Evidence for Action Blog

Migration is a major human phenomenon that has accompanied civilization since the origins of mankind. People have been moving across regions, countries and continents in search of better opportunities for millennia; however, in recent years migration has become an extremely urgent and complex issue – even a hot topic in the political arena.Although migration has been investigated in countless studies, some critical unanswered questions regarding children remain: for example, do children’s living standards in the country of origin play a major role in the decision to migrate? To what extent do limited educational opportunities and unsafe environments for children affect migration decisions? These elements may mostly influence parental decisions, but they might also be influential factors for people without children looking for a better life. In fact, child rights and the quality of educational systems are important indicators of social and cultural development in a country.A refugee family from Afghanistan look at clothes in the UNICEF children's corner in Divljana refugee camp in Serbia.Migration is a child and youth related issue, with aspirations to migrate highest between ages 17 and 22 and parental perceptions about child well-being a significant push factorA forthcoming Working Paper from UNICEF Innocenti analyses these issues by exploring data from the Gallup World Poll (GWP). This unique dataset can provide valid global insights into migration and migrants’ experiences, with focus on the condition of children in their home country and on the presence of youth within the households. It is a repeated cross-sectional dataset, representing 98% of the world’s adult population (over 15 years old) since 2006.Gallup World Poll data allows researchers to monitor migration trends, to describe and identify common features characterizing potential migrants (age, gender, education, income level and marital status). It can identify where potential migrants may currently be and where they want to go. Researchers even investigated whether child-related factors influence migration intentions and plans. The Youth Development Index, available as a GWP dataset, gathered child-related concerns through three survey questions able to capture respondents’ sensitiveness in this regard (specifically, they have been asked their opinion about: children treated with respect; children have an opportunity to learn and grow; their levels of satisfaction with education services).This work represents the first attempt to quantify the extent to which child-related concerns influence migration decisions. Ideally, it will pave the way for attracting the attention of both academics and policymakers to this issue. Some striking findings arising from our analysis are:Migration is a child- and youth-related phenomenon, as both migration intent and migration plans peak at young age (approximately at age 17 and 22 respectively, in global terms);Perceived child well-being significantly affects both migration intent and plans, even after having considered a full range of other influential factors affecting migration decisions;Individuals belonging to households with children aged 15 or below are more affected by child-related variables in their migration intent or plan, than those living in children-free household;The presence of children in the household positively affects migration intent, and negatively affects migration plans. In other words, the presence of children encourages people to search for a better life somewhere else. On the other hand, it represents an obstacle to the realization of migration intent, as children may represent additional costs in the migration process. Globally, the effect sizes of children-related concerns are comparable to the effect sizes of factors related to economics, governance and lack of security, which are usually put forward as likely drivers of migration. Perceived child well-being, in particular, has been revealed to affect migration intent more than factors like satisfaction with public services or food deprivation. Also, when we look at migration plans, factors such as satisfaction with public services, economic conditions and confidence in key institutions play a secondary role with respect to child-related concerns.A more in-depth analysis reveals different results based on regional differences in income levels: households in upper-middle-income countries devote greater importance to children’s well-being than households from other income regions (in both migration intent and plans). In addition, child-related issues in high-income countries lose their importance, remaining statistically significant, in favor of other factors, traditionally considered as drivers of migration and affecting migration intent.In addition to this, researchers showed that young, male and single people, and those with secondary education or higher reveal the strongest intention to migrate and plan to do it.This new evidence supports the hypothesis that child-related concerns are potential drivers of migration. Ideally, this is a major starting point for further analysis, which could emphasize the role of youth and the presence of children in decisions to migrate and, specifically, investigate the role of children’s well-being in the country of origin as a major push factor.Sara Burrone is a research fellow at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Bina D'Costa is research and evaluation specialist (migration) with UNICEF Innocenti. Göran Holmqvist is Director, Asia, Middle East and Humanitarian Assistance with Swedish International Development Assistance (SIDA). Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website. 

Migration is not a crime. It is a practice as old as human civilization and a human right recognized in many international treaties. Since 2013 European media have intensively reported on the daily arrivals on Mediterranean shores, and the tone of much reporting has inflated the idea of migration as an emergency issue and a potential threat to the security of European citizens. Why does this matter? There are two facts that cannot be ignored: migration into developed countries will remain a steady component of societies for many years to come, and media play a critical role in framing public opinion and policy in those societies. Drawing attention to both issues is critical for a sustainable peaceful coexistence in a multicultural environment. According to the United Nations' latest report on world population growth and migration flows, between 2015 and 2050 half of the world’s population growth is expected to be concentrated in nine countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. In the same time span the top net receivers of international migrants (more than 100,000 annually) are projected to be the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Russian Federation and Italy. Net migration gain is projected to account for 82 per cent of population growth in the high-income countries. Media can play a critical role in influencing public perception of migrants and/or in facilitating their integration. They can be a firewall against racism and xenophobia, or a catalyser of instinctive and emotional hostile reactions towards migrant people. In Europe this has become particularly evident. As noted a report from by the EU project Bricks against Hate Speech, a significant increase of the use of hate speech, often blaming immigrants and minorities for the difficulties of their own countries, has spread in most countries. The report highlights that even harmless editorial opinions – if read one by one – can fuel a continuous flow of hate speech that does not stop. Small news, stories, reportage, or even single words can damage the image of migrants and create barriers towards understanding the entire phenomenon. And we are only just beginning to understand how massive social media platforms can dramatically accelerate such speech in Europe and North America. According to a recent Italian report the three main migration issues filling the headlines of the principal newspapers in 2016 include: the impact on European countries receiving large numbers of migrants; narration of the sea passage; and socio-cultural issues such as race and manifestations of xenophobia – a topic which increased three fold in comparison to 2015 data from the same report. In May 2016 the Italian Parliament set up the Jo Cox Commission on Intolerance, Xenophobia, Racism and Hate with the intent of exploring the phenomenon of hate speech in Italy. The final report shows the existence of a pyramid of hate (see below) which goes from apparently ‘non-harmful’ attitudes like stereotypes, false or misleading representations, insults, normal and banal hostile language to discrimination, hate language and hate crimes. The pyramid of hate revealed in the final report prepared by the Committee on hate, intolerance, xenophobia and racism set up by the Italian Chamber of Deputies, after 14 months of work, 31 people hearings and collation of 187 documents (studies, research papers, monographs, data records, position papers).Depicting migrants as a mass of people fleeing their countries – with no distinction between refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants or those simply fleeing harsh conditions – will only drive collective imagination progressively towards dehumanising them. Migrant people are transformed into hordes of terrorists, criminals and victims, ready to threaten European security. As a result, even the most extreme act against them might ultimately be tolerated as “legitimate defence”, and any discrimination accepted, if not justified. Peace Journalism is when editors and reporters are aware of their contribution to the construction of reality and of their responsibility to give peace a chance. - Wilhelm Kempf 2012Combating hatred, intolerance and xenophobia; being sensitive to the language used in the narrative; and challenging the notion of permanent emergency by humanizing the stories behind each migrant, especially children, is an objective that the UNICEF Innocenti study Forced Displacement and Child Responsive Communication  aims to pursue. The study will look at how the media has influenced Italian public opinion and policy towards thousands of migrant children who have arrived in Italy over the last two years. The research asks why media’s current role in Italy is almost completely unaware of child rights sensitive reporting. How can journalism more quickly overcome a seemingly unmindful descent into jingoism with regard to the flow of the “wretched other” arriving on foreign shores? How can international norms and ethical standards, especially in relation to child rights, be factored into one of the most important news stories of our time? Movement toward an ethic of responsibility in media could be a good way to start. Patrizia Faustini is Senior Communication Assistant with UNICEF Innocenti. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website. 

The way countries define poverty is going to matter for their probability of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1, Target 1.2. It calls for reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions by 2030. This means that national governments can establish the standards against which they will be measuring progress in just over a decade. For example, if we measure multidimensional poverty in a way that the starting rate is too high, we will struggle to halve it. Define it at too low a level, and further progress may be harder to achieve. Try to game Target 1.2 by fudging your dimensions and you betray the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). So how can governments define multidimensional poverty in a way that halving the poverty rate will be realistic and amenable to policy intervention, while representing a true improvement in people’s well-being? In a recent paper we simulate different scenarios for lowering multidimensional child poverty in two small middle-income post-socialist European countries: Armenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Their UNICEF offices carried out child poverty studies using data from household budget surveys collected in 2011-2013. UNICEF chose the dimensions of child poverty in consultation with government and civil society counterparts to reflect national standards and priorities. Each study used seven dimensions of poverty from this list: clothing, education or educational resources, housing, information access, leisure, nutrition, social participation or social relations, and utilities. UNICEF had initiated these studies before the SDGs had been adopted, so no one worried about halving the resulting poverty rate by 2030 when they were coming up with a definition of poverty. The rate of multidimensional child poverty was twice as high in Armenia as in BiH: four in five (80%) versus two in five (40%) school-age children, respectively, were deprived in two or more out of seven dimensions. There were differences between the two countries in the intensity of multidimensional child poverty and way various dimensions interacted with each other. In BiH, one dimension influenced child poverty disproportionately (i.e. information access) and was not highly correlated with other dimensions. In contrast, no single dimension dominated in Armenia, and the majority of children deprived in two or more were deprived in four dimensions (i.e. leisure, housing, social relations, and utilities). ...if all school-age children in BiH had a networked computer at home (i.e. no deprivation in information access), the multidimensional poverty rate would go down by more than one-third (35%). This goes a long way towards halving poverty to reach the Target 1.2.To understand the mechanics of reducing multidimensional child poverty, we simulated several scenarios of lowering deprivation in different dimensions at a time. We played around with switching the deprivation status from 1 “deprived” to 0 “non-deprived” for a random selection of children in the dataset for different combinations of deprivations. For example, if all school-age children in BiH had a networked computer at home (i.e. no deprivation in information access), the multidimensional poverty rate would go down by more than one-third (35%). This goes a long way towards halving poverty to reach the Target 1.2. An alternative, but similarly effective strategy for BiH, would be to eliminate the correlation between the two dimensions that have the highest deprivation count (i.e. information access and leisure), while maintaining the proportion of children deprived in each of them. As long as it is no longer the same children who are deprived in both of these dimensions, but some deprived in one and others in the other, the overall multidimensional poverty headcount would also fall by over one-third (35%). However, these strategies would not work in Armenia, where the majority of school-age children are deprived in two out of four dimensions at once and no single dimension stands out. Of the four scenarios we considered, the best we could do would be to lower the poverty rate by just over one-quarter (28%) by halving the deprivation rates in three dimensions and reducing it by one-tenth in the other four. We also simulated the effects of giving different amounts cash to the households where multidimensionally poor children live. We did this by modelling the associations between household consumption and children’s deprivations in different dimensions. Cash transfers to the poor can be a powerful tool for improving children’s outcomes in nutrition, health and education, to name just a few (see https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/). Some deprivations (e.g. nutrition and clothing) are more sensitive to household consumption, so cash transfers would be more effective in tackling them. Others (e.g. utilities) depend more on the local services infrastructure. Our simulations suggest that in a country like BiH, giving all consumption-poor households with children enough money to lift them out of monetary poverty would also eliminate multidimensional child poverty. In a country like Armenia, where children tend to be deprived in a greater number of dimensions simultaneously, even such an expensive strategy would not make a sizeable dent in multidimensional child poverty. We learned from our analysis that a country’s potential to halve multidimensional child poverty by 2030 hinges on the definition of the poverty measure they adopt in the first place. It influences both the “baseline” rate of poverty against which progress will be measured and the policy levers to achieve the goal. An effective strategy is likely to involve a multi-sectoral approach with cash transfers, information provision and investment in public services and infrastructure. Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at UNICEF Innocenti. Lucia Ferrone is a consultant with UNICEF Innocenti working on the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) project, a tool which helps researchers and policy makers to better map and define the impact of poverty in children’s lives. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website. This blog was first published on www.deliver2030.org 

There was a time when UNICEF was known in development circles as the agency that “does everything but knows nothing.” Indeed, UNICEF is known for getting things done for children through persuasive advocacy, a human rights approach, and its presence on the ground. Today UNICEF is increasingly committed to evidence-based programming, and researchers around the world are studying the effectiveness of UNICEF’s work. In my role at UNICEF Innocenti, I frequently have discussions with UNICEF country staff who want to know how their programmes are working. A typical discussion with those working on violence against children, poverty reduction, emergency response, nutrition, and more starts with colleagues telling me: “We want to rigorously test how well our programme works, but we don’t want to do a randomized control trial (RCT).” For many in UNICEF, RCT is a bad word. It conjures ideas of cold-hearted researchers arbitrarily withholding programme benefits from some households and villages for the sole purpose of racking up academic publications in journals no one will read. This thinking assumes that other options are equally as good, so we can simply take those evil RCTs off the table and select from other, “pro-children” evaluation methods. For many RCT is a bad word. It conjures ideas of cold-hearted researchers arbitrarily withholding programme benefits from some households and villages for the sole purpose of racking up academic publications in journals no one will read.And while other evaluation methods can provide powerful evidence on programme impacts, and RCTs are not always needed, before choosing a method, we need to first understand, in the words of Rachel Glennerster and Shawn Powers, “what are we judging RCTs against?” Indeed, while RCTs get the most attention when discussing the ethics of impact evaluation, all methods come with ethical implications. To make a random selection of RCT treatment villages for an ongoing social protection programme impact evaluation in Tanzania the names of villages were literally drawn blindly from this hat.Both experimental (RCT) and quasi-experimental methods try to get at causal impacts of programmes and policies. They do so by constructing a “counter-factual,” the term researchers use to describe what would have happened to beneficiaries had they not received the program (also referred to as “treatment” or “intervention”). Since we haven’t yet invented a time machine where we can first give a group of people a treatment, see what happens, and then go back in our time machine and observe what happened without the treatment, we have to use other techniques to measure the counterfactual. RCTs do this by determining who gets the treatment and who doesn’t by chance, which usually ensures there are no systematic differences between the groups. For example, those who get the treatment aren’t getting it because they are more motivated, more informed, live closer to health facilities, or are from a privileged political group, etc. Quasi-experimental methods use other techniques to construct a comparison group of people who did not receive the treatment. However, we cannot be as certain the estimated impacts are a result of the treatment, and not due to other factors. Of all these methods (non-experimental/observational, quasi-experimental and experimental/RCT), RCTs provide the most credible evidence on programme impacts, however, they are not always possible. In my work at UNICEF with the Transfer Project, we use both RCTs and quasi-experimental methods. However, non-experimental and quasi-experimental come with limitations. If we use a poor comparison group (or no comparison group at all), we could end up overestimating or underestimating treatment impacts—and we often don’t know with certainty which is the case. A non-credible or non-rigorous evaluation is a problem because underestimating program impacts might mean that we conclude a program or policy doesn’t work when it really does (with ethical implications). Funding might be withdrawn and an effective program is cut off. Or we might overestimate program impacts and conclude that a program is more successful than it really is (also with ethical implications). Resources might be allocated to this program over another program that actually works, or works better. Mobile health teams provide essential basic health services and collect household data in remote and isolated communities, with a special focus on maternal and neonatal care in Afghanistan.So if RCTs produce the most solid evidence, why don’t we use them everywhere? There are several reasons for this. Sometimes you just can’t randomize who gets a program due to implementation-related reasons (for example, every village in the district benefits from the same road or improved water system). Sometimes you can randomize, but programmers are reluctant to do so because of perceived ethical concerns. In the first scenario, we turn to quasi-experimental methods where possible. Now let’s break down some of the concerns in the second scenario. All research methods (not just RCTs) have ethical considerations to be mindful of. These include, among others, informed consent for research, principles of ‘do not harm’, necessary referrals for additional services if needed and review of national and international ethics review boards to ensure ethical guidelines are adhered to. However, one concern unique to RCTs is that benefits are purposefully given to one group and not to another. Implementers need to consider whether in fact this is ethical. In many cases it is. For example, if roll-out of the programme can’t reach all intended beneficiaries at the same time (say there’s a phased roll-out due to budgetary or capacity constraints) then we can take advantage of the group experiencing delayed roll-out and use them as a control group. Further, if we don’t know whether a programme is effective, it’s not unethical to randomize some individuals to not receive that programme (in fact receiving an ineffective programme may do more harm than good). Finally, we must also ask ourselves: Is it ethical to pour donor money into projects when we don’t know if they work? Is it ethical not to learn from the experience of beneficiaries about the impacts of a program? RCTs can be a powerful tool to generate evidence to inform policies and programmes to improve the lives of children. As with any type of study, researchers must adhere to ethical research principles. However, when choosing the right type of methodology to evaluate a programme, it’s important to keep the ethical implications of each in mind, as well as a clear understanding of all the options, including the option of never knowing what impact your programme is making. Tia Palermo is Social Policy Specialist in the Social & Economic Policy Section at UNICEF Innocenti, where she conducts research on social protection programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa with the Transfer Project. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.  

Late last month, over 500 researchers, policymakers, donors and activists descended on the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the 5th bi-annual Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum, the largest global gathering focusing on gender-based violence (GBV) in low- and middle-income countries. The forum has become the venue to connect with others working to prevent and respond to GBV, hear the newest research and evidence, network and collaborate. The theme of this year’s forum, “Partnerships for Policy Action,” is apt given the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for the first time, include targets to eliminate violence along with tracking and accountability mechanisms for national governments. Dr. Claudia Garcia Moreno of the World Health Organization opened the Forum by reflecting on the great progress made and long road still ahead. She stressed the need for partnerships and a multi-sectoral, participatory approach to tackle the complex forces that drive violence, particularly involving youth, who will determine the landscape of the future. Dr. Garcia Moreno re-emphasized attention to vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities, and the need to move from intervention testing to effective scale-up of programs that “work.” Although progress has been made in establishing that violence against children is a problem in every country, data alone is not sufficient without processes to contextualize it and use it actively to inform programming, direct policy, and monitor achievementThis years’ forum was the largest to date, with over 350 presentations, workshops and satellite meetings attended by 535 participants, an increase from Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2015 (129 presentations among the 398 attendees) and Bangkok, Thailand in 2013 (105 presentations among the 180 attendees). The Forum’s rapid growth reflects how gender based violence is increasingly recognized as a key global issue and connected to other forms of interpersonal and structural violence. The commitment to end violence is also growing among activists, practitioners, researchers and policymakers. A social worker consults a family in Kandal province, Cambodia. The family has been severely affected by gender-based violence and is in need for social protection and support.For a comprehensive summary of new research and evidence presented at the forum, see its website (where presentations will be posted). The following summaries reflect UNICEF’s contributions, as well as four priority areas of focus. How do we leverage global data on violence affecting children and use it for policy action?This was the topic of an inter-agency panel organized by UNICEF Innocenti, which began with the first ever presentation of global age-, sex-, and perpetrator-specific estimates of childhood violence from a systematic review led by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s (LSHTM) Karen Devries. These results were also recently released as part of the Know Violence in Childhood Initiative, suggesting that a larger number of children are subject to violence than previously estimated. Audrey Pereira (Innocenti) then presented joint ongoing work estimating the percentage and determinants of disclosure and help-seeking among childhood violence survivors across six countries, suggesting the rates of formal help seeking are extremely low, with implications for reducing barriers children face. Innocenti’s Alina Potts and UNICEF Philippines’ Faye Balanon presented work from the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children, detailing how nationally-led research processes can drive country-level policy change. Although progress has been made in establishing that violence against children is a problem in every country, data alone is not sufficient without processes to contextualize it and use it actively to inform programming, direct policy, and monitor achievement in these areas as well as toward the global SDGs. The understudied linkages between economic empowerment and violence reductionThere is increasing evidence that economic empowerment interventions have potential to decrease violence, a potential explored in a recently published Innocenti review of social safety nets and violence against children. At the Forum, Innocenti’s Amber Peterman presented joint work exploring the intersection of cash transfers and intimate partner violence, reviewing mixed methods studies indicating that the majority of rigorous work to date shows cash can decrease violence through a variety of mechanisms. In the same session, Shalini Roy of the International Food Policy Research Institute presented new work from Bangladesh showing that cash plus behavior change communication reduced intimate partner violence six months after the intervention ended. The Forum also featured alternative economic interventions, such as ongoing work on a youth-parent livestock asset transfers also in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Nancy Glass of John Hopkins University). We look forward to the forum spurring more cross-disciplinary work on economic empowerment and structural interventions to reduce violence between specialists on violence against women and girls and development economists (among others). UNICEF scholarship recipient Joyce sits outside her home in Ndirande township in Blantyre with UNICEF Malawi’s Doreen Matonga. An outstanding student and talented poet, Joyce is top of her class which has a total of 122 children.Gender based violence in EmergenciesUNICEF’s long-standing work, led by Mendy Marsh, has contributed greatly to the professionalization and standardization of both prevention and response of gender based violence in emergencies. This was evident in several panels showcasing inter-agency and sector-leading tools supported and (co)led by UNICEF, including the new Inter-Agency Case Management Guidelines, findings from the “Communities Care” program using social norms theory to reduce GBV in South Sudan and Somalia, and sharing learning and uptake from the first 18 months of rolling out the revised IASC GBV Guidelines. Research in emergencies is possible and vital to informing programming, particularly in protracted crises; the ethics and methods for doing such work were showcased in a pre-conference workshop by the International Rescue Committee and the Global Women’s Institute of George Washington University, who are developing field-friendly guidance to fill gaps in this area. Work showcasing the use of mobile technologies, mixed and qualitative methods, and effectiveness of programs to prevent violence. For example, the work of Mazeda Hossain and Alys McAlpine (LSHTM), the International Rescue Committee, and other colleagues to evaluate programs providing care for gender based violence survivors in Dadaab refugee camp reflects on the impacts this kind of work has on the refugee community workers who often serve as ‘frontline’ responders in their own communities.  The role of social norms in changing harmful behaviors that underpin gender based violenceGender discrimination is recognized as a root cause of violence against women and girls, often underpinned by unequal ‘gender norms’ and harmful ‘social norms.’ Panels focused on the effectiveness of interventions to change harmful social norms and introduce positive social norms among couples, youth, and communities. These included UNICEF’s Communities Care program (mentioned above), identifying entry points for changing social norms promoting gender based violence among young people in the Latin America and Caribbean region and Tunisia, and the Gender Roles, Equality, and Transformations (GREAT) project conducted by Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health, Save the Children, and Pathfinder International. This initiative aims to understand how gender norms are learned, internalized and passed on among adolescents (ages 10-19). As reflected upon by a participant during the closing session, much of this work assumes that beliefs must be changed before changes in behavior can be achieved, but how do we know that to be the case? Further research is needed to understand how much behavior can change in spite of, or in contradiction to people’s beliefs. The closing plenary with talks by re-emphasized the messages shared by Emma Fulu of the Equality Institute at the start of the conference, including the need to re-establish a feminist approach to combating GBV, one that centers the voices of women and girls in work to end violence against them, and that values different forms of knowledge rather than solely medicalized or technocratic approaches. The importance of inter-sectorality and partnerships was highlighted, as well as a need to meaningfully engage with vulnerable groups such as indigenous populations to end the often overlapping or ‘intersectional’ violence they face. In the words of one courageous survivor of childhood sexual abuse who now works tirelessly against it, Brisa de Angulo of Bolivia, “Nothing about us without us.” There was recognition that despite the growth in numbers, the community working to end violence is relatively small in comparison to the magnitude of the issue—thus a reminder that we “always need to keep marching” to make progress for those less fortunate than ourselves (alluding to the latest march against femicide after the murder of 19-year-old Mara Fernanda Castilla in Mexico). Finally, youth activists from around the world performed for the participants, reflecting on what they had seen, heard, and contributed during the conference, reminding us to put our efforts into evidence for real change, rather than academic accolades. We heartily congratulate the SVRI secretariat on organizing another successful international Forum and look forward to checking back in on how we are progressing in terms of voice, accountability, and evidence, at the next Forum in South Africa in 2019 (in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa)! Amber Peterman is a Social Policy Specialist and Alina Potts is a Research and Evaluation Specialist in Child Protection at the UNICEF Innocenti. For additional information, see Innocenti’s research program on violence, including the Multi-Country Study on VAC, SVRI-funded work linking education to violence in Malawi and Uganda (brief), and our research on cash transfers, women’s asset ownership and violence. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.

When the winds of winter blow and the White Walkers arrive, it probably won’t matter if you are living in the Red Keep, or in a farm near Winterfell. End-of-times scenarios aside, context matters a great deal in how we define poverty and well-being. In the imaginary world of Westeros, created by G.R.R. Martin and made famous by the TV adaptation Game of Thrones, the seven kingdoms that constitute the fictional realm have quite distinctive features: though poverty seems widespread, we can imagine it is substantially different to be poor in the depths of the North, a harsher but seemingly more equal society, or scraping together a living in Flea Bottom, the dense, fetid slums of King’s Landing, the royal capital. Clean water may not be a prime issue for children in the North, while having wool clothes is a matter of survival, and the converse would be true for children living in the hot, sunny kingdom of Dorne.This is particularly true when we try to measure multidimensional poverty. While monetary poverty can be more easily conceptualized across different countries and contexts, whether we use dollars or gold coins, actual access to goods and services makes a substantial difference to the daily reality of the poor. Even if everyone would probably be better off with more dragon glass to fight the white walkers, when it comes to standards of living, who cares about ancient blades of obsidian? Clean water may not be a prime issue for children in the North, while having wool clothes is a matter of survival, and the converse would be true for children living in the hot, sunny kingdom of Dorne. In the seven kingdoms and on planet earth, it is crucial for countries to have their own measures of multidimensional poverty, alongside international comparable ones. In a recent paper, we examine the process and the results of the national definitions of multidimensional child poverty in three countries, not in Westeros but in the very real region of Sub-Saharan Africa: Mali, Malawi, and Tanzania. All countries decided to measure monetary child poverty alongside multidimensional child poverty, providing an eye-opening picture of how the two are interrelated. In all three countries rates of deprivation are generally high: 50% in Mali, 63% in Malawi, and 74% in Tanzania respectively, which reflects the general situation of the region. While monetary child poverty rates go from 29% in Tanzania to 45% in Mali; there is also a substantial mismatch between the two measures of poverty: respectively, 25%, 29%, and 48% of children don’t live in poor households, yet they are multidimensionally deprived. The three national measures conducted by UNICEF Innocenti are based on Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA), an approach based on a child rights framework that aims to construct a truly child-centered way to measure child poverty. They share some similarities in the dimensions and indicators; however, the specifics of each national measure are different. Mali, for example, defined Child Labour as a separate dimension (29% deprived), reflecting a national priority, while Tanzania and Malawi opted to include it in a broader dimension of child protection  (10% and 66% deprived, respectively), which includes also early marriage (in both countries) and child registration (in Tanzania).  For the same reason Malawi included a separate dimension of food security for children from 5 to 13 years old. Involving national actors in this process is fundamental: you don’t want Cersei Lannister to decide what matters for children in Winterfell! And on the other hand, we can imagine that Daenerys Targaryen may take the issues of child protection to heart. Involving governments, and especially statistical offices in the construction of a multidimensional child poverty measure that could serve as a suitable national indicator for SDG 1.2 is crucial. This is why the process usually starts with a two or three-day discussion, often organized by the UNICEF country office, inviting government partners, other UN agencies and civil society representatives to air their views. Not nearly as difficult as Jon Snow’s efforts to unite the North against House Bolton, it is nevertheless essential for all stakeholders to arrive at a common definition of what should be captured by a national measure of child poverty. It was during these lively national conversations that I learned what country priorities and aspirations were: for example why birth registration was so important in Tanzania, or how using bed-nets as a health indicator was not going to be significant since mosquitoes are less of a problem in the mountainous regions of a country; or again, the clever way Mali included the dimension of information for small children, using the collected data on the mother’s knowledge of illnesses and hygiene practices. In all countries, actors were keen to contribute their experience and points of view toward construction of a better and more inclusive set of measures. Discussions of important issues such as gender, disability, and parental care, among others, were extensive and provided the necessary background for the results to be meaningful for each country. Tailoring a measure to the context is not fancy academic luxury, but it is vital to better measurement. And measurement is in turn is vital to improving policies. Because, at the end of the day, no dragon queen with magical powers is coming to save us. It’s on us to deliver a better future, for all the children. Lucia Ferrone is a consultant with UNICEF Innocenti working on the Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) project, a tool which helps researchers and policy makers to better map and define the impact of poverty in children’s lives. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.

A recent paper in Child Indicators Research (behind a paywall) shows that girls aged 11, 13 and 15 are more likely to suffer from multidimensional poverty than boys in 26 out of 38 high and middle income countries included. England shows the greatest difference in the prevalence of multidimensional poverty between girls and boys – 8 percentage points, followed by Canada, Italy, Latvia and Wales (7 points). Among the six countries with the lowest rates of multidimensional poverty, girls are more likely to be poor in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, while there is no statistically significant gender gap in Norway or Iceland. girls are more likely to suffer from several deprivations at once, resulting in higher rates of multidimensional poverty among girls in 60% of the countries studied.Unlike the more standard material aspects of poverty, this study focuses on rights-based outcomes of nutrition, health, protection from violence, and access to information, as well as more relational dimensions of school environment and family environment. Adolescents who are deprived in three or more out of six dimensions are counted as multidimensionally poor. The poverty rate ranges from one in ten in Norway and Sweden to one in three in Bulgaria, Latvia, Russia and Wallonia (Belgium). The Health Behaviour in School-age Children (HBSC) survey was administered separately in the regions of Belgium and Great Britain, allowing for sub-national presentation of the results for these two countries. In only one country, Israel, the gender difference goes the other way: the poverty rate is 5 points higher for boys. Boys in Israel are more likely to suffer from the lack of classmate or teacher support (school environment), to be victims of school-based or cyber-bullying (protection from violence), to report a poor quality of family communication or family support (family environment) and not to use computers on week days (information access). *significant at p<0.05.Source: Chzhen et al 2017, Figure 7 (with added information on statistical significance of the gender gap).Out of the six dimensions, perceived health is the most skewed against girls, as they have higher rates of poor self-reported health and health complaints than boys in every single country. This is in line with other research that shows that girls tend to have poorer self-rated health than boys, with the gender gap largest at age 15. In contrast, information access is disadvantaging boys because they are less likely to use computers on weekdays. However, girls are more likely to suffer from several deprivations at once, resulting in higher rates of multidimensional poverty among girls in 60% of the countries studied. Other dimensions show a more mixed picture. While nutrition appears to be gender-balanced overall, girls are more likely to miss breakfast on weekdays, while boys are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables at least once a week. In protection from violence, girls are more likely to suffer from cyber-bullying, while boys are more subject to (otherwise more prevalent) school-based bullying. The gender gap in deprivation risks in the dimensions of school environment and family environment can also go either way, with boys or girls at a higher risk in different countries. However, there are no gender gaps in these dimensions in the majority of the countries. The study uses UNICEF’s Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) framework, drawing on data from the 2013/14 HBSC survey for 36 European countries, Canada, and Israel. It is children themselves who respond to questions about their lives, rather than parents, teachers or ‘household reference persons’. Adolescence is a critical period in children’s life course, with lasting consequences for adult outcomes. Gender differences among 11-15-year-olds are likely to persist into adulthood. This poses a serious challenge for higher income countries in achieving the universal Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 1 includes a target to reduce poverty in all its dimensions among men, women and children of all ages. Goal 5 calls for achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and many other Goals and Targets build on the principles of equality and non-discrimination. The article “Multidimensional Poverty Among Adolescents in 38 Countries”, co-authored by researchers at UNICEF Innocenti and four academic institutions, will be included in a guest-edited special issue of Child Indicators Research on multidimensional child poverty. Read the introduction to the special issue here. Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. She works on multidimensional child poverty, comparative social policy and child well-being. She recently co-edited a book about the impact of the Great Recession on child poverty in rich countries “Children of Austerity” (a free pdf copy is available here). Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.  

Even if you are not familiar with the concept of “gender socialization”, it is most likely that you have been influenced by it and in turn passed on your own beliefs about what constitutes gender-appropriate attitudes and behaviour to others. Gender socialization begins at birth, intensifies during adolescence and contributes to gender inequalities in education, employment, income, empowerment, and other significant outcomes of well-being during adolescence and later in life, argues a recently published discussion paper by the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti and the International Centre for Research on Women. The paper enriches our understanding of gender socialization by bringing together theories from psychology, sociology and biology and reviewing significant historical and population shifts to provide a more holistic picture of how gender socialization happens and who the major “agents” (e.g. family members, peers, community leaders) and structures (e.g. political structures, cultural and social norms, global media) of influence are – during adolescence and beyond. [A new research brief summarizes the key insights and conclusions from the discussion paper on gender socialization during adolescence]Before exploring the framework developed in the paper and its application to programming and policy-making, let us reflect on what gender socialization is and how it manifests in everyday life. The paper defines gender socialization as a “process by which individuals develop, refine and learn to ‘do’ gender through internalizing gender norms and roles as they interact with key agents of socialization, such as their family, social networks and other social institutions.” (p. 6) Adolescence is a critical period in which gender attitudes and behaviours intensify and new gender roles emerge. It is also a period during which the negative outcomes of some gender norms begin to manifestA key component of this process is the internalization and acting out of gender norms. To illustrate how this happens, we asked friends from around the world (via social media) for examples of how boys and girls are socialized differently in their culture, if at all. In early childhood, parents and caregivers may dress male and female children in different colours (e.g. pink for girls and blue for boys in Italy) or give them different toys to play with (e.g. cars for boys, dolls for girls in the Czech Republic). A friend from Bulgaria shared that people there often comment on the appearance of little girls (“You are so pretty; “What a nice dress you have”), while they are more likely to point out the activities and abilities of boys (“You run so fast”; “You are so strong”). Siblings taking refuge in classroom where they take refuge after fleeing armed conflict in North Waziristan tribal agency, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.These examples are quite gender stereotypical, but friends from the Netherlands and United Kingdom pointed out that a change is taking place in their countries with many parents showing a preference for gender-neutral clothing (e.g. black and white with prints), and activities (e.g. encouraging daughters to ride bikes and sons to go to dance lessons). Such approaches provide their children with less traditional concepts and less divisions between what it means to be a boy and a girl. A friend from the Solomon Islands commented that where she lives people do not have strong expectations that girls will wear a certain colour and look feminine during early childhood, but as they approach adolescence, expectations such as being "useful around the house" emerge. Boys on the other hand are expected to be more "wild", climbing trees and being active. This toughness expected from boys is not uncommon. A friend from China shared that a strong masculine norm in her culture is that “boys don’t cry”, while it is acceptable for girls to do so. Similarly to Bulgaria and the Solomon Islands, in Somalia and its neighbouring countries people are more likely to focus on a girl’s appearance and make known the expectations they have for her as a daughter and later on a wife ("She looks like her mother, she has good hair, a light colour and good nose… when she grows up, she will help her mother and take care of her siblings"). Boys also attract comments about their appearance, but typically these focus on their ability to defend the clan and provide for the family ("He looks stronger! He will defend his family and kinship"). The examples show how gender socialization is reinforced in different cultures by the “agents of socialization”, who in turn are influenced by factors such as the socio-economic conditions of a country, gendered and political structures, social and cultural norms, the global media, and their own local communities and networks. [CLICK TO ENLARGE]Adolescence is a critical period in which gender attitudes and behaviours intensify and new gender roles emerge. It is also a period during which the negative outcomes of some gender norms begin to manifest. For example, adolescent girls may be forced to drop out of school in order to help out at home, they may be married off before their 18th birthday, experience unwanted pregnancy or intimate partner violence for the first time, or be exposed to HIV (UNICEF, 2014; WHO, 2016; UNESCO, 2015; UNAIDS, 2014). Adolescent boys and young men are more likely to die in violent conflict and automobile accidents, and engage in substance abuse (Kato-Wallace et al., 2016). In some settings they are subjected to proving their manhood in aggressive initiation practises or are forced to join armed groups, urban gangs, crime syndicates, or rebel and government forces (Barker and Ricardo, 2005; UNICEF 2012). Norms around what constitutes gender appropriate behaviour play a major role in shaping these outcomes. While the intensification of gender attitudes and roles during adolescence is linked to many negative outcomes, this period also presents a great opportunity for adolescents to develop more equitable gender attitudes and behaviours in order to decrease the negative outcomes described above. To assist the development of more comprehensive programmes and policies, the discussion paper presents a framework (see Figure 1 below) which captures the dynamic process of gender socialization and the many factors that shape it at different levels of influence: structural, social-interactional and individual levels (John et al., 2017, pp. 19). It acknowledges that as well as receiving messages about his or her gender identity, the adolescent has agency and self-enforces gendered attitudes and behaviours and in turn influences the gender socialization of others. When developing policies and programmes aimed at increasing gender equality, decision-makers can use this framework to position their efforts, understand the key areas and actors they may be able to influence and the outcomes to which they can contribute, and construct a more comprehensive Theory of Change. For example, an effort to improve the social status and employment prospects of migrant girls and women in urban areas may need to consider gaps in the local market (structural level) and offer training in skills that are highly sought after. The gender roles and responsibilities of these girls and women in the home, school, and community (socio-interactional level) also need to be considered to ensure that the training does not increase the risk of interpersonal violence or burden them with an unmanageable work load. Mitigation strategies may consist of the provision of social services that assist with looking after children and sensitize key agents in their network (including male partners) to the benefits of women’s employment. At the individual level, a comprehensive approach may include different opportunities for girls and women with different cognitive and physical abilities, interests, etc. A key recommendation made in the paper is to take advantage of openings at the structural level and develop programmes and policies that complement these shifts to achieve greater gender equity. Looking for these openings to influence gender socialization during adolescence is particularly important as today’s adolescents are pivotal to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and their gender attitudes and outcomes will influence future generations. [For more recommendations for policy and programming on gender socialization see pp. 36-39 of the discussion paper.] Nikola Balvin is a Knowledge Management Specialist at the Office of Research – Innocenti. The Office of Research – Innocenti is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre investigating emerging and current priorities to shape policy and practice for children. Access the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue at:unicef-irc.org/publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter @UNICEFInnocenti Subscribe to UNICEF Innocenti emails here. The author wishes to thank Sarah Cook, Director of the Office of Research-Innocenti, for helping to conceptualize this blog and providing feedback on earlier drafts, and co-authors Neetu John, Kirsten Stoebenau, Samantha Ritter, and Jeffrey Edmeades from the International Centre for Research on Women for their collaboration on this discussion paper.  UNICEF Office of Research- Innocenti · Nikola Balvin on Gender Socialization During Adolescence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

In the spring of 2013, I traveled to northern Syria as part of an international organization’s emergency response team. Over the course of that year, more than a hundred thousand people would flee fighting further south only to find the border with Turkey closed, and seek safety in makeshift camps strewn among parched olive groves. My task was to rapidly assess women and girls’ protection needs and set up programs to respond to them, building on the initial steps being taken to provide water, sanitation, and safe spaces for children.Adolescent girls showed me latrines without doors and locks that they did not feel safe using. Women were concerned about overcrowded tents, where extended families and even strangers slept in extremely close quarters. A doctor from Aleppo—who had been treating survivors of sexual violence—told me how she continued to do so here, the violence often directly resulting from the conditions in which women and girls found themselves.Adolescent girls showed me latrines without doors and locks that they did not feel safe using. Women were concerned about overcrowded tents, where extended families and even strangers slept in extremely close quarters.Parents spoke of older neighbours who offered to protect their young daughters by marrying them; an option they did not want to accept, but which seemed better than the dangers posed by living in such insecurity. Young Syrian men talked of dwindling prospects for marriage and family life, as they felt they had nothing left to offer a potential spouse. Everyone spoke of ‘foreigners’ – sometimes fighters – who would come looking for Syrian females to marry and bring back across the border to Turkey, or further away, to the Balkans or Central Asia. Four years later, such stories have only become more pronounced.A girl who has been displaced by conflict runs amid ancient ruins, where she is currently sheltering in the area of Jebel al Zawiya, Syria. Displaced women stand behind her. The ruins have become a source of refuge as they are less likely to be attacked.Trafficking: a neglected issue in humanitarian emergencies In a variety of emergency and displacement settings from Greece to Afghanistan – and along the precarious migration trajectories that connect them – trafficking can be specifically linked to widely recognized issues of sexual exploitation and child marriage traditionally addressed by ‘protection’ actors.[1] While a growing number of standards and tools for addressing such issues exists, practical guidance on how best to meet the needs of those who have been trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation—or to prevent it from occurring in the first place—remains limited.Instead, human trafficking is often misunderstood or left unaddressed in emergencies. It is usually viewed as a pre-existing problem that is not a direct consequence of conflict or natural disaster, better left to law enforcement or social welfare services to address. The humanitarian sector lacks a systematic, institutional response and tends to work in silos, further complicating its ability to coordinate with and learn from these diverse actors. Numbers that speak to the scale of the issue are notoriously hard to come by in that even rudimentary monitoring and research efforts must be weighed against important ethical and safety concerns, both for those being trafficked and those seeking to shine light on the issue. With all the other competing urgent needs in emergencies, humanitarian agencies are understandably anxious about adding research on such a complex, sensitive and, often trans-national issue to their list of priorities.human trafficking is often misunderstood or left unaddressed in emergencies. It is usually viewed as a pre-existing problem that is not a direct consequence of conflict or natural disaster, better left to law enforcement or social welfare services to address.Crisis conditions can also make it harder to discern whether trafficking is occurring based on international definitions, and what constitutes consent versus desperation as well as whose consent is being considered. If the Syrian parents of a teen-age daughter living in an overcrowded tent on the border – a structure without doors, let alone locks, in a highly precarious location – agree to an offer of marriage as a way to protect her, can it officially be defined as trafficking? Does that change if the daughter in question is 18 years of age and agrees to travel overseas?Aside from the damage early and/or forced marriage can inflict on a female’s physical, emotional and social well-being, how do we know if her new husband subjects her to sexual exploitation within or outside of the marriage? Where can she seek support?  In northern Syria, I asked a group of young, unmarried women where they or their friends would go for help if they experienced violence or exploitation. Many expressed frustration at the lack of services available to them. One woman told me, "Nobody will answer you if you talk."Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, Borno state, northeast Nigeria, hosting families seeking refuge due the Boko Haram insurgencies. An estimated 2.4 million people have been internally displaced in Nigeria as a result of the Boko Haram conflict.Protection, Peace, Security, Justice: Operating at the intersectionsAddressing human trafficking deserves recognition as a life-saving activity that should be prioritized from the first stages of emergency response, according to formative research from IOM and Caritas France—the former spanning over twenty years of fieldwork and the latter focusing on conflict and post-conflict settings in the Euro-Mediterranean region. As several of the IOM researchers involved wrote, “…crises tend to exacerbate pre-existing exposure to risks, threats, abuse and exploitation, and introduce new risks and threats.” A recent statement by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons highlights the risks not only during conflict, but also while fleeing (both in transit and host countries), and in post-conflict settings.Combatting trafficking in conflict is increasingly seen as a political necessity in global peace and security agendas, particularly in relation to sexual exploitation. Survivors such as Nadia Murad – who last December addressed the  UN Security Council prior to its unanimous adoption of Resolution 2331 on trafficking in armed conflict – are bringing visibility and voice to the issue. In a follow on meeting this spring, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated to the Council that,“Human trafficking takes many forms. Women and girls in particular are targeted again and again and again. We see brutal sexual exploitation, including forced prostitution, forced marriage and sexual slavery.”In the run-up to last year’s World Humanitarian Summit, a range of actors increased their focus on trafficking specific to humanitarian settings. These included the UN’s main criminal justice body, the US and UK governments, universities, and international organizations including those advocating for the broader agenda of ending ‘modern slavery’. Caritas’ work underscores the role of faith-based organizations in working closely with community and religious leaders, as important intermediaries for both prevention and connecting those affected to services.While some trafficking is committed by highly organised criminal networks, the most common type of exploitation is at a lower level, involving fathers, mothers, husbands, extended family, acquaintances and neighbours.Yet many global initiatives remain at the level of policy and advocacy, with only tentative actions toward a more comprehensive humanitarian response, and survivors and frontline practitioners largely absent from global discussions. Attention to trafficking following natural disasters has been limited, as well as discussions of the potential unintended dangers posed by humanitarian and refugee responses in and of themselves, and by those closest to a survivor who may be making decisions that they believe put her further out of harm’s way. As ICMP’s groundbreaking study of trafficking in relation to the Syrian war notes:While some trafficking is committed by highly organised criminal networks, the most common type of exploitation is at a lower level, involving fathers, mothers, husbands, extended family, acquaintances and neighbours. The context of general vulnerability means that there are often factors that leave families with no viable alternative for survival other than situations that could be defined as exploitation and trafficking in national and international law.Workers gather paintings made by children participating in art therapy, in a child-friendly space, in Za’atari, a tented camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan. The space offers a safe place for children to participate in recreational activities and receive educational and psycho-social support.For this reason how aid agencies deliver assistance—and through whom it is channeled—are critical in determining whether power imbalances that can lead to exploitative situations are maintained, worsened, or reduced. Negative coping mechanisms (such as child marriage) and exploitation by individuals empowered through their connection to assistance (through distributions, for example) may be caused by the response to a crisis, rather than the crisis itself. The principle of ‘doing no harm’, or at least seeking to minimize or avoid exposing people to further harm as a result of one’s actions, is essential, as is avoiding adding to a long list of protection concerns that are unrealistic for any one actor or sector to address.Instead, we can improve upon the actions protection actors and the wider humanitarian community are already taking, so that we continuously strive to do the most good for those most in harm’s way. This is exactly what applied research in humanitarian settings seeks to do.The time for concerted action is nowResearch does not mean delaying action, but rather informing it. As efforts among humanitarian, security, human rights and justice actors to combat trafficking for sexual exploitation grow, it is timely to consider a coordinated research agenda around trafficking in emergencies.This could build on existing recommendations for research by the UN Special Rapporteur and on the knowledge accumulated through global violence prevention efforts—such as DFID’s What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Programme, KnoW Violence in Childhood, Together for Girls, and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children—and apply it to an intractable and often invisible form of violence that affects unknown numbers of women and children in crisis settings. Importantly, Sustainable Development Goals 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2 and their indicators have already sparked momentum to improve global estimates and better measure progress in ending trafficking as well as forced labour and modern slavery.A makeshift camp north of the Raqqa in the Syrian Arab Republic, Hiba, 12, and her family just arrived in Ain Issa camp from rural Raqqa. “I wasn’t scared on the way. I kept thinking that once we get here, I will be safe,” says Hiba. “I can read and write but with difficulty,” she adds, having lost four years of education.By coordinating the resources, knowledge and experience of different actors across the humanitarian sector, and partnering with key anti-trafficking actors outside of it, we could consolidate the evidence base on how human trafficking for sexual exploitation is exacerbated by conflict and natural disaster, what humanitarian actors are already doing to combat it, and which approaches best meet the needs of the children and women most at risk. In addition to those recently proposed at an ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment side event, potential framing questions could be:What is known about trafficking of women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation during humanitarian emergencies? (Mapping Patterns)How do the drivers of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation differ in emergencies vs non-emergency settings, and how are they the same?How do humanitarian responses put women and children more at risk of this type of trafficking?What mechanisms are in place to monitor this and trigger corrective action when needed?  (Do no/least harm)What is already being done about it, and how? (Emerging good practices)How can an understanding of drivers specific to humanitarian settings be used to adapt responses used to combat trafficking in non-emergency contexts?What (innovative) actions are already being taken in emergency contexts, and which show signs of promise?How are affected individuals and communities (including religious leaders) involved in efforts to better understand and address the issue? What ethical issues arise for those at-risk, as well as the researchers and practitioners involved?Importantly, we must take a critical look at how our response in emergencies may inadvertently act as a push or pull factor. The lack of safe sanitation facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, economic support for hard times, or information about how and where to access services can all lead people to make choices that put them at risk, and attract those who would exploit them. While the criminal element to human trafficking makes it tremendously difficult and potentially dangerous to address, the least we can do is start with ourselves.There is already a case for ensuring basic protection measures that prevent trafficking and sexual exploitation in emergencies. The time for taking a critical look at the efficacy of these measures, and expanding the tools and resources we have at our disposal, is now.In addition to the outstanding efforts highlighted above, we invite those currently engaged in research, programming and policy making to prevent and/or respond to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in emergencies to share your findings, burning questions, and future plans in the comment field below, or contact us directly. If there is a sufficiently strong response, we may consider facilitating a round-table discussion on the issue or joining with others already doing so.[1] Trafficking for labour exploitation is also of great concern, however here we focus specifically on trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation.Alina Potts is a research and evaluation specialist with UNICEF Innocenti. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.

