A data revolution for children

Katell Le Goulven, the Chief of Policy Planning at UNICEF Headquarters explains why data is central to UNICEF's work for children , as illustrated by the stories in this blog. 

•  Accounting for the growing number of children orphaned by Ebola in the middle of Guinea’s dense rain-forest helps bring them the care and support they desperately need.

• The field of early childhood development is being redesigned thanks to recent evidence from neuroscience demonstrating how nature and nurture are inextricably linked during the early development of the human brain.

•  New data shows that child mortality rates are falling faster than ever in part due to affordable, evidence-based interventions against the main infectious diseases. I could go on…

In Rukoro neighbourhood, Musanze, Rwanda, cell phones powered RapidSMS are being used to register and monitor expecting mothers. If there are any questions, complications or updates, health workers simply send a text to their local clinic and receive a response within minutes. 
© UNICEF/RWAA2011-00482/Noorani

 Learn more about UNICEF’s work on data for children and MICS.

Investments in data on children were bolstered a couple of decades ago by the World Summit for Children where world leaders committed to “establish appropriate mechanisms for the regular and timely collection, analysis and publication of data required to monitor relevant social indicators relating to the well-being of children”. And, later on, by the Millennium Development Goals.

Advancements since then have been significant. In 1990, 29 low- and middle-income countries had trend data on child malnutrition. Today 107 do, largely thanks to data collected via increasingly sophisticated household surveys.

More recently, the digital age ushered forth an era when the amount of data is rising exponentially; new data analytics allow us to answer different types of questions than was previously possible; and new technologies helps us do some of what we do, faster and cheaper.

Mobile data helped report 18 million births in Nigeria in 2011-12, and bring down the time to trace and reunify disaster-affected families in Uganda from weeks to hours. SMS surveys have helped reduce malaria medicine stock-outs by 80% in Uganda and young people are engaging in shaping decision making on HIV/AIDS in Zambia.

The recently coined “data revolution” refers to the potential of this ever-expanding and evolving data ecosystem to improve human well-being. These opportunities, however, will not automatically translate into something positive for all. To be sure, the data revolution also raises fundamental rights issues related, for instance, to having an identity and being accounted for, privacy, legitimate use, ownership, participation, and equity and non-discrimination.

These, in turn, question the suitability of our current data policies and governance structures.

People’s well-being should be at the heart of how these policies evolve. And particular attention should be given to children and youth because many risks affect them more specifically. Across the world, children and youth are growing up in a digital world, and data about them will be tracked for much of their lives. While data may help save the lives of many, others may not be aware that their interaction with technology is creating profiles that could impact their future.

A few days ago, I participated in a meeting of experts asked to prepare a report on the data revolution for the UN Secretary-General. During two days, specialists from the statistics, big data, open data, academia and the UN worlds brainstormed on the definition of the “data revolution” and its role to fill in persisting data gaps, to enhance accountability, to track progress towards sustainable development and to empower people.

While participants brought different perspectives to the table, all acknowledged the role of data as a key driver of sustainable development. Consultations held on the second day put the spotlight on the role of data for fostering openness and inclusion and unpacked the opportunities and challenges associated with big data.

These consultations continue online. You can join the conversation and help design a data revolution that works for the benefits of today’s children and of future generations. Submit your ideas here.

Katell Le Goulven is the Chief of Policy Planning at UNICEF Headquarters in New York.

This blog first appeared on the UNICEF Connect blog, here. 

Protecting Children in Conflict Zones

This ProgBlog article, will focus on the destructive affects of conflict on children and the need  the issue to be a priority when the final post-2015 framework is put in place. The article is part of the Wikiprogress Post 2015 series.

"Millions of children inside Syria and across the region are witnessing their past and their futures disappear amidst the rubble and destruction of this prolonged conflict," Anthony Lake, UNICEF Chief

Since the Syrian Civil War erupted mid way through March 2011, 70,000 people have died, millions are said to be displaced and the battle scarred country has been segmented into areas controlled by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and those who oppose him. Through articles, photos, tweets, Youtube videos, interviews, documentaries, and reports, the world has been witness to genocide in, second by second detail, experiencing the hopeless situation in all the exactitude that modern information engines provide.

To mark the two year anniversary of the conflict, UNICEF and Save the Children have released up to date reports on the war’s devastating affect on Syria’s children. UNICEF notes that nearly half of the four million people in need of aid are under the age of 18 and 536,000 of them are children under the age of five. Furthermore, some 800,000 below the age of fourteen have been internally displaced, while more than 500,000 are spread across neighboring nations as refugees.

