Young Lives’ work expands internationally and is conducted by a team based at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development, led by former Director, Professor Jo Boyden. The organisation’s main focus is to incorporate children’s views and perspectives in policies to deliver better overall health and well-being for children who work. It seeks to analyse and understand the causes and consequences of childhood poverty and its changing nature and trends over time as communities evolve, and thus inform the implementation of future policies.

In aligning its research and policies with key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), its themes include poverty and inequality, health and nutrition, education, adolescence, youth and gender, child protection, and skills and work.

Young Lives follows the lives of 12,000 children over four developing countries, consisting of India, Peru, Ethiopia and Vietnam. These four case studies provide diverse ethnic groups, communities and economic circumstances on which to conduct research, delivering diverse results which allow the project team to identify trends and potentially make comparisons between the changing nature of childhood poverty in different locations around the world.

The organisation aims to, as much possible, respond to the interests of policymakers. One way is by bringing policymakers closer to the issues surrounding young children’s lives by providing qualitative and statistical evidence. An example is ‘Changing lives in a changing world’, a book published by Young Lives, featuring stories told directly by individual children about their lives growing up, such as balancing work and education, their families, as well as their aspirations and dreams regarding the future.

Aim:

To shed light on the drivers and impacts of child poverty and generate evidence to help policymakers design programmes that make a real difference to poor children and their families.

• Irish Aid
• Bernard van Leer Foundation
• Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Children’s Investment Fund Foundation
• Oak Foundation
• UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti
• Royal Norwegian Embassy in Hanoi
• William and Flora Hewlett Foundation