Exploring Potential Intervention Strategies to Reduce Unsafe Youth Migration in Ethiopia: a Mixed Methods Study

There is dearth of evidence on what interventions help to reduce unsafe youth migration in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aimed primarily to identify interventions that may help to reduce unsafe youth migration from the perspectives of key stakeholders in Ethiopia. A mixed methods study was conducted in eight migration hotspot areas. For the qualitative study, fifty-six in-depth interviews and thirty-two focus group discussions (FGD) were done to collect data. Quantitative data were collected from students (n = 800), teachers (n = 240), and parents (n = 160). We developed a structured questionnaire to collect data. Descriptive statistics, t test and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. We identified potential interventions to reduce unsafe youth migration and grouped them into five domains: awareness and attitudinal/behavioral changes, training and job opportunities, enhancing governmental and parental roles, improving the education system, and law enforcement and migration management. More than 80% of the survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the interventions identified are potentially relevant and effective. Respondents who are older compared to those who are younger and respondents who are more educated compared to those who are less educated were more likely to endorse the interventions. Teachers and parents were more likely than students to endorse the interventions. The study indicates that the qualitative study helped to identify contextually relevant intervention strategies that would potentially be effective to reduce unsafe youth migration in Ethiopia. We suggest that there is a need to prioritize and empirically test the effectiveness of these intervention strategies with experimental studies.