Similarly, Save the Children’s report 'Childhood Under Fire' details the impact of the war on children, showing that many are starving, living in pitiful conditions and are losing out on the chance of an education. Citing new research carried out in refugee camps by Bahcesechir University of Turkey, the report reveals that children have been specifically targeted in the war, with one in three children claiming to have been hit, kicked or shot. Instead of going to school, girls are being forced to marry early as a form of protection against the threat of sexual violence and the armed militias are using boys as porters, runners and human shields. One man, Safa, said:

‘I don’t think there is a single child untouched by this war. Everyone has seen death, everyone has lost someone. I know no one who has not suffered as we have. It is on such a scale.’

Save the Children warns that the conflict had brought about ‘a collapse in childhood’ echoing UNICEF’s caution that Syria’s children risk becoming ‘a lost generation’. We need only look at how the lengthy conflict in Somalia catalyzed a collapse in the country’s education system to know how war can curb the development of a country’s child population.

Both reports emphasize the necessity for governments to deliver the $1.5 billion pledged to the humanitarian appeal for Syria, which is designed to target aid both inside the decimated country and to refugees living on its borders and beyond. While STC and UNICEF scramble to acquire these funds, it is arguable that the international community must take a step back and readdress how it can better prevent the fallout of war and disasters.

The brutalities being enacted on Syria’s children is a strong example of why governments must try and find new solutions to deal with the changing nature of modern conflict, which, according to the Minister of International Development of Finland, Heidi Hautala, usually features child- and gender- based violence. On March 13^th, more than 100 delegates from over 20 countries met in Helsinki to urge the Post 2015 panel to make conflict prevention, violence reduction, peace building and disaster resilience an integral part of the final framework. The UN convened discussion agreed that despite the relative success of the Millennium Development Goals, they have not managed to fully encompass the vision of the Millennium Declaration, particularly in relation to human rights, justice and equality. In a similar vein, a statement from the Civil Society Core Group stipulated that ‘supporting change in conflict affected and fragile states is now a central challenge in international development.’ The document made a concise and practical list of suggestions for how the Post 2015 development agenda should prevent violent conflict in all societies and concluded with a call for the panel to:

‘build on the vision of the Millennium Declaration and upholds the right of all people to enjoy peace, security and human rights as essential elements of sustainable development.’

Only the coming years will tell if this grandiose statement can be realistically implemented, and if we are to turn our eyes back to Syria, its people will find little comfort in such words. However, it seems essential that in the future, financial aid programs must be supported by a more far-reaching framework that will go some way to preventing such atrocities from happening again.    

Robbie Lawrence

Wikichild Coordinator

@Wiki_child

Uncounted sexual violence

“We could scream but no one will hear us, they cover our mouths and threaten us.”

Unnamed child, Colombia

When we consider that 75 to 95 percent of rapes are never reported to the police in England , it will come as no surprise that we know very little about the full extent of sexual violence committed in conflict and post-conflict settings, let alone how many survivors of sexual violence in conflict are children. While many of these crimes go unreported and unpublished – a horrific example of the “uncounted,” for which this blog is named – we know enough to be able to say that incidents of rape and sexual abuse during conflict and instability are pervasive in countries from all regions of the world and that children often make up a significant number of survivors of sexual violence, and sometimes the majority.

A rape victim with a children’scounsellor - South Kivu, easternDRC - Hidden Survivors 

The following snapshots – outlined in our new briefing Hidden Survivors launched today – offer some indication of the prevalence and scope of the problem:

• During the post-election crisis in Côte d’Ivoire between 1 November 2010 and 30 September 2011, children made up 51.7% of cases of sexual violence. In more than half of the cases of sexual violence against children, the survivors were below 15 years of age.
• In 2008 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations Population Fund recorded nearly 16,000 cases of sexual violence against women and girls. Of those instances, 65% involved children, mostly adolescent girls
• In 2006, the Lancet published research estimating that nearly one-fifth of girls were raped in the greater Port-au-Prince areas during the armed rebellion between February 2004 and December 2005

While there is ample evidence of sexual violence against women and girls, there is little systematic documentation of the existence of or impact of sexual violence on men and boys. The evidence that does exist, however, points to a serious – if under-reported – problem. In the DRC it has been estimated that men and boys make up 4-10% of survivors of sexual violence who seek treatment. In Afghanistan, the UN Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict and others have repeatedly brought attention to the sexual abuse of boys. There have also been reports of sexual violence against boys as well as girls in the current conflict in Syria.

