Child Poverty and Vulnerability
UNICEF works to provide evidence on poverty and vulnerability faced by the Pacific children in order to influence the PIC governments’ social and economic policies to become more children centered and pro-poor/vulnerable. This work is mainly driven by the two major researches- Child Poverty and Disparity study and Sentinel Site Monitoring Initiative.
Child Poverty Study was conducted first time in the Pacific using the Global Child Poverty and Disparity methodology. UNICEF had commissioned Social Policy Research Center, University of New South Wales (ww.sprc.unsw.edu.au) to conduct the design phase of study covering Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu during 2008 in order to scope the availability of data to conduct the in-depth analysis. Design phase report is available below. Based on the assessment, Government of Vanuatu has initiated the Child poverty and disparity study in 2009/10. The final report is now available on the right hand side.
UNICEF envisages to support Kiribati and Solomon Islands Governments to also move forward with the Child Poverty Study during 2011 and 2012. The terms of reference of this work can be found here |TOR|
Sentinel site monitoring is a UN Joint effort spearheaded by UNICEF to strengthen data coordination capacity across ministries to collect real-time data and information, and to enhance the evidence-based advocacy and policy making process to better protect the most vulnerable in the PICs. This initiative provides the real-time data and voices from the most disadvantaged communities in selected most vulnerable PICs.
Based on the evidence from the past financial crisis, UNICEF and development partners are alarmed with the significant impact of economic and food crisis on the child mortality and risks to the long term development of Pacific children.
During 2009-10, UNICEF together with UNDP, UNFPA and other development partners embarked on supporting the most vulnerable Pacific Island Countries with monitoring to ascertain its possible deteriorating impact on most vulnerable, particularly among children.
UN Resident Coordinator Office facilitated the invitation to the government of Kiribati, Fiji Islands, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu in March 2009 to proposal of UN support to set up real-time monitoring system in the country. Following this, the Pacific Island governments requested for UN support by the end of 2009. Since then, two rounds of data collection have been managed by the National Steering Committee set up under each government.
In May 2010, UNICEF prepared a short note to inform the Global Impact Vulnerability Alert System (GIVAS) in preparation of the global Voices of Vulnerable Report. The note is available on the right hand side.
In June 2010, responding to the strong request from the counterparts, UNICEF supported the regional workshop inviting the NSC members from 6 PICs to discuss results and lessons learnt and way forward for 2nd round in Suva, Fiji.
During late 2010, USP was commissioned to product a regional synthesis report based on the data and evidence collected across six Pacific countries. This report will focus on the trend analysis where possible and the profiling of the vulnerability in six countries surveyed.
In 2011, UNICEF will work with the governments to accelerate the institutionalization of sentinel site monitoring and also work with government to communicate the key findings and messages to the policy makers with children and youth. The draft advocacy strategy (link) entails joint launch of Vanuatu Child poverty study and regional synthesis report, policy brief by the partner organizations, technical workshop to discuss measurement of child poverty and vulnerability research and social protection conference to showcase the major findings of the vulnerability and social protection studies conducted by UNICEF and development partners as a way to engage dialogue to contribute to the formulation of Pacific appropriate form of social protection standards. We welcome your comments to this advocacy strategy! Which can be found on the right hand side.
Child Poverty Study
Child poverty and disparities in the Pacific, Phase 1: Initial analysis of child-centred policies in Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu