"Advocacy Is Fighting for Our Rights by Teaching the Society": Young People on Their Successes, Challenges, and Motivations for Youth-led SRHR Advocacy in Ethiopia

"Youth-led advocacy as a concept is becoming increasingly familiar in development programmes, and in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programmes specifically. Yet, research on this topic is rather scarce."

This report, published by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), shares the findings of a study that sought to explore how young people advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Ethiopia. The research sought to understand the formal and informal structures of youth-led advocacy, to identify the characteristics that make them successful, and to learn what may be holding them back - all from the perspective of young people themselves. It was conducted as part of the Break Free! programme, which is designed to increase adolescents' access to SRHR information, education, and services in nine African countries by supporting advocacy towards decision-makers to improve legislation and policies that respond to adolescents' needs (see Related Summaries, below, for more information).

As explained in the report, "Youth-led advocacy is usually understood as young people meaningfully involved in every aspect of the advocacy process, from selecting the issue, the audience, the advocacy strategies, to conducting advocacy themselves, and to monitoring and evaluating. Youth-led advocacy can be more effective than adult-led advocacy on matters that are relevant to youth, and can support young people in civic engagement and representation. However, more studies are needed to fully grasp how youth-led SRHR processes unfold in practice in different contexts."

This study explored how young people advocate for SRHR in two areas in Ethiopia - Bahir Dar district and Addis Ababa. Specifically, it was designed to:

• assess who the main players in youth-led advocacy are in Ethiopia at national and Bahir Dar district level;
• investigate what the forms (means, set-ups) are of youth-led advocacy and youth participation in advocacy initiatives on SRHR that are present in Ethiopia;
• explore the motivations of young people to participate in advocacy;
• analyse the success factors and constraints for effective youth-led advocacy; and
• provide recommendations on how youth advocacy can be best facilitated in the Break Free! programme.

The study engaged three sequential methodologies: mapping of youth advocacy institutions, a desk review on youth advocacy initiatives, and interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) to understand the context on the ground. Interviews and FGDs were held with key informants and youth advocates (15-29 years old) to understand the landscape of youth-led SRHR advocacy in Ethiopia, as well as the challenges, successes, and motivations of young people. In total, ten in-depth interviews were conducted (5 with key informants, and 5 with youth advocates), and four FGDs were held with young people in both Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa. Data were analysed by both researchers using a pre-defined coding scheme based on the research objectives and using NVivo software.

The results, as summarised in the report, show that "Youth-led advocacy is understood by the participants as young people pushing for change and being at the forefront on issues concerning young people, at both community and policy level. Young people indicated that a prerequisite to youth-led SRHR advocacy was to raise awareness among communities and duty bearers on the importance of both youth opinions and SRHR. The findings indicate that there has been increasing attention to youth-led advocacy and SRHR advocacy in Ethiopia over the past few years. Yet, initiatives are at an infant stage and due to this, youth engagement in advocacy initiatives is not always optimally used, meaningful, or inclusive. Most youth-led advocacy activities were focused on community level work, such as awareness-raising and information-sharing activities.

The most popular form of organizing youth advocacy is youth councils that are associated with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), who are also identified as a major ally to youth-led SRHR advocacy. Being associated with an NGO increased the legitimacy of youth advocates, particularly towards government actors. At the same time, there is a high NGO dependency that makes youth-led advocacy reliant on outside funding. As such, youth-led advocacy is sometimes labelled as buying into a 'Western agenda', especially on SRHR topics. Furthermore, the majority of initiatives are not mainstreamed into existing government or community structures, possibly hindering its sustainability.

Young people particularly highlighted good youth-adult partnership, skill building, collaboration with allies, and organisation as a youth group as success factors to effecting youth-led SRHR advocacy. However, especially around the youth-adult partnership, young people were critical of the intentions of adults and mentioned to often feel misunderstood, underrepresented, or used tokenistically. Motivating factors among young people to take part in advocacy included the importance of SRHR, youth participation, and personal gains/incentives. Young men tended to participate more dominantly in NGO-initiated projects, whereas young women were more actively involved in school-based youth groups."

Based on the study, recommendations were formulated that could improve programming for meaningful and inclusive youth-led SRHR advocacy. Mainly intended for NGO allies, they include:

• Revise hiring policies to attract more young people as staff, and preferably a diverse range of young people.
• Initiate youth councils, and if/when there are youth councils, actively involve youth members in planning, designing, decision-making processes, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of activities.
• Allocate enough budget to youth councils to plan and execute work that is considered relevant by the youth.
• Diversify youth council membership by revising the requirements to ensure that a wider diversity of young people (including the less privileged) can become members, and compensate costs (e.g., travel costs) so that less privileged youth can participate as well.
• Offer fair financial compensation to young people who are not staff so they can be remunerated for their time, efforts, and incurred costs.
• With an eye to sustainability for continued youth-led advocacy, support the integration of youth-led advocacy groups and efforts into national/government-owned structures, since they have the legitimacy and often have good working relationships with government offices (depending on the focus/geographic area).
• Ensure that governments continue to work with youth representatives in their offices where this is already done, and strengthen youth structures to support youth participation in policymaking and implementation.
• Encourage and support independent youth groups working on advocacy. As experience in the Bahir Dar area has shown, what has been successful is that an existing community-based structure was strengthened to improve youth SRHR advocacy. It is recommended to continue working with already-existing community-based structures (e.g., school clubs, youth centres) and strengthen those, instead of adding new parallel structures.
• Especially because youth-led advocacy is at infant stage, support young people's skills development to manage and lead efforts.
• Coordinate youth councils to mobilise a stronger and more unified youth movement for SRHR advocacy. In addition, stronger coordination and unification can help to avoid double memberships and double burdens (or privileges) of youth who participate in several youth councils.

Click here for the English version of the 6-page Summary Report in PDF format.
Click here for the French version of the 6-page Summary Report in PDF format.