Given the extent of the scourge of sexual violence in conflict and its impact on children we welcome the UK Government and William Hague’s personal commitment to placing this issue at the top of the agenda for the UK’s Presidency of the G8 next year. This week a group of around 60 experts on the issue of sexual violence in conflict from around the world gathered at Wilton Park to help the Foreign Office develop and shape this important initiative.

While the appearance of Angelina Jolie was the only aspect of the conference that captured media attention, there was much that was encouraging about the discussions at Wilton Park from a children’s rights perspective. William Hague recognised in the opening statements of his speech that children make up 50% of the survivors of sexual violence in DRC, for example. And the Minister of Gender and Development from Liberia spoke at length about the appalling impact of sexual violence in homes in post-conflict Liberia on children, pushing the issue beyond the confines of “rape as a weapon of war” and into a broader set of familiar development concerns such as grinding poverty, breakdown of social norms, and lack of respect for women’s rights.

We do have lingering concerns that the UK Government’s initiative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict will – ironically, given the name – not go far enough towards prevention of sexual violence and instead focus on a narrow element of reducing impunity: that of increasing international prosecutions. Using international prosecutions to send a message at the highest levels that sexual violence in conflict will not go unpunished is an important part of the story, but it is only part.

So how do we lessen the extent to which survivors – and especially child survivors – of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings that go uncounted (both as part of ensuring that those affected by these crimes receive the support and services they require but also as part of challenging the culture of impunity)? How do we prevent pervasive sexual violence from taking root in conflict and post-conflict settings in the first place?

Counting is a big part of the story. We have the tools to gather the data and monitor incidents of sexual violence, and other grave violations of children’s rights, but the relevant bodies within the UN and beyond often lack the funding and political support to fully exploit the potential of their mandates, as the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict explained during her talk at Save the Children on Friday November 16th.

And we know that where there are no age-appropriate services for health or psychological care, where judicial systems are not designed to meet the needs of children, and where societies do not recognise the particular vulnerabilities that children face, reporting of abuse and exploitation of children will remain low. These systems and services will need funding from donors in many cases. And supporting governments to introduce and strengthen age- and sex- disaggregated data collection will need to be part of the response.

Increased funding, and a better understanding of how funding is currently allocated is also vital. Protective sectors like child protection and education – which play an important role in preventing children from being subject to sexual violence in the first place, as well as an important part of a the response mechanism for children who do survive violent abuse – for example, were the two worst-funded humanitarian sectors in 2009 – only 32% of requirements were met and many projects within that were only partially funded. Beyond these figures, we don’t actually know how much was spent on programmes that specifically aim to tackle sexual violence in conflict – so disaggregated data on funding for child-focused sexual violence programmes also needs to be publically available.

Sexual violence is one of the most shocking crimes committed during conflict. It happens all over the world – from Afghanistan to Colombia to Somalia – and its consequences linger long after the fighting has stopped. But it is not inevitable. And our shock and horror at the thought of children suffering these crimes should not mean they go uncounted.

Alison Holder

This article was first published on Uncounted - This blog is about inequality and development and those who are uncounted. It is written and maintained by Alex Cobham, Save the Children's Head of Research. Uncounted aims to stimulate debate but is not a reflection of official Save the Children policy

The threat of inequality to children

Migrant families pitch camp next to a railway line in Delhi, while they look for work, India. ©Raghu Rai:Magnum for Save the Children

As a group that are often the most vulnerable to poverty and its detriments, children were a central focus when the Millennium Development Goals were implemented in 2000.

The eight goal plan adopted by World leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in New York has arguably been a success, having facilitated huge progress in dealing with a number of the world's biggest challenges.

In the last decade, the number of people suffering from extreme poverty fell from almost 2 billion to less than 1.3 billion, child mortality dropped to 6.9 million (12 million in 1990) and huge improvements were made in school enrolment. 

Research from the World Bank shows that in 1981, almost three-fourths of citizens in the developing world lived on less than $2 a day – this rate has dropped dramatically to 43 percent. Their report Inequality in Focus claims that, “Progress is undeniable”, with preliminary estimates revealing that positive trends are set to continue. This encouraging assessment is backed up in part by Justin Forsyth, the Chief Executive of Save the Children who recently stated:

 “The world has made dramatic progress in cutting child deaths and improving opportunities for children.”

