Rapid urbanization is leaving millions of disadvantaged children behind

This post is by guest blogger James Elder of UNICEF.

This week UNICEF launched its flagship report, ‘The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World’ in Mexico City, warning that rapid urbanization is leaving millions of disadvantaged children behind.

Greater urbanization is inevitable. In a few years, the report says, the majority of children will grow up in towns or cities rather than in rural areas. When we think of poverty, the image that traditionally comes to mind is that of a child in a rural village. But today, an increasing number of children living in slums and shantytowns are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world, deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive.

Children born in cities already account for 60 per cent of the increase in urban population. Cities offer many children the advantages of urban schools, clinics and playgrounds. Yet the same cities the world over are also the settings for some of the greatest disparities in children’s health, education and opportunities. They can be hotbeds of violence, abuse and horrid living conditions.

Families living in poverty often pay more for substandard services. Water, for instance, can cost 50 times more in poor neighbourhoods where residents have to buy it from private vendors than it costs in wealthier neighbourhoods where households are connected directly to water mains. The deprivations endured by children in poor urban communities are often obscured by broad statistical averages that lump together all city dwellers – rich and poor alike. When averages such as these are used in making urban policy and allocating resources, the needs of the poorest are too often overlooked.

To make cities fit for children a focus on equity is crucial – one in which priority is given to the most disadvantaged children wherever they live. Governments need to put children at the heart of urban planning and to extend and improve services for all. To start, more focused, accurate data are needed to help identify disparities among children in urban areas and how to bridge them. Ensuring that all children are registered and documented must also be a top priority. Saying ‘children are our future’ is overused, but it’s also accurate, and a walk around any urban slum offers a fairly dark view of years to come, if governments don’t do more, now.

For more on child well-being, see Wikichild.
James Elder

The week in review

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the  Wikiprogress Community Portal .    

On child well-being

State of the World’s Children 2012 (UNICEF 29.02.2012)

UNICEF’s flagship report, the State of the World’s Children 2012, was released this week with a focus on children in the urban world.  See highlights (embed video)

Download the full report: State of the World’s Children 2012

On governance

Democracy correlated with economic growth?‎ (Economic Times 28.02.2012)

As 2012 prepares for numerous presidential elections around the globe, the Economic times asks: what role does democracy play in bringing growth and prosperity?

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Human Development Index

Gallup wellbeing results

Hawaii Still No. 1 in Wellbeing, West Virginia Stuck in Last (Gallup 27.02.2012)

The Gallup Healthyways Wellbeing Index has found that residents in Hawaii maintain the highest wellbeing score for the third year running; while residents in West Virginia have recorded the lowest wellbeing score of 62.3 only slight higher than 2010 score of 61.7.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on human well-being

On gender equality

The 56th UN Commission on the Status of Women

The United Nations 56th session of the  Commission on the Status of Women  (CSW) is running from 27 February until 9 March 2012. This year’s priority theme is on the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.

See a round up of media coverage in the Wikigender spotlight on The 56th UN Commission on the Status of Women

On measuring progress

A summary report from the Asian Confrence on Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies held in December last year has been released. Downlod the report and read about key highlights from the conference.

Spotlight

China 2030 Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society

Report released this week by the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council has suggested a new development strategy for China to balance governance, market, private sector and society to 2030.

See more and download the full report and read the key findings in the Wikiprogres article on China 2030 Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society

We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us  @Wikiprogress  or post it on our  Facebook page .

Yours in Progress,

Philippa Lysaght

The UK leads the way on well-being

This post is brought to you by guest blogger the new economics foundation (nef).

The UK's ever-growing well-being data set will prove hugely important for future policy making.

As of today, the UK is the proud owner of the biggest official well-being data set for any single country within a single year.  With around 80,000 respondents answering the well-being questions in the Office of National Statistics’ Annual Population Survey for 2011, we’ve just pipped Ecuador’s Survey of Employment, Unemployment, and Sub-employment to top spot*. And we’re just at the beginning – in July this year, the Office of National Statistics will release data for around 200,000 respondents on well-being.

