• Existing evidences show that the major sexual and reproductive health problems of adolescents and youth in Ethiopia include risky sexual practices, child marriage, early child bearing, unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion and its complications and STIs including HIV.
• Use of and addiction to narcotic or psychotropic substances affects an individual’s health and psychosocial behaviors. In Ethiopia, addictive substances such as Khat, tobacco and alcohol are widely used by adolescents and youth.
• Stigma, service costs, provider bias, and lack of youth friendly services (YFS) pose formidable barriers to young people’s ability to access SRH services in Ethiopia. The public facilities that did serve young people failed to guarantee privacy and confidentiality, ultimately leading to a distrust of the system, and resulting in poor SRH service use among adolescents and youth.
• Regarding WASH despite the progress seen in Ethiopia, half of the population does not have access to an improved water source and practice open defecation. The National WASH Inventory (NWI) report of 2019 also indicates that the majority of health facilities in Ethiopia lack access to clean water and limited to have access to safe water. Moreover, childhood deaths are associated with diarrhea which remains the third leading cause of under-five mortality attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene.

Ethiopia, natural resources are under the influence of various interconnected factors like population pressure, agricultural expansion, migration, rapid urbanization, resettlement, climate change, and environmental pollution. Its huge population number had been putting a great burden on the sustainability of almost all types of natural resources. There is, therefore, serious degradation of land, water, forest, rangeland, and wildlife resources that appear to feed off each other. This results in severe soil loss, low vegetative cover, unsustainable farming practice, continuous use of dung and crop residues for fuel, overgrazing, and destruction and/or migration of wildlife, which again are intensifying the degradation of available resources in a vicious circle.

• Ethiopia has labor proclamation (2003) and policies to ensure decent work, enforcement remains a challenge and ensuring decent work among workers is at stake. Since most of the workers in industrial parks and in private sectors are young people, promotion of decent work has paramount importance for their career development, work place safety and for improved productivity. Most workers do not get fair income to survive, and often operate in unsafe and insecure workplaces and conditions. This is worse for women as compared to men. They do not have social protection scheme (particularly in the private and informal sector) and there is limited enabling environment to organize themselves, dialogue with responsible institutions and voice for their rights. In the face of promoting broad-based industrialization in the country, the issue of decent work is becoming a growing concern in Ethiopia.
• 5% of the ~110 million Ethiopians are under the age of 15 years while ~70% of the populations is under the age of 30 years. And this youth bulge is projected to remain at this level as the population grows to ~127 million by 2037. This youth bulge is accompanied by a moderate rate of unemployment of youth (15-24 years) in Ethiopia, with some projections noting a youth unemployment rate of 8% in 2014. Youth unemployment is more prevalent in urban areas compared to rural areas; however, the youth unemployment rate in rural areas is confounded by the high rates of underemployment for rural youth.

• Ethiopia’s youth has the potential to play a significant role in the country’s socio-economic and political development. The National Youth Policy (2004) recognizes the importance of youth, ”to participate, in an organized manner, in the process of building a democratic system, good governance and development endeavors, and benefit fairly from the outcomes”. Participation of youth is increasingly recognized by the public authorities, following the government’s strategy to involve youth in decision-making processes. As a result, state agencies and ministries now invite representatives of youth federations during the approval of youth-related policies. Importantly, the Ethiopian Youth Federation was established in 2009 and is composed of regional youth federations, which themselves consist of various youth associations in order to involve youth in the development of the country at both the local and national level. However, there are many barriers that hinder youth’s active participation in socio-economic, political and cultural life, including persistent gender inequality, youth poverty, and a lack of recreational activities. The government recognises ‘the lack of entertainment facilities; scarcity of public library services; and the lack of physical education training institutes’. Most youth have limited awareness of youth policies and there is little evidence that young Ethiopians are involved in the decision-making processes and the livelihoods of their communities. Moreover, participation in volunteering programs and use of youth centre services is still limited, especially for young women.
• Civic participation has been defined as individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern (American Psychological Association, 2007). However, there are many barriers that hinder youth’s active participation in socio-economic, political and cultural life, including persistent gender inequality, youth poverty, and a lack of recreational activities. The government recognizes the lack of entertainment facilities; scarcity of public library services; and the lack of physical education training institutes. Most youth have limited awareness of youth policies and there is little evidence that young Ethiopians are involved in the decision-making processes and the livelihoods of their communities.
• Organized initiatives that seek to change official policy or legislation, or the manner in which these regulations are applied. Our efforts typically try to establish new policies, improve existing policies or challenge the development of policies that create a difficulty or an injustice for youth, particularly more vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.

Ethiopia is exposed to a wide range of hazards associated with the country’s diverse geo-climatic and socioeconomic conditions. Drought and floods represent major challenges, but a number of other hazards affect communities and livelihoods. These include: frost and hail, crop pests and diseases, livestock diseases, human diseases, conflict and other manmade hazards, landslides, earthquakes and urban and forest fires. Climate change is predicted to further increase exposure to climate-related and hydrological hazard. Ethiopia is vulnerable to this given the importance of agriculture for the overall economy and the livelihoods of poor households, and the scarce diffusion of irrigation and water-shed management practices.