Despite the considerable improvements made to child well-being, the positive figures on show bely the rapidly growing problem of inequality. In a recent report Born Equal: How reducing inequality could give our children a better future, Save the Children argues that global progress masks a huge number of disparities. When broken down, national statistics on poverty reduction, hunger, child mortality show striking imbalances between rich and poor, urban and rural areas, men and women and ethnic groups.

The top deciles of populations in developed and developing countries are getting rapidly richer and the disproportionate levels of healthcare, nutrition and better access to school enjoyed by this section of society make it difficult to provide an accurate picture of whether the progress being made is benefiting those who need it most. In a TED Talk on economic inequality and its effects on society, public health researcher Richard Wilkinson describes the 'extraordinary' disparities between rich and poor, pointing at a near ten year life expectancy gap between the wealthy and the impoverished in England and Wales. Born Equal exemplifies the issue by using the case of Madagascar, where a striking drop in under-five mortality between the late 90s and the mid-2000s had been concentrated in the top wealth quintile:

“While child mortality in the richest quintile fell from 142 to 49 per 1000 live births, the poorest quintile saw less progress, with a more modest fall from 195 to 101 per 1000 live births.”

The report stipulates that children bear the brunt of inequality, demonstrating that in some cases children born into the richest households have access to 35 times (Born Equal) the resources of the poorest. Furthermore, child mortality rates are more than double among the poorest countries and stunting rates can reach levels six times higher in rural than in urban areas in countries with noticeable spatial inequalities. Notably, research from the OECD has shown that for the first time inequality has risen in traditionally low-inequality countries, such as Germany, Denmark, and Sweden (and other Nordic countries), where it grew more than anywhere else in the 2000s. Widening disparities in income have been shown to compromise a country's economic growth, damage well-being outcomes and threaten poverty reduction. On a micro level, inequality threatens the right of every child to have an equal chance to survive and thrive.

Despite the fact that children are hardest hit by inequality, little focus has been applied to the measurement of inequality among them. Born Equal not only lays out the damaging effects of inequality on children but identifies the policies and interventions that have successfully dealt with the problem up until now and then goes further by providing a number of recommendations for the upcoming post- 2015 framework that will replace the Millennium Goals. These include a call for a more equitable approach to the pursuit of development goals through the disaggregation of targets and indicators by wealth and other forms of group based inequalities. They also provide suggestions on progressive taxation and break away from other major development organisations by being the first to call for a fight against illicit flows.

The problem of inequality is transcendent throughout the world and it seems paramount that while focus is still applied to the current MDGs – the next generation of these goals must pursue equity in similar measure. Only by shifting the attention to those who have not benefited from the current program will its aims be fully achieved. Justin Forsyth emphasized this necessity when he added:

“Unless inequality is addressed...any future development framework will simply not succeed in maintaining or accelerating progress. What’s more, it will hold countries – and the world – back from experiencing real growth and prosperity.”

Robbie Lawrence

Wikichild Coordinator

@Wiki_child

@Robbielawrence1

Impact of daycare interventions in Latin America

Urbanisation and increased female labour market participation have led to increased demand for daycare services, which in developing countries is partly met by government daycare programmes. Some of these programmes offer subsidised community daycare services, in which women from the community provide full time childcare in their home, food and some recreational or educational activities for the children. Other programmes offer public preschool education to children between 3 and 5 years of age. But do these daycare interventions benefit the child’s development?

Impact evaluations of these programmes were undertaken to assess their effectiveness by comparing the wellbeing of children cared for at daycare (or preschool) to those cared for at home. To synthesise the evidence, researchers of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico (myself and Jef Leroy, currently at the International Food Policy Research Institute) and the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (Maite Guijaro), undertook a systematic review. The study, The impact of daycare programmes on child health, nutrition and development in developing countries: a systematic review examined the effects of daycare interventions (formal out-of-home care) on the health, nutrition and development of children under five years of age, in low- and middle-income countries.

Photo sourced by 3ie

The systematic review identified 13,190 studies, but only six, based in Latin America, met the inclusion criteria in terms of scope, type and quality. Four studies evaluated community-based interventions and two looked at preschool interventions.

