Through activities, video clips and photocards pupils get an inside view on the lives of eight children from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. Beginning from these children's experiences, the pack examines the UN Millennium Development Goals - a set of targets drawn up by world leaders to reduce poverty, improve education and healthcare, and create a sustainable environment.

One of the objectives of Young Lives is to develop a replicable and relatively low-cost methodology that can be used to study childhood poverty over time. The main purpose of this document is, therefore, to provide guidance for developing country government, NGO and research professionals interested in conducting similar research and advocacy work on childhood poverty. It outlines the approach taken by Young Lives, drawing on experience and lessons learned to highlight important issues to consider.

Abstract: This paper presents a case study to illustrate the range of decisions involved in designing a sampling strategy for a complex, long-term research study. It is based on experience from the Young Lives project and identifies the approaches used to sample children for long-term follow-up in four countries. The rationale for decisions made and the resulting benefits, and limitations, of the approaches adopted are discussed. It is particularly important to choose samples which will yield data to enable useful analysis.

Establishing panel studies – long-term studies where a cross-sectional sample of units is selected and surveyed at regular intervals – is difficult in developing countries. This difficulty is due to the absence of the long-term surveillance systems usually found in developed countries. Studies in developing countries need to be carefully designed to ensure that all necessary information is captured at the outset. Data must be maintained in a format suitable for long-term analysis. The initial study is particularly important.