This research is carried out under the title of" A State of Volunteeri sm in Ethiopia". Thernresearch aimed at investigating the lega l, in stitutional, socio-cultural context in whichrnvolunteerism is being practiced and in addition, development programs of VI Os is assessed tornsee the level of alignment with that of the government development priority areas.rnKnowledge transfers from volunteers to local counterparts in host organizations is also one ofrnthe objectives of the research. In order to address the above li sted objectives, primary andrnsecondary data were collected through employing different data collection methods. Focusrngroup di scussions with volunteers and also in-depth interviews with six different VlOs andrntwo host organizations were carri ed out. In Addition, publi shed and unpublish ed materialsrnincluding books, researches, laws, policy and development plans, organizations' reports havernbeen intensive ly reviewed and made use of them.rnIt is found that voluntary specific law is nonexistent 111 Ethiopia. What exists is the draftrnlegislation on youth volunteerism which is required to be presented to the Parliament forrnratification. In relation to the legal framework, organizations specific Charters and bi-Iateralrnand multilateral agreements have been found to be a binding legal documents for some of thernvoluntary involving organizations. It has been also identified that there are very few VIOsrnoperating in Ethiopia as compared to the total number of civil society organizations in thernCountry. Moreover, volunteerism is also identified to be incorporated in only some of therngovernment sectoral and national plan. On the other hand, it is found that there is a goodrnlevel of alignment of VIOs development programs with that of the government developmentrnpriority areas. Focus is identified to be given to capacity building and skill transfer fromrninternational volunteers to national counterparts in host organizations.