicated and capable team, and long- standing collaborations, Young Lives has gone from strength to strength in 2024 and I look forward with great optimism to 2025.
I thank you all for your support and interest in Young Lives and wish you a both peaceful end to 2024, and a Happy New Year.
New Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks secured
We are delighted that Young Lives has secured seed funding from Oxford University’s Social Science Division to lay the foundations of a new Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks. The Hub will span multiple disciplines and use pioneering research methodology, to provide unique evidence on the effects of climate change and environmental shocks.
We are looking to partner with like minded individuals,corporations or foundations to help deliver our ambitious new Hub. Contact Young Lives Director, Marta Favara for more details.
Young Lives evidence on climate impacts: COP29
Young Lives Deputy Director Kath Ford attended COP29 in Azerbaijan, speaking at two events, a panel discussion organised by Indian public think tank the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), focused on climate resilience in healthcare for low- and middle-income countries, and a round table convened by Global Young Greens.
Kath discussed Young Lives’ findings on the impact of extreme weather events on children’s development, including their nutritional health, physical growth, skills and learning, and advocated for better social protection for disadvantaged households in disaster prone regions, particularly for vulnerable girls and women.
Sixth wave of qualitative research in Ethiopia
We are about to launch a sixth wave of qualitative longitudinal research in Ethiopia! It will investigate how young people have been navigating the multiple crises of recent years and in particular, how this has affected their health and well-being. Young people will be interviewed across two age cohorts, 23 – 24 years and 30 – 31 years, from five communities across Ethiopia's regions. Interviews get underway early next year.
The findings will be used to make suggestions that can influence policy to support young people as they navigate the complex and interconnected challenges Ethiopia's youth face today.
Alula Pankhurst discusses new qualitative research in Ethiopia in our latest podcast episode.
Tune in to hear Alula discuss the importance of Young Lives' mixed methods approach, and how the latest qualitative research has been devised with a specific focus on young people’s health and well-being, what the research aims to discover and how the findings will be shared to shape policies.
Let us know what you think and do share!
New research young Peruvian's well-being
Analysis of Young Lives latest qualitative data in Peru finds young people’s well-being is shaped by what is happening in their education, work, financial and family lives, and the opportunities that are open to them. Despite the severe impact of the pandemic on young people’s well-being, they showed resilience, using family support networks, connecting via technology and adapting to new forms of work.
Round 7 reflections: Fieldwork Coordinator Videos
The Young Lives longitudinal study relies on a dedicated team of fieldworkers who, for more than 20 years, have been collecting data from 12,000 study participants in various regions across Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam.
Fieldwork Coordinators Chani Ejigu (Ethiopia), Sofia Madrid (Peru) and B Narsaiah (India), describe some of the challenges faced by their teams during our recent Round 7 data collection process, in this short video, just released.
Click the link to watch their full interviews on our You Tube channel, where they explain the work involved in setting up the data collection teams; the methods used to collect the data; and the challenges and surprises they encountered whilst in the field.
Young Lives evidence features in government bill on access to education in Peru
A bill containing Young Lives Peru/ Niños del Milenio longitudinal research evidence was presented by Congresswoman Flor Pablo Medina to the country's parliament in November. The important bill proposes a flexible approach to education which would enable more than 1 million young people, affected by poverty, disability, violence and other factors, to return to school, accessing their right to a quality education. We'll keep you posted on what happens next!
Debating development policy in India
Our country teams continue to speak out how to improve children and young people's lives. India Country Director Dr Renu Singh drew on Young Lives evidence to call for the need to recognise child poverty as multi-dimensional, at an International Day for the Eradication of Poverty event – Spotlight on Children.
Dr Singh also recently contributed to a round table convened by the Confederation of Indian Industry in partnership with UNICEF Private Sector Engagement in Inclusive Early Child Development (ECD). The event brought together policymakers, industry leaders and ECD experts to develop innovative strategies to ensure holistic care and development reaches all children in India.
New Graphic: Our research themes explained!
The team here at Young Lives organises our research programme under a number of interconnected themes. These are Education and Skills, Employment, Health and Well-being, and Family Lives, with the cross-cutting themes Gender, Poverty and Inequalities, and Shocks and Crises: Climate, Covid and Conflict.
Follow the link to our website to read more about our research themes.
News from the Young Lives team
We're excited that Harmonie Limb has joined the Young Lives team in Oxford as our new Programme Manager. Harmonie brings a wealth of experience and expertise, having worked in programme management for many years at Oxfam and more recently the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Welcome to the team Harmonie!
See you in the New Year!
This is the final Young Lives newsletter of 2024 but we look forward to sharing more groundbreaking Young Lives research with you - in particular our Round 7 survey results - in the new year.
In the meantime, we echo Marta's thanks for your support over the past twelve months and wish you a happy and healthy festive season and New Year. See you in 2025!
Don't forget to follow us on our other social media accounts; you can find the links below.
If you have any questions or comments about this newsletter please contact Young Lives Head of Communications, Julia Tilford at julia.tilford@qeh.ox.ac.uk.
