‘Pen, book, soap, good food, and encouragement’: Understandings of a good life for children among parents and children in three Ethiopian communities

Confronting the ‘universal’ with the ‘local’ has become an important theme within development, contesting growth-led development strategies and uniform approaches to policy and programming. From an empirical perspective, however, the local appears multiple and contested, and the universal equally local, given that all ways of thinking are specific to particular times, places, and purposes. This understanding presents a challenge to interventions to reduce child poverty, which are typically underpinned by models of good childhoods drawn from Euro-American contexts and may neglect crucial aspects of children’s experiences. This chapter contributes to this debate from the bottom-up by reporting the diverse opinions of Ethiopian children and their caregivers on what constitutes a good or bad life for children, elicited primarily through group interviews and activities.