The findings showed that attending daycare had positive effects on language skills, social and emotional development of children in the short run. In the medium term, school attendance, student behaviour and test scores witnessed a positive trend. In fact, the effects on the children were more pronounced depending on the exposure to the programme. For example, the Bolivia daycare programme had a positive effect (2-11% increase) on bulk (gross) and fine motor, language and psycho-social skills for children with more than seven months of exposure to the programme. On medium-term outcomes, the Argentina study found that one year of preschool increased mathematics and Spanish test scores at third grade of primary education by eight percent. In Uruguay, it was found that children who attended at least one year of preschool, increased their schooling by nearly one additional year by the age of 15.

On child health outcomes, only one study from Colombia evaluated the impact on prevalence of diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections. Although this study found reductions in the prevalence of both diseases with longer exposure to the programme, it is not clear if the results are a true health effect of the programme or if the comparison group of children with less than one month of exposure to the programme, might have suffered from a steep increase in infections right after joining a daycare centre.

However, no conclusions could be drawn with respect to the nutrition outcomes. One study from Guatemala analysed child dietary intake and found positive impacts, a study from Bolivia found no impact on child growth, and two additional studies from Colombia found inconsistent results on child anthropometrics, such as height and weight.

Finally, the reviewed studies did not provide a good description of the type and quality of care children receive in the absence of the programme. This represents an important limitation of the reviewed studies since the potential impact a daycare programme might have is determined by the “net” treatment, which is the difference in the type and quality of care between daycare interventions and the alternative forms of child care in the absence of the programme. For instance, a positive “net” treatment effect can be expected if daycare interventions provide a high quality childcare alternative to mothers who take care of their children while working. However, a negative “net” treatment effect could be anticipated if children who receive adequate family care are enrolled into a low-quality daycare programme.

Policy implications

The evidence shows that daycare interventions in Latin America, community-based or school-based, have had a positive impact on child development. However, there is not enough evidence to conclude that these programmes have improved child health and nutrition. Based on this information, should policymakers decide not to implement daycare interventions until there is conclusive evidence about its impacts?

Considering the proven impact daycare interventions can have on improving child development in the short and medium term and the increasing demand for out-of-home care, these programmes should be implemented if they provide a high quality alternative to the care children normally receive.

However, it is crucial that new programmes are evaluated and closely monitored, not only to add to the very limited knowledge base of programme effectiveness and pathways of impact, but also to guarantee that unintended negative effects are identified and corrected.

(Paola Gadsden is the Coordinator of Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policies for the State of Morelos, Mexico)

3ie funds impact evaluations and systematic reviews that generate high quality evience on what works in development and why. Evidence on development effectiveness can inform policy and improve the lives of poor people.

Wikichild makes some changes!

Hello all,

On November 6^th 2012 the Child well-being portal was updated to improve user experience. We have put together this small blogpost to run you through the new modifications made to Wikichild:

·         Join Button: in order to make it easier for new users to understand how Wikichild works and how can they contribute, a new Join Button was placed on the Child well-being portal. This button not only gives the welcome to new users, but also shows several ways to get involved with the Wikichild project:

·         Create/edit articles.

·         Contribute to the Child well-being portal.

·         Upload reports and research papers.

·         Upload multimedia material.

·         Add an event.

·         Help by blogging.

·         Image banner: in order to improve the overall look portal and focus on a determined topic, a new image banner was added. If you are interested in us showing your pictures, please let us know by sending an e-mail to info@wikiprogress.org.

·         Article Info section: since the Wikichild community has increased its presence during the last 12 months, a recent activity section was created. This section will list all the Child well-being related articles that have been modified and created, and by which users. This way, Wikichild strengthens itself as a community and lets the users to know who is contributing to the cause. To see the last 100 edits/new articles, visit the Wikichild News section in Wikiprogress.

·         Left column suppression: due to the natures of the site, the Child well-being page must be a portal. Thus, the left column that comes within the Mediawiki software per default was taken out, giving a new presence to the Wikichild main page, focusing on what matters and removing article-specific options that are available inside the Create a new article section

Further technological and content changes will be coming within the next months and we'll be happy to hear your needs and feedback. Please let us know your thoughts by sending them to info@wikiprogress.org

All the best,

Robbie Lawrence and Isaac Contreras Sandoval
Wikichild Coordinator and Wikiprogress Technological Consultant

@fladei

@robbielawrence1