Evidence for Action Blog

Primatologist Jane Goodall has modified the proverb “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” to “… we are stealing it from our children”. She was referring to climate change, which has been described as the greatest health challenge of the 21st century (Costello et al., 2009), and will have serious psychological impacts on human well-being (Clayton et al., 2017). Given its potential to increase inequality and greatly reduce the liveability of the planet, it has also been described as the greatest social and moral crisis of our time. If we are concerned about the wellbeing of future generations, it seems to me that we each need to find ways to actively work towards protecting them from catastrophic climate change – and we don’t have long to do it in! I gave a keynote address on this topic at the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace in May this year. After my talk, many participants of my age (!) commented on the similarities between the current climate crisis and the Cold War era when children and youth were deeply affected by the threat of annihilation of life from a nuclear war, and how massive protests helped to shift us from the brink of disaster. While most people are worried about climate change, not enough are yet translating this into the needed groundswell of active support. Psychology provides insights into the processes of denial and avoidance which underlie inactionThese Symposia are held every two years, typically in areas that are experiencing conflict and violence, to allow mutual learning between international participants and local scholars and practitioners. So this symposium was unusual in being held in Italy, at Sapienza University of Rome and UNICEF Innocenti in Florence. Its theme, Bridging across generations: Turning research into action for children and families, brought a welcome focus on children and young people on the one hand, and on the complex processes of knowledge exchange between research, policy and practice, on the other. Given my involvement in child longitudinal and intergenerational research, and efforts to use research knowledge to influence policy and practice, it fitted my interests perfectly! The interchange between peace psychologists and UNICEF was particularly rich. To build peace or address conflict and injustice, peace psychologists tend to be involved in relatively small interventions and research projects, but with a strong focus on cultural sensitivity, and on ‘building peace through peaceful means’. Whether it was about building the evidence basis on violence-affected children, or analyzing the conditions needed for education for peace-building, the Symposium helped us see how sensitivity to the different socio-cultural and political contexts along with carefully targeted and presented evidence, could result in improved national policies and practices to protect the wellbeing of children and youth. But to me, climate change was the ‘elephant in the room’. I reflected on how much more difficult it will be to build peace and social justice in the era of climate change. In my keynote, I noted the need for urgent action as climate “tipping points” are being reached and surpassed much faster than predicted. We are already seeing increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like droughts, floods and wildfires, along with increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and melting icecaps. While serious climate change is already locked in, without very speedy global action to reduce greenhouse gases, we will see changes of catastrophic proportions. Climate change will affect us all, but I drew on impressive UNICEF publications to note that those most vulnerable to climate change impacts will be children in the developing world (where 85% of the world’s children live). Mitigation of climate change is an issue particularly for developed countries which are the major emitters of CO2. In democracies, strong popular support is needed to make governments courageous enough to enact the necessary wide-ranging and speedy changes (in power generation, transport patterns, agriculture, and more). A mother and child in Badanrero Village in Moyale, Marsabit County, Kenya, walk passed the carcasses of their livestock that died as a result of a severe drought that has hit parts of the country.While most people are worried about climate change, not enough are yet translating this into the needed groundswell of active support. Psychology provides insights into the processes of denial and avoidance which underlie inaction (e.g. Marshall, 2015). It can also help identify ways to stimulate effective action, an example being the ACTIVATE model developed by the Australian Psychological Society. So perhaps psychologists have a particular responsibility to be involved in encouraging more people to become active in efforts to combat climate change. I argued for the active engagement of young people in this process, regarding them not just as victims of climate change, but also as powerful protagonists for change. From a child rights perspective, current climate change decision-making is determining their lives far into the future, so they have a right to know about it, and to be heard, participate and contribute to creating solutions to protect their future lives. Most children and young people are already worried about climate change and how it will affect their future. Being given the opportunity to actively contribute to combating climate change can provide important psychological protection, “helping them to feel more in control, more hopeful and more resilient” (Hart et al., 2014, p. 93). Beck et al. (2009) have developed a useful model of the stages of engagement of young people in dealing with climate-related disasters, involving an incremental process from knowledge and preparedness (how to stay safe in a disaster) to action and advocacy at community and eventually national or global levels.  There are many good examples of climate change programs involving youth participation, co-agency and collaboration (see UNICEF for an example), but their current coverage is patchy considering the global scale of the problem. At the same time, as the world shifts to a zero-carbon economy, young people in both the majority and minority worlds will need to adapt to massive changes in lifestyles – e.g. how we work, consume and travel. How do we prepare young people for these huge changes? I suggested that models of positive development (e.g. O’Connor et al., 2016) and the concept of ‘meaning-focused coping’ could be useful for building capacities of youth to respond effectively as individuals, community members and citizens: e.g. by building their cooperative problem-solving skills; nurturing a sense of empowerment and resilience; developing strong intercultural understanding, empathy and compassion; and learning about responsible political action. Click here to read the abstracts from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace. Ann Sanson is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne. She is a developmental psychologist with particular expertise in longitudinal research on social and emotional development in children and youth, and has played a leading role in the Australian Temperament Project and Growing up in Australia. Her previous positions include Acting Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies and Director of Social Issues at the Australian Psychological Society. In her retirement, Ann has turned her attention to advocating for the mitigation of climate change. 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.

Although its preamble mandates the United Nations to “… save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”, peacebuilding discourse has traditionally paid little attention to the role social service providers can play in mitigating the drivers of conflict. Things began to change in 2009 when the UN Secretary General – in his Report on Peacebuilding in the Immediate Aftermath of Conflict – listed the provision of administrative and social services among the five recurring priorities for peacebuilding in the years immediately following conflict. The recent Report of the Peacebuilding Commission, endorsed by both the General Assembly and Security Council, also asks for all UN agencies to contribute to, and for social services to be leveraged for sustaining peace. UNICEF has also begun to actively explore the role it can play in strengthening social cohesion and peace. From 2012-2016 – through an innovative programme called Learning for Peace funded by the Government of the Netherlands – UNICEF and government counterparts from 14 fragile and post-conflict countries designed context-specific education programmes that would mitigate conflict factors identified through prior conflict analysis. the absence of education equality can double the likelihood of violent conflict risk, while gender equality in education is likely to reduce the risk of violent conflict by up to 37 per centThe recent 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Bridging Across Generations: Turning Research into Action for Children and Families – co-hosted May 2017 by UNICEF  Innocenti and Sapienza University – presented a valuable opportunity to pause and reflect on the potential of social service providers to meet the developmental needs of children and, at the same time,  support the transformation of relationships between individuals and groups. UNICEF programmers must be mindful of both the socio-emotional implications that violence has on victims, as well as the root causes and psychological processes that motivate individuals and groups to discriminate or harm others. The Symposium highlighted systemic challenges that educators and psychologists experience as they seek to identify pathways to reduce inter-personal, group and systemic or ‘structural’ violence. Psychologists recognize that basic human needs must be met in order to raise caring, non-violent, optimally functioning children and citizens. They acknowledge that child maltreatment constitutes the most severe environmental hazard to children’s healthy development. Yet, as structural violence is a key contributor to child maltreatment, there is a need to identify policies and systemic interventions at the macro level that are capable of mitigating conflict factors. The Bridging Across Generations Symposium presentations helped to highlight this micro/macro divide. One of the conclusions, based on research on the families of victims of Italian terrorist attacks highlighted in the Symposium, was that Italians continue to suffer as a result of a perceived failure of the State to identify, prosecute and convict the perpetrators. Where state and society are unable to deal with the past, intrapsychic reconciliation also remains impossible. At the same time, the Symposium presented case study research that illustrated how contemporary governments have used formal and informal education systems: to disseminate Truth Commission findings and recommendations about past human rights violations in schools and universities; for financing reparation programmes for communities who had suffered from human rights abuses; and by funding education reforms that support and train teachers and civil society to teach about the past. Peace psychologists should assess the psychosocial benefits of a political economy that makes quality education equitably accessible, culturally and socio-economically relevant, participatory and inclusive. We also need to study what allows schools to become social spaces where children and young people from different identity groups can connect, engage, and think critically about the past and contemporary social challenges. The peacebuilding and psychosocial benefits of such governance frameworks are rarely documented. However, a recent analysis by FHI360 illuminated the links between education inequality and conflict, showing that the absence of education equality can double the likelihood of violent conflict risk, while gender equality in education is likely to reduce the risk of violent conflict by up to 37 per cent. Pupils of Buhundu Primary School located in Bukonzo sub-county, Bundibugyo District, read Peace Day messages on the International Day of Peace observed annually on 21 September. Observance helps to raise teacher's awareness on peace building as well as encourage them to utilize elements of the curriculum to promote peace in the classroom.The Bridging Across Generations Symposium also reflected on the psychological implications resulting from the possible failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation. A 2016 Global Risks Report published by the World Economic Forum argues that climate change could spark large-scale involuntary migration and profound social instability. Children – biologically and psychologically most vulnerable – will suffer most from a chain reaction of interlinked stressors (including conflict) which will be triggered by extreme weather events. Peace psychologists need to ask how communities and caregivers can be assisted in adapting to and managing stress in the face social disruptions, displacement, lack of access to health care, schooling, food, and increased poverty. They will need to remind young people – as Ann Sanson argues – that they not only are “… among the greatest victims of a warming world, but are also the most powerful protagonists for change.”  As communities around the world face decades of increased shocks and stresses, it is important that both peacebuilders and development planners appreciate the psychological possibilities and limitations of their development interventions – not just at the interpersonal level, but also at the inter-group and systemic/structural level. Social services delivery and governance in fragile contexts requires technical effectiveness and efficiency, but also sensitivity to the psychosocial impacts of services on the communities and regions they aim to support. Friedrich Affolter is an Education Specialist at UNICEF’s Programme Division in New York. Click here to read the abstracts from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace. Visit Learning for Peace for more information as well as research products and guidance notes. 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.

We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet - Margaret MeadIn a matter of years the recording of a child or young person’s activities within the public sphere has gone from being consequent to an act of god (or heroics) to a relatively ubiquitous phenomena, slowly conquering continents, and reflected in the statistical estimate that 1 in 3 internet users are children (over 2 billion children). In this context, how can we fathom day to day lived reality of those 1 in 3 any more than they could conceive of my own childhood where data and information was found via little multi-coloured cards in wooden library catalogues? Further, and more importantly, what is the future of those populating and being shaped by this statistic? School children in Udaipur, Rajasthan work on computers during a class, at the Government Upper Primary School, Tidi.The answer to these questions are complex, and the solutions largely unknown. Like all ethical and philosophical conundrums there are frameworks that provide some guidance, but rarely specifics. The devil is in the details and the details need to be understood before we even begin to move forward. The facts are as follows: (1) This generation of children have had their lives ‘datafied’ – their digital footprints have been captured over their entire lifespans, and will continue to be, (2) The information contained on the internet and held within big data sets is pervasive and has the potential to substantially influence their opportunities as well as their ‘digital’ and ‘offline’ identities, with significant implications for their life course, (3) Provision, creation, ownership and utilisation of this data involves a complex chain of actors, with varying degrees of understanding of the implications, risks and potential mitigation strategies (4) We have not yet imagined future data applications, finally, (5) Children’s rights are enshrined in international and national legislation, and we have a duty of care to protect them and to respect and uphold their rights as their capacities evolve. So what does this all mean? First and critically: conversations about children and big data need to be had. A recent working paper from UNICEF Innocenti adds its voice to the movement to get these issues on the table and to push this discussion further. Beyond the written word we need knowledge exchange between all the stakeholders in the data chain. We need metaphorical group study rooms where communities, data analysts, child advocates and tech giants can share knowledge and reflect on data impacts, legacies and children’s futures. We also require technological solutions as well as systematic efforts to embed critical thinking on big data and children into both generic educational programmes as well as within programmes specifically targeted at data analysts. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGEMost importantly, but frequently omitted, is that we need to listen. We need to understand children’s understanding of privacy, their perspectives on how their data should be treated, who should have access, and what controls they would like. It would be as absurd to ask a contemporary pre-teen’s perspectives on the Dewey system as it is for institutions and governments to omit children’s voices in a context where, frequently, our perspectives are the anachronisms. In saying this, there are likely to be more solutions to protecting the security, wellbeing and data of children than those mentioned, and there will certainly be more in the future. However, it is not yet tomorrow. Today we should be laying the foundations and undertaking the preparations for a future where the rights of children and the generations that follow them are respected, recognising no one knows yet what the future will look like….but we all need to start learning and teaching now… Gabrielle Berman is responsible for providing advisory and technical support to ensure the highest ethical standards within UNICEF’s research, evaluation and data collection and analysis programmes globally. Subscribe to UNICEF Innocenti emails on any web page. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter @UNICEFInnocenti. Access our research catalogue here.

The League Table presented in UNICEF’s latest Innocenti Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries, clearly shows which high-income countries are doing well, and which are doing poorly, in terms of achieving outcomes for their children as broadly defined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The League Table orders countries depending on how high they rank, on average, across nine SDGs, and then into three groups of ‘high’, ‘medium’; and ‘low’ performers. At the higher reaches of the table, those countries accustomed to performing well – Nordic and other western European countries – can be found. At the lower end, poorer eastern European countries, and both middle and high-income countries from the Americas, make up the numbers. Even so, in almost all cases, countries do not perform predictably across all the goals. Mexico ranks near the top in education and Norway nearer the bottom in peace and justice. in almost all cases, countries do not perform predictably across all the goals. Mexico ranks near the top in education and Norway nearer the bottom in peace and justice.The League Table for Report Card 14 shows greater consistency in ranking among goals that represent ‘traditional’ social policy areas (education, poverty, hunger, health, etc.) on the left-hand side of the table, and some surprises in terms of ‘newly-defined’ goals (sustainable cities, responsible consumption, peace and justice [violence]) on the right. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE TABLEFindings on the newly defined goals are explained in the Report Card as new challenges for all countries, often with supranational influences, and therefore as challenges which require concerted international effort for tangible progress. In this sense, it is the first of the Innocenti Report Card series to draw out how actions in higher-income settings can have repercussions for children globally. Another reason to look at new goals and measures is that: in order to effectively address a new social challenge, the first step is to measure it. The League Table in Report Card 14, by channeling the ambitions of the SDGs, measures some new ambitions, and so begins the process of addressing them. Some will be surprised that violence and pollution are as high as they are in countries traditionally seen as ‘successful’, or that environmental awareness can be so low. Rather than dismiss these out of hand, the League Table stands as a record of these concerns, and an incentive to further explore their determinants and to identify the means for effective change. A League Table communicates relative success or failure ‘at a glance’. It is the shop window, announcing: “Have we got your attention yet? Come in, take a closer look around.” This is where the discussion starts, not where it ends. As the discussion begins The League Table also provides some points for the agenda. It sets out the first ambitions for progress, provides a rationale, and suggests appropriate comparators for general learning, and perhaps even policy lessons and potential recommendations for reform. It is, after all, quite natural to take a cue from those around us, set our standards as a group, and even imitate each other. To achieve our ends, it helps to know who we might replicate, or who we can learn from. But directions are not directives, and criticism for this type of analysis will generally start with ‘What now?’ A league table necessarily obscures the details of its parts, and so it is here that policymakers need to tease it apart to find the details on what to prioritise, and begin the process of achieving long term goals for children most effectively. Invariably a Report Card is questioned hard about the merits of publishing a League Table including the ‘richest countries’ of the world – Germany, the US, the Nordics – with some not immediately recognized as comparators, such as Mexico and Turkey. It would be unfortunate if League Tables that reflect business-as-usual in cross-country comparative analysis were discounted for this reason. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGEFurthermore, critics of a statistical mind will point to the risk of encouraging policymakers to view climbing the League Table as a goal in itself. According to Goodhart’s law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." If efforts are focused on measures intended help a country perform better on tables result in as poorly informed trade-offs between goals for children, rather than improving all goals for all children, it will not have met its purpose. Fourteen Innocenti Report Cards and fourteen league tables later, the debate continues. With Report Card 14 we hope to bring attention to all the most pressing issues that impact upon the rights and needs of children in high-income countries – in the context of the SDGs, at this critical point in time. We hope the reaction of policy makers and duty bearers is not to immediately question the standing – though we are confident they will bear scrutiny – but instead to pay heed to where they stand on specific indicators.  On issues that matter for children, and so for the future, facing up to the challenge of these results, and learning from both successes and failures across countries, is much more important.   Dominic Richardson is education officer with UNICEF Innocenti and lead author of the key background paper paper for Report Card 14 "Comparing  child-focused SDGs in high-income countries: Indicator development and overview" . 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 European Union measures child poverty as the share of children living in households with incomes below 60 per cent of the national median, but this indicator tells us little about how children fare within their families. A child living in a well-off household may still be deprived of the possessions, services and social relationships that other children take for granted. This is the so-called ‘Harry Potter style poverty’. The opposite can also be true: children in income-poor households may still enjoy fulfilling relationships with friends and family as well as access to high quality public services. SDG 1 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”The new Innocenti Report Card 14 Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries ranks 41 advanced economies on 9 measures of social progress for children. The Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDG 1) 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” (Target 1.2) by 2030. As the SDGs are universal, higher income countries are also called on to monitor progress towards halving the multidimensional poverty rate within 15 years. UNICEF Innocenti has developed a methodology to measure multidimensional child poverty that is rooted in the children’s rights framework (see UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989) and puts the child at the centre of analysis. Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) defines the indicators and dimensions of child poverty using mainly child-specific items, although a few, such as housing quality, are measured at the level of the household. More than 40 lower and middle income countries have conducted national MODA studies. The Innocenti Report Card 14 applied the MODA methodology to a cross-country comparison using data for 28 European Union countries, plus Iceland and Switzerland from the 2009 and 2014 ad-hoc material deprivation modules of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Children are counted as multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in at least two dimensions of poverty out of the seven that we have data for - nutrition, clothing, educational resources, leisure activities, social activities, information access and quality of housing. (Please see the working paper for details of the methodology and results). Across the seven dimensions, poverty rates tend to be higher in housing, leisure and social activities than in nutrition, clothing or educational resources. Comparable measures were not available for non-European countries. Report Card 14 includes both multidimensional child poverty and income poverty in the country rankings for SDG 1 “No Poverty”, along with a measure of social transfers’ effectiveness in reducing income poverty. The five Nordic countries, as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, do best in this comparison. In contrast, Bulgaria, Canada, Mexico, Romania and the United States rank lowest due to their high rates of income poverty among children and limited capacity of social transfers to reduce it. The countries’ performance on poverty is the best predictor of their overall ranking across all nine child-relevant goals included in Report Card 14. Only SDG 10 “Inequality” comes near. All the countries in the top third of the summary League Table rank in the top third of the poverty ranking, except Japan, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom that rank in the middle-third on poverty. Similarly, all of the overall bottom-third performers also rank in the bottom third on poverty, except Malta and Slovakia in its middle-third.  All nine goals contribute equally to the summary League Table, which sorts countries according to their average ranking across the nine goals. 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”. Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.

Special note: Many will be unaccustomed to detailed UNICEF reporting on child and adolescent mental health issues. The latest edition of Innocenti Report Card on children in high income countries seeks to assess the status of 41 OECD and EU countries relative to the SDGs. In searching for relevant, contextually appropriate means for measuring health and well-being, adolescent mental health symptoms, suicide, alcohol abuse, bullying and sexual and physical violence were included. Any parent can recognise the signs of early distress in a small child.  Young children can be very vocal in showing their emotions: crying, shouting, kicking or throwing toys around.  But when they reach early adolescence psychological problems can become more acute, less easy to detect and even more difficult to fix. Parents are often no longer capable of providing help and become dependent on professional help. The newly released Innocenti Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries, shows that on average, 25 per cent of 11-15 year olds in high-income countries report experiencing two or more psychological symptoms[1] on a weekly basis. Moreover, 1 in 12 adolescents report experiencing these symptoms on a daily basis. Girls are consistently more vulnerable. In 26 out of 31 countries girls at age 15 and 13 are substantially more likely to report experiencing psychological symptoms on a weekly basis compared to boys.  Alarmingly, in 13 out of 31 industrialized counties the reporting of these mental health symptoms have increased between 2010 and 2014. A particularly worrying trend is observed in the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Slovenia and Sweden.  Progress in many other countries has remained stagnant. in 13 out of 31 industrialized counties the reporting of these mental health symptoms have increased between 2010 and 2014Psychological problems among children and adolescents are complex and wide-ranging. They can include disruptive conduct, anxiety, eating and mood disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other mental problems. Mental health issues of children and young people are slowly gaining the spotlight they deserve. Evidence unambiguously shows the links between adolescents’ mental health and the experience of bullying, feeling not ‘connected’ to the school environment, perceived exclusion and lack of respect from others. It was also found to be associated with low academic achievement, health risk behaviours and – in the most acute cases – leading to self-harm and suicidal behaviour. If left untreated, childhood mental health disorders impose a significant cost to the society. Understanding the drivers and consequences of child and youth mental health issues is vital for developing the right steps in their prevention.  It is the right time to channel more public resources to do so. Target 3.4 under Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Agenda specifically calls to ‘promote mental health and well-being.’ The problem should be taken seriously to provide comprehensive and timely support to parents and children in their struggle to manage emotional and psychological issues.  Way too often, help in form of professional mental health service support comes too late, when issues become acute, entrenched and less responsive to intervention. Patching up a problem is then a more likely outcome. Report Card 14 findings suggest that identification and diagnosis of children with mental health and psychological difficulties should start early, before age 11.  At the national and international level, there is an urgent need for regular and comprehensive monitoring of children’s mental health.  This often means developing appropriate survey instruments that could provide evidence on a timely basis.  School systems should give more priority to emotional and psychological well-being of children by establishing an early identification and response system that works in a non-stigmatising manner.  Gender sensitive interventions, which would support children’ ability to respond to pressures of their environment and promote a positive self-image are particularly important.  Finally, children and young people should be given the more and better opportunities to talk about the well-being issues that concern them as well as the help they want to receive. We want our children to be resilient. But we need to give them that chance.For a deeper look and discussion on the data regarding adolescent mental health collected for Report Card 14 download Innocenti Research Brief  2017-12: Adolescents' mental health; Out of the shadows. Zlata Bruckauf is a consultant researcher with UNICEF Innocenti working on the Report Card series specializing on inequality and education issues. 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.  [1] Feeling low, feeling irritable, nervous, having sleeping difficulties.

No one would disagree that education systems should develop every child’s personal and social skills, and should equip them with the competencies needed for adult work. Recognising this, governments aim to achieve the dual ambitions of economic growth and social stability through investment in schools.However, with limited public appetite for higher spending, and increasing (but not always convincing) evidence on the value of private schooling, governments know that they are not simply free to “break the bank.”What is more, a glance at what is achieved through public spending on education services cross-nationally (whether on enrolment, attainment, learning or equity), shows governments in all countries can do better. Despite education being lauded as life’s ‘great equaliser’ and the vast majority of children in the world’s wealthiest countries accessing over a decade of compulsory schooling, many children cannot take full advantage of what schools have to offer.For a start, too many children are out of school. Moreover, the intergenerational transmission of education outcomes is generally strong, with global evidence suggesting it affects around 2 in 5 children on average (closer to 3 in 5 in Latin America), and inequality in educational outcomes are still high, and strongly linked to socio-economic backgrounds worldwide.These failings matter. Every under-educated child represents lost personal opportunities, underutilised economic and social potential, and a litany of wasted public resources and future social costs.Yet still, today, education policies take priority in expenditure during childhood, and in advanced welfare states and beyond, the bulk of public investment during childhood is channelled through the compulsory school system. Across the OECD for instance, of the total average public expenditure on each child – about USD 180,000 – over half is allocated to compulsory education.A volunteer teacher reads a book to children in a day-care centre in her home in the squatter community of BASECO in Manila.This ‘education’ spending does not include other education-focused spending in broader social protection systems, including, for example, early childhood education and care, conditional cash transfers and job training for youth. This leads inevitably to the question of whether existing, and relatively expensive, education systems are worth the cost… or, more appropriately, where do we target reforms.Are you tempted to say: ‘it could be worse if less was spent’? Well the answer could be yes, but in the complex realm of how governments try to achieve their educational goals, if we focus exclusively on ‘how much’ is spent we don’t do justice to the sum of expert knowledge on what drives better educational outcomes.The discussion is more likely to be productive if focused on the ‘when’ and ‘how’ of government spending across the board, because this actually aligns with some key findings from child and education policy evaluations, such as:Optimal investment in children’s education and development suggests that public spending should decline as children age, whereas in most advanced countries spending peaks at 13 or 14 years of age.Evidence on children’s brain development, in particular the development of grey matter in early- and mid-childhood and on the impact of stress on adolescent brain development and behaviours, highlights critical times in the life course for targeted interventions (Even so, accessible and affordable preschool and out-of-school facilities are often lacking).Home environment factors (e.g. deprivation and parenting practices) drive a significant proportion of the variation in educational achievement in school (net of factors such as teacher qualification, peer effects, and school management factors), in particular via the preschool early years, yet all of these policy areas combined receive less public investment than education.Not only could education systems be better integrated across the life course, but there are many social policies worthy of greater public investment that can support child education, particularly when they are well-integrated. The opportunity to innovate not just within, but beyond the school walls, is real, and is underway across the developed world.Educational researchers may wish to follow health scientists once again, and explore the topic of social determinants of education as a complementary path toward meeting the ambitions of the school system. For countries wishing to improve social and economic progress, and presently banking on the school system, an integrated life course approach to child policy and education is not only desirable, but necessary.But necessary or not, changing child investment strategies for the benefit of educational outcomes is not a simple task, and challenges to policy reform lie ahead. For instance, education, as a public service, has a budget with a lot of fixed capital investment, and employees whose livelihoods depend on it. Investment is locked in school buildings, and the professionals that reside within, and so will not be easily shifted even within the education sector, let alone across other social sector budgets, in order to achieve broader social outcomes.In practice, integrating child policies has unique challenges due to often complex governance arrangements, fragmented tax systems and entrenched methods and routines embedded in the culture of delivery. Fortunately for advocates of improving educational outcomes, policies exist that can bridge complex administration systems to help families and societies get more from their school systems and broader social systems.Perhaps the main message here is that when governments want to improve educational and other outcomes for children the first step is not only to spend more but to spend smarter – an implicit but clear conclusion from a recent UNICEF report on education investment and equity. Why fill a leaky bucket?Improving education and learning is not a challenge for schools alone. It should benefit from complementarities across the social policy system that strengthen the home-school partnership, to ensure that all public spending is life-course sensitive, and that good investments on school children follow good preschool investments for the benefit of the child, the school, and society.Dominic Richardson is Senior Education Specialist with UNICEF Innocenti. He previously worked in the Social Policy Division of OECD where he specialized in the evaluation of child and family policies.The Office of Research – Innocenti is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre undertaking research on emerging and current priorities to shape policy and practice for children. Subscribe to UNICEF Innocenti emails here. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter here. Access the complete Innocenti research catalogue: unicef-irc.org/publications 

It has been 10 years since the first tremors were felt in the American sub-prime mortgage market which later rocked the entire planet through a global recession. A new UNICEF Innocenti book “Children of Austerity: Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries” tells the story of how the economic crisis – and government responses to it – impacted upon child poverty in industrialized countries.The narrative picks up where Innocenti Report Card 12 “Children of the Recession” (2014) left off, and gives a detailed account of recent changes in monetary child poverty rates, government policies, and political discourse around child poverty in 11 high-income countries: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.The case studies for Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and the UK, with more generous social safety nets, underscore the importance of labour market inequalities and structural problems of low education, poor childcare provision and other barriers to work, as well as adequate wages to combat in-work poverty.Drawing on country case studies written by national experts, the editors conclude that lower social transfers and higher taxes worsened the impact of the crisis on the living standards of families and children. Several countries saw cuts in spending on health, education and other public services that hurt families with children in ways that income poverty statistics have not captured.Going beyond national averages, the analysis highlights the economic vulnerability of children in large families, lone parent families, those with a migration background and/or low attachment to the labour market. There are stark regional differences in countries like Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the UK.The 11 case study countries span a wide range in terms of their conditions before the crisis, the severity of the crisis, and their policy responses to it. Their experiences provide valuable lessons for protecting children in both the good times and the bad:Enable parents to work through accessible and affordable childcare services.Protect the incomes of poor families with children through comprehensive and generous child allowances.Ensure that young people have the skills necessary to make a successful transition from school to work and independent living.The evidence in Children of Austerity highlights the importance of increasing social transfers while preserving work incentives. Countries with more fragmented social transfer systems – such as Greece, Japan, Italy, Spain, and the US – need to fill the gaps in their safety nets by increasing coverage rates through a combination of social policies. The US case study shows that its patchwork of targeted programmes may help the working-poor families with children, while largely neglecting out-of-work households.Although adequate income protection is central to addressing child poverty, it is not enough on its own. The case studies for Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden and the UK, with more generous social safety nets, underscore the importance of labour market inequalities and structural problems of low education, poor childcare provision and other barriers to work, as well as adequate wages to combat in-work poverty.The volume is edited by Bea Cantillon (University of Antwerp), Yekaterina Chzhen (UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti), Sudhanshu Handa (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Brian Nolan (University of Oxford). It includes contributions from 22 authors. For more details about the volume see the publisher’s web page.Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. She co-edited “Children of Austerity” and co-authored four of its chapters. Follow Yekaterina on Twitter at @kat_chzhen. Follow the UNICEF Office of Research at @UNICEFInnocenti.  The opinions