These data are providing a unique opportunity to really understand what determines well-being and how it changes over time.  Already, this information will allow policy-makers and those whose role it is to hold government to account to identify policies that will be beneficial to well-being and avoid those that will be harmful to it. Over time, as year-on-year data emerges, we’ll be able to get an incredibly rich picture of how the recession is impacting different sectors of society. ‘Average’ life satisfaction may still be 7.4 for the UK, but what is happening below the headline?

The actual raw data from the Annual Population Survey has not been published today – that will come out in four to six weeks.  But already, the overall figures reveal some interesting stories.

Firstly, whilst London may be the richest region in the UK, and one of the richest cities in the world, it is also the region with the lowest levels of life satisfaction (7.2 out of 10 compared to the UK average of 7.4 out of 10), and the highest levels of anxiety. Meanwhile Northern Ireland has the highest levels of life satisfaction.

Secondly, the results show support for the idea of redistributing employment.  Whilst the unemployed have the lowest levels of well-being (6.5 out of 10), people in part-time work were marginally happier than those in full-time work.  Further analyses will need to be done on the raw data to unpick how income, wealth, and household composition shape this outcome, but it suggests that reducing working hours reduced rather than laying off staff may sometimes be a well-being effective way to deal with the economic crunch in some contexts.

Lastly, it is worth highlighting the special place of that fourth question in the survey: “do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?”  Until the raw data is publicly available, we can’t fully unpick what this question is doing, but already an interesting finding has come out –people with children score higher specifically on this question. If we believe that people’s well-being is more than just about satisfaction or happiness, this will be an important one to watch.

* Ecuador’s survey in 2007 covered 76,922 respondents, and included questions on happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with domains.

Gender equality ranking – clear winners and losers?

This post first appeared on Gender Debate

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report measures gender inequality in various nations by focusing on the gaps between men and women in the economic, political, educational and health spheres.

Four critical areas of gender inequality are considered, which are economic participation (wages, participation levels, access to high-skilled employment), educational attainment, political empowerment and health outcomes.

Here are the top 5 most and least equal countries, according to the newest measurement for the year 2011 (Global Gender Gap Report 2011).

Countries with the most gender equality: Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Ireland.

Countries with the least gender equality: Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Mali and Saudi Arabia.

This global ranking is, however, somewhat obscure, because the contribution of the different areas of gender inequality is not evident at first sight. A closer look at the composition of the index shows that while 90 percent of gaps in life expectancy and access to education have been closed worldwide, women continue to lag behind men particularly at work and in politics.

Especially in developing regions, women work as many working hours as men, even when having children, but women tend to work more than man in precarious and informal work. They are overrepresented as contributing family workers, especially in the agricultural sector, while men tend more than women to work in the industrial sector and in high status jobs (employers, managerial positions…). Thus, women generally face lower job quality than men.

For more information about gender occupations by sector and by status in developing countries, see related article on this blog: How about gender equity in employment in developing countries?

The main consequence of the gender difference in occupations is that women generally earn less than men. Even in highly developed countries, there still exists a significant wage gap between men and women when considering hourly wages. Hence, women are less covered by social security and more exposed to poverty, especially at older ages – a trend which is generally known as the ‘feminization of poverty’.

For further information about the gender wage gap, see related article on this blog: Reducing the gender wage gap – how to tackle the task?

Finally, all over the world women are significantly less represented in politics. Women’s share in parliaments stays remarkably low even in many developed countries.

See following articles on this blog for more information about women in parliaments: Economists for gender quotas in parliaments./ Women’s legal rights – progress and backlashes.

Women’s share in parliaments is particularly low in France, for example. This is why the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index ranks Germany much better than France. However, concluding that women are generally less discriminated in Germany than in France would be rather premature, as, for example, the employment composition of the index does not account for working hours. The full time equivalent employment rate for women is much higher in France than in Germany (55% against 45%). The fact that total fertility rates are also significantly higher in France than in Germany (2,1 against 1,3 children per women on average in 2011) suggests that women with children succeed much better to combine work and family life in France than in Germany – an aspect that is neglected by the Gender Gap Index.

For more information about the gender gap index in France and Germany, see the following related article on this blog: Gender Gap Index: Gender equality much higher in Germany than in France!?

The week in review

Hello, glad you could join us for the Wikiprogress week in review - a handful of headlines that have caught our eyes over the last week. You can find all news articles and blog posts on the progress community in the Wikiprogress Community Portal    

Beyond the Arab Spring

UNDP report calls for economic reform post-Spring Arab world

The UNDP’s second Arab Development Challenges report has warned that democracy is not enough. The report emphasises that if region's economic woes aren't competently dealt with, desired democratic transition in the Arab world will fail.

See more and contribute to the Wikiprogress article on the Arab Spring

On youth unemployment

This short video shows youth unemployment rates in the UK and highlights an innovative approach taken by the National Statistics Office.

On gender equality

How gender values point the way  for a more effective UN

Growing lists of U.N. Security Council Resolutions acknowledge the marginalisation of women in peace negotiations, humanitarian planning and reconstruction. President of the Global Vision Institute calls on the U.N to make better use of resources and argues that gender equality can forge a stronger and more balanced configurations for peace.

See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on the role of women in conflict resolution and peace building

On progress

Beyond GDP (Earth Debates 22.02.2012)

This week, Earth Debates hosted an online forum and asked Beyond GDP- how can we measure progress? The panel of experts included Andrew Simms of the new economics foundation, Emiliy Benson of the Green Economy Coalition and Hannah Ryder senior UK government economist.

In the Spotlight: Forget GDP, the real question is: are you happy?

We hope you will tune in the same time next week. In the meantime, if anything interesting passes your desk that you would like to see in the next Wikiprogress week in review, please tweet it to us @Wikiprogress or post it on our Facebook page.

Yours in Progress,

Philippa Lysaght

Update on progress from Wellbeing Wales

Ah, February, Mon amour. The month of all things heart shaped and chocolate coated. But it does appear that there is a whole lot more than love in the air this month. According to China Dialogue, air pollutant levels in the counties capital, Hong Kong, are extortionately high with roadside pollutant levels exceeding government targets a ‘record-breaking 20% of the time’. Various outlets have been blamed for the escalating levels. Schemes to reduce the carbon emissions of new vehicles have been met with some success but any benefits have been counteracted by the failure to ensure that the ‘oldest and most polluting’ vehicles are taken out of service. Lack of solid government policy on the issue as well as there being no ‘appropriately qualified government body responsible for measuring or preventing the public health impacts of air pollution’ have also been blamed for the escalating levels. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that poor air quality will have a detrimental effect on Hong Kong’s economic, environmental, and physical and mental health and wellbeing. Perhaps it’s time all agencies, be they governmental, environmental, manufacturing or health, got together and put their differences to one side and started working together to clear the air, for everyone’s sake.

It appears that February is not just a time for love-struck couples to get together. In early February the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics got together with several key thinkers in the field of wellbeing to answer the tricky question: is economic growth essential for wellbeing? Speakers, including Professor Tim Jackson, nef’s Anna Coote, and David Skelton from Policy Exchange, tackled the question head on through a mixture of presentations and Q&A’s. The discussion is available in audio format on NEF’s website and makes for interesting listening. Whilst each speaker brought differing approaches to the table, all were unanimous in the belief that there is ‘much more to well-being than economic growth’.

There’s no doubt that the arts and creative industries have suffered significantly under the wielding axe of government cuts. However, if you look closely enough you may find arts projects popping up in the most unlikely of places. The Guardian reports how wards and atriums of hospitals in central Manchester became a hub of all things creative in February with a week-long series of events ‘aimed at promoting health and wellbeing through exposure to art and culture’. Culture Shots is a pioneering scheme between local artists, performers and the Central Manchester NHS trust. Patients and staff were treated to live performance pieces, the chance to take and develop their own photographs and the opportunity to sit for portraits as well as many other interactive events. As well as increasing patient and staff wellbeing, the benefits of art and culture focused projects are thought to have a positive impact on patient’s health and recovery also. Wendy Gallagher, arts and health programme manager at the Whitworth gallery and Manchester Museum, suggests how evidence indicates that ‘if there's an activity taking place during a person's stay in hospital it can reduce the need for analgesia’. It would be interesting to see if other trusts take up the mantle set by Manchester and start using art to recognise the people behind the patient.

 This post was written by Wellbeing Wales