(31 May 2021) The COVID-19 pandemic dominated the landscape for UNICEF Innocenti’s work in 2020, bringing both opportunities and disruptions. The pandemic has underscored the power of utilizing research and evidence in addressing crisis and uncertainty, and in finding solutions to tough global challenges. Opportunities emerged in the shape of a Rapid Research Response to assess the pandemic’s impact on children, utilizing evidence syntheses, rapid assessment tools and agile communication modalities. In turn, thousands of users were empowered to gain access to UNICEF Innocenti’s research, knowledge management, ethical advice and convening power.

(13 April 2021) A new study highlights the importance of reframing the experience of children and young people based on their own motivations and lived experiences in order to adequately protect their rights. UNICEF Innocenti’s new report Reimagining Migration Responses: Learning from children and young people who move in the Horn of Africa captures the experiences of 1,290 migrant children and young people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan in an effort to paint a more accurate picture of migration in the region.

(8 April 2021) There is growing global recognition of the intersections between violence against women and violence against children. There is currently insufficient interaction between these fields, and evidence on interventions to address these linkages is limited. It is vital to identify knowledge/evidence gaps to address the intersections of these two forms of violence in order to strengthen prevention and response programming to achieve the best outcomes for both women and children.

(FLORENCE, 9 NOV 2020) The UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti has produced the Children and COVID-19 Research Library to highlight the available global scientific research and evidence on children and the coronavirus pandemic.

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.