The objective of this study was to select and ‘groundtruth’ the impact of probable poverty-reducing projects implemented in Ethiopia by a range of NGOs, international and local. This ‘qualitative’ study of a purposively selected sample of NGO projects was intended to complement a more descriptive quantitative review of the overall range and impact of poverty-reducing NGO projects. Essentially, this study was searching for convincing demonstrations of good practice across the major poverty reduction activities.