Gaspar Fajth Solrun Engilbertsdottir Sharmila Kuruklasuriya Nicholas Rees Division of Policy and Practice UNICEF ISCI conference Thursday, July 28th 2011 Child poverty across 36 countries

Overview of the Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities 36 country database - individual level indicators and household level indicators Which measures to focus on to capture multidimensional child poverty?

UNICEF’s Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities launched in 2008: create momentum and influence national policy making processes Covers 52 countries in 6 continents Background

Generate evidence, insights and networks that can be used as leverage to influence national development plans, and to inspire and feed into poverty reduction or sector-wide strategies, common country assessments and other development instruments Why a Global Study?

UNICEF State of the World’s Children 2005 definition “Children living in poverty experience deprivation of the material, spiritual, and emotional resources needed to survive, develop and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full and equal members of society.” What is child poverty?

Dimensions of Child Poverty

National reports

National ownership Impacted national development plans and policy interventions: –Mali: first national forum on poverty led to formulation of an action plan on social protection –Tanzania: created a push for the adoption of the Law of the Child Act –Cameroon: findings reflected in the Government’s and Growth Strategy Paper for –Morocco: Government to officially adopt multidimensional child poverty indicators Impact

Where are we now? The conceptual foundations of the Study need to be reflected upon. The Study methodology is based on an approach developed by the University of Bristol, in early 2000’s – since then a lot of advances have been made in survey collection Comprehensive picture of child poverty: Look at various different measures of poverty and evaluate whether these measures provide us with vastly different pictures of poverty

36 country database (MICS/DHS) - 1,444,457 children Child level indicators: nutrition, health and education Household level indicators: sanitation, water, shelter, information Children deprived: –Individual deprivations only –Household deprivations only –Household AND individual deprivations - our focus Most indicators proxy indicators for children - measured at household level –Individual deprivations measure characteristics of the child - future human capital –Household deprivations measure aspects of children’s household environments/community Individual/ Household level indicators

Country comparison: Individual and household level indicators

National analysis continues The conceptual foundations and coherence are yet to be reviewed and reflected upon –Focusing operational poverty concepts more narrowly on child outcomes, poverty intensity as well as instability? –Alternative approaches to measuring child poverty for middle income countries, conflict-hit areas and fragile states? –Regional/global analysis of multidimensional child poverty? –Global child poverty index? –Wide agreement on basic child indicators Way forward

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