Despite broad agreement that youth engagement is important to forging sustainable peace and development, young people are often not given the opportunity to participate in public discourse and decision-making.[1] Absence of a youth voice makes it difficult to design policies and programmes that adequately respond to their needs, particularly in conflict-affected contexts.The 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace – hosted in 2017 by UNICEF Innocenti and Sapienza University of Rome – focused on pressing issues related to young people and conflict, including: violence, memories of war and terrorism, environmental change, multicultural societies, and youth resilience and empowerment. The last theme – young people’s resilience and empowerment – showed up in many of the presentations at the symposium. Similarly to achievement of the SDGs, symposium participants acknowledged that peace cannot be accomplished without the meaningful participation of young people, and without adult decision-makers “walking the talk” of truly engaging with them.Children play at the Kamesa Child-Friendly Space in Bujumbura, Burundi. The Kamesa Child-Friendly Space provides a safe space where children can be with other children, play games that focus on peacebuilding and receive psychological support.UNICEF defines adolescent and youth engagement as “the rights-based inclusion of adolescents and youth in areas that affect their lives and their communities, including dialogue, decisions, mechanisms, processes, events, campaigns, actions and programmes – across all stages, from identification, analysis and design to implementation, mentoring and evaluation”.[2]The symposium provided several arguments from psychology and related disciplines on why the engagement of young people is important to peace and social cohesion. Preventing young people from active engagement is not only a violation of their rights, but a potential driver of conflict,[3] with exclusion and lack of recognition shown to lead to frustration, disenchantment and acts of violence and conflict.[4] They also prevent the leaders of tomorrow and the “torchbearers” (as Ban Ki-Moon called them) of the SDGs from taking action against violence and injustice to set the path they wish to walk on in their future.However, adults often struggle with the meaningful engagement of children and young people in decision-making. Even in schools young people may be implicitly or explicitly discouraged from active participation.[5] As such, schools can act as both a contributor and preventer of conflict (for details see Affolter’s blog). In childhood and early adolescence, schools provide the main – and sometimes the only – platform for engagement with civic issues. Sharing research from Italy, Camilla Pagani spoke about the potential of schools to improve young people’s understanding of multi-cultural and other forms of diversity and to foster peacebuilding. As the place where students from different backgrounds are most likely to have their early, significant encounters with “otherness”, schools can contribute to peacebuilding by helping young people “unpack” their realities and question constructs and emotions around racism and other prejudices that they bring into the classroom.[6] Their realities need to be unpacked both in the formal curriculum and through more informal channels such as youth clubs, theatre, sport, etc.The ability of schools to act as effective peacebuilding platforms depends on whether they are equitably accessible to all. Analyses conducted as part of the Learning for Peace programme found that the likelihood of violent conflict doubles in countries with high levels of education inequality between ethnic and religious groups. In turn, conflict widens inequalities in education, particularly between richer and poorer groups and between boys and girls.in comparison to their parents, the 16-35 age group is less likely to participate in non-conventional political activities – such as joining new social movements, participating in protests or humanitarian and human-rights organizations – and believes it has less chance to affect public policy through active participationAs they get older, the platforms through which young people can engage with decision-makers diversify. Despite increased options, Winnifred Louis from the University of Queensland presented evidence suggesting that young people in Western Europe and North America are more disengaged from formal decision-making processes than previous generations. Data from Wave 5 (2005–2009) and Wave 6 (2010–2014) of the World Values Survey suggest that in comparison to their parents, the 16-35 age group is less likely to participate in nonconventional political activities – such as joining new social movements, participating in protests or humanitarian and human-rights organizations – and believes it has less chance to affect public policy through active participation. Emerging analyses from Louis et al.’s work[7] cast light on why American and Australian young people may be engaging less with public issues.The research is showing that the level of engagement from state leaders and decision-makers with young people’s political action affect young people’s moral conviction about the importance of civic issues, their personal and perceived support for democracy, and also their support for or against law-breaking in the affected causes. These trends are suggesting that engaging young people in decision-making is not only the “right” thing to do from a human rights perspective, but a crucial approach to reducing violence and promoting peace.The Symposium made an effort to engage with young people as discussants, presenters, and volunteers. A highlight was the visit to Association Rondine – The Citadel of Peace. Dedicated to building future peace leaders, the association brings together students from conflict affected countries in the Balkans, Caucasus region, Middle East, and Africa. The students often come from opposing sides of a conflict and live and study together in the medieval village of Rondine, where they learn skills for constructive dialogue – with each other and with older leaders – toward a peaceful coexistence.When asked what we – the older adults in the room who study peace and conflict in various contexts – can do to help young people like the Rondine group, they responded that finding more opportunities for young people to “speak to the enemy” was crucial. They also wanted more youth involvement in peace processes at the political level.Click here  to read the abstracts from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace.Additional resources on young people’s participation and engagement:Ozer, E.J. and Piatt, A.A. (2017). ‘Adolescent Participation in Research: Innovation, rationale and next steps’, Innocenti Research Briefs 2017-07, Methods: Conducting Research with Adolescents in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, no. 5, UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, Florence, 2017.United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Child and Youth Participation Resource Guide. 2012.United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Youth Report: Youth Civic Engagement, 2016.United Nations Population Fund. Youth Participation & LeadershipYouth Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Hub, University of California Berkeley, http://yparhub.berkeley.edu Nikola Balvin is a Knowledge Management Specialist at the Office of Research – Innocenti. Prior to that she was a Research Officer on UNICEF’s flagship publication ‘The State of the World’s Children’ at the New York headquarters. The Office of Research – Innocenti is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre investigating emerging and current priorities to shape policy and practice for children. Access the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue at:unicef-irc.org/publications. Follow UNICEF Inocenti on Twitter @UNICEFInnocenti Subscribe to UNICEF Innocenti emails here. The author wishes to thank Winnifred Louis for her comments on an earlier draft of this blog and the young people from Rondine who volunteered at the Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace and provided many important insights into what meaningful participation looks like.[1] Değirmencioğlu, S. (2017). Reconsidering the role of young people in public life and in building peace: Action, democracy and sustainability. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Rome and Florence, Italy, 21-26 May 2017.[2] UNICEF (2017). Adolescent and Youth Engagement Strategic Framework (AYESF). Internal document. p. 1.[3] Louis, W. et al. (2017). Promoting civic engagement and participation in multicultural society without increasing extremism: Lessons learned. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Rome and Florence, Italy, 21-26 May 2017.[4] Ben Alaya, D. (2017). Cleavage lines and consensus in social order and experienced situation representations among young Tunisians. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Rome and Florence, Italy, 21-26 May 2017.[5] Affolter, F. (2017). Education for peacebuilding: Lessons learned from UNICEF’s Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme in conflict-affected contexts. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Rome and Florence, Italy, 21-26 May 2017; Değirmencioğlu, S. (2017) - see footnote 1.[6] Pagani, C. (2017). Experiencing diversity: Complexity, education, and peace construction. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Rome and Florence, Italy, 21-26 May 2017[7] Louis, W. et al. (2017) – see footnote 3 above.

It is hard to discuss development, poverty and foreign aid without someone mentioning the contentious topic of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Some say it will be the defining issue for the future of poverty and inequity, others say it will never work. But what exactly are the defining features of UBI?According to the Basic Income Earth Network, “A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.” In other words, it is a universal, unconditional cash paid over time. UBI is not only a development tool for countries with generalized poverty—UBI pilots are under discussion or have started in places like Oakland (United States), Ontario (Canada) and Utrecht (Netherlands). Whether you love it (see exhibit A, B, C), hate it (see exhibit D, E, F), or are somewhere in between, headlines and debates are clearly not going away anytime soon.Despite the hype, UBI is not a new concept. In fact, the idea of an unconditional basic income support dates back to the mid-19th century with ‘utopian socialist’ visionaries. Today, giving poor households cash on a regular, predictable basis to use as they wish is already a mainstay of many Governments’ social policies – including (and especially) in countries with mass poverty. In Africa, it is estimated that 40 countries have unconditional cash transfers, a doubling between 2010 and 2014. Proponents of unconditional cash cite similar arguments as UBI enthusiasts—they are simple, cost effective, give beneficiaries dignity and autonomy over use—and they deliver a broad range of poverty- and human capital-related impacts....evidence suggests that giving unconditional cash does not cause people to stop working. Instead, evaluations under the Transfer Project suggest that beneficiaries often switch from working in hard day labor agricultural positions, to working on their own farms and small businessThere are some important differences between UBI and unconditional cash transfers. For one, UBI is universal—thus inviting moral critiques—should give money to the ‘rich’? Who will pay the price tag? Yet, unconditional cash transfers in Africa commonly use geographical targeting, which mean everyone in a specified area receive benefits—thus programs share functional principles of a UBI. Many of the current debates around UBI hinge on the ‘newness’ or ‘novelty’ of implementation—and critique hypothetical outcomes of such experiments. These debates assume we do not yet know what might happen over time when we give people unconditional cash transfers. However, many of these debates center on core concepts which have been studied for decades in unconditional cash transfer programming. As such, it is curious that these same critiques around giving unconditional cash has been reframed as “controversial.”Let’s take a closer look at some of the critical claims in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, the region currently home for three quarters of world’s ultra-poor. A group called the Transfer Project has been studying large-scale Government unconditional cash transfers for about a decade. They have conducted rigorous evaluations to see how cash changed the behavior of beneficiaries over time—the majority of whom were well below the extreme poverty line. Research using eight evaluations in seven countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) takes a look at some of the ideology:Cash increases spending on alcohol and tobacco: It is hard to propose giving money to the poor without someone suggesting they will drink it away on booze, or waste it on smokes. The Transfer Project evaluations found no evidence of increased spending on these ‘temptation’ goods. Since poverty and related stress can fuel alcohol use—and unconditional cash has been found to decrease both—this is not an altogether surprising finding.Cash is a short term ‘Band-Aid’: Perhaps you have heard the saying “if you give a man a fish…” If so, you will be familiar with the critique that the poor might use cash transfers for short-term consumption, without investment in activities which will ultimately allow them to break the cycle of poverty (e.g. “teach a man to fish”). However, evidence shows that individuals use cash also for investment in activities like agriculture, livestock assets, and education for their children – exactly the types of investments which will “feed them for a lifetime.” In fact, impacts on school enrollment among secondary school-aged children were found to be large, in line with impacts found in Latin America where transfers are mostly conditional on schooling.Cash creates dependency: The age old perception of the ‘lazy’ welfare beneficiary is alive and well. Yet again, evidence suggests that giving unconditional cash does not cause people to stop working. Instead, evaluations under the Transfer Project suggest that beneficiaries often switch from working in hard day labor agricultural positions, to working on their own farms and small business—a switch which improves their welfare. Poor populations have little incentive to stay poor, and giving them an income boost does little to change this."I am poor but now thanks to cash transfers my family can live a better life. I now feel I can change my life and with the money I receive I will open a restaurant-tea house." ~ Widowed beneficiary and mother of three childrenFertility will increase: Policymakers love to suggest that unconditional cash transfers, particularly those targeted to families with children will cause an increase in fertility as families try to gain eligibility for benefits. This is not true. The Transfer Project has found no evidence of increases in fertility—in fact in two countries (Kenya and South Africa), it was found that cash transfers actually decreased early pregnancy among young women and adolescent girls. Let us not assume that giving support to poor households will result in the next baby boom.Cash will have negative impacts on local markets: Critics have also flagged the potential negative community-level impacts of giving cash, including price inflation. The Transfer Project found that cash created beneficial spill overs in the local economy ranging from $1.27 to $2.52 USD generated for every dollar transferred, with no evidence of inflation. Instead of hurting the local economy, transferring cash stimulated community markets and economic development.Zambia's Social Cash Transfer Programme has helped households to pay for school meals and to afford to buy new school uniforms for their children. There is a lot that cash can do, but it is not a silver bullet - families will always need health, education and other social services - problems which cannot be solved by giving cash. However, none of the common myths examined here seem to hold up in the face of hard evidence. While ideology (and politics) will always play a role, we must ensure information is clearly accessible and actionable for policy makers in order for evidence to win over ideology.There are many challenges head in the UBI debate, but let us not make the mistake of inventing the wheel—after decades of research on unconditional cash transfers—we have learned many things. Let us also not forget that while the UBI frenzy overtakes the international scene, in settings of generalized poverty, Governments are already giving regular, predictable, unconditional cash to families—to use as they wish to improve their own lives.“Hunger pushed me to beg. Since I started to receive the cash transfer I no longer have to. I feel happier. Before, when I was in the street, my neighbours would turn away fearing that I would ask them for food; now they greet me.”  ~ Elderly beneficiary, Ethiopia. [A new Innocenti Research Brief by the blog authors: Mythbusting? How research is refuting common perceptions about unconditional cash transfers conveys this evidence in a simple, easy-to-understand format.]Amber Peterman is social policy specialist with the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti. Silvio Daidone his an econometrician with FAO. The Transfer Project is a multi-organizational initiative of UNICEF, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Save the Children UK and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in collaboration with national governments, and other national and international researchers. For  the full working paper see: Handa S, Daidone S, Peterman A, Davis B, Pereira A, Palermo T, and J Yablonski on behalf of the Transfer Project (2017). “Myth busting? Confronting Six Common Perceptions about Unconditional Cash Transfers as a Poverty Reduction Strategy in Africa” UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti Working Paper 2017-11.

In our rapidly evolving world where technology is becoming a huge part of life, both at home and in the workplace, many schools have got a drive to modernise teaching and learning using new technology, which they believe has the ability to revolutionise the standard classroom. As an example, the introduction of iPads into schools has become very popular in London, UK.This trend started a few years ago with one school in London that managed to successfully use iPads in the school environment. There are multiple reasons for why this could be a good idea: iPads have the advantage of being lighter than textbooks and can make lessons more interactive and allow students to work at their own pace. Communication between students could also become easier as everyone gains access to iMessage and email, ensuring that students could be contacted and kept up to date, including students from less affluent economic backgrounds and students who live far away from school. This highlights some of the ways in which digital technology can be usefully incorporated in a school to support students, at least in theory.However, this does not always work out in practice.In light of the recent successes by some schools in using digital technology, my school decided to try for themselves. As is appropriate, the school first conducted a pilot implementation by providing iPads to my class only, an all-girls class from ages 12-13, to assess how it impacted on teaching and learning. As a bunch of 12-13 year old girls, getting a brand new iPad of our own was obviously exciting! In the first few weeks, it is fair to say that many lessons were disrupted by students playing games, listening to music, messaging each other and taking photos - however, this was to be expected. After a few weeks, the iPad was no longer a novelty and so no longer a distraction, which was deemed a success by the school and resulted in iPads being distributed to the other classes. This was where the problems began.Over time, the school became increasingly restrictive of what websites students could access, or the apps they could download, out of fear that they would be harmed or waste their time. However, this reduced the utility of having iPads in the first place, as the restrictions inadvertently extended to useful websitesAs it turned out, our school had not laid the necessary foundation to ensure a successful roll-out. When 100 new devices attempting to connect to the school’s Wi-Fi, the system crashed. Some classes went off the rails when they got the iPads (which should have been expected, given the pilot study results) which was disruptive to learning. Every week, iPads were confiscated, forgotten at home, brought to school uncharged, lost or broken, leaving some students without iPads, which meant that teachers were unable to always incorporate them in their lessons. Beside these practical issues, teachers had not been trained in how to use iPads themselves, so much so that an iPad mentoring programme was set up where students would teach the teachers how to use the devices. While this may constitute an interesting case of informal learning, it was hardly what the school intended!Over time, the school became increasingly restrictive of what websites students could access, or the apps they could download, out of fear that they would be harmed or waste their time. However, this reduced the utility of having iPads in the first place, as the restrictions inadvertently extended to useful websites (like dictionaries, which were blocked as they contained bad words!). This begs the question of whether it is worth having iPads in schools, if you cannot use them to their full potential? In the latest Spiderman movie, when Spiderman enlists his friend to hack his suit and remove the restricting protocols, a whole world of opportunities opens up to him and enables him to fully use his powers. The restrictions on iPads imposed by the school – intended to reduce the risk that the internet poses to students – has not only reduced the opportunities available, but also increased the risks, as kids who are tech savvy find ways of bypassing the system via VPN’s or other such (slightly) illegal methods. The consequence of using a VPN is that students bypass all filters and gain access to absolutely everything, including potentially harmful websites and popups. A balanced approach would be more effective, where the truly harmful materials are restricted but students otherwise have access to the full range of opportunities that technology offers to them.Miranda Cook provides important first hand observations based on her own school's recent experimentation with introducing ICTs into her classroom.In my experience, it is debatable whether having access to an iPad is actually useful for education. There are a few good examples, however, that have come out of this ongoing process. Although in most subjects we have barely used the iPads, the Biology department created a great learning tool called BioTutor, which is a private repository containing all the biology lessons for each year group, condensed into 30 minute videos which can be watched individually whilst completing a matching work sheet. BioTutor is a good example of where digital technology can be used to great effect in teaching and learning. Catching up on missed work no longer involves copying notes off of your friend, but actually taking the lesson and understanding the topic, just online. The fact that the video lessons can be paused allows students to work at their own pace, or to ask the teacher questions if the videos are used in class. It also enables students to complete the lesson planned for them even if the teacher is absent.So what do schools who want to use digital technology in teaching and learning need to think about before implementation? Drawing on my experiences, I would suggest a few key points:Pilot programmes should be conducted with different groups of students and teachers, not only with one class. What works well for one group may not work so well for others depending on group dynamics, individual characteristics, or a teacher’s skill with new technology.There should be a plan in place for how to actually use technology in class in a way that benefits students. BioTutor is an excellent example of where technology was used successfully, but this is very different from just using technology to replace books or as a writing tool.The school might wish to invest in a high-speed Wi-Fi-connection that can handle a great number of devices simultaneously accessing the internet, to avoid slow speeds or crashes which may interfere with classes.Teachers must be trained both in the basics of how to use digital technology, but also how to incorporate it in their lessons. We cannot expect teachers to tackle these challenges on their own and in their own time – it must be supported by the school.It seems as though many schools are interested in the potential of digital technology, but few have cracked how to really benefit from it. Experiments are being conducted in some schools that are entirely tech based, not using books, paper or pens. This is of course unlikely to become the norm any time soon, but perhaps there is something to be learned from these experiences that may benefit other schools in the future.Our guest blogger, Miranda Cook, is a 16 year old secondary school student living in London. UNICEF Innocenti conducts research on the impact of ICTs and child rights in the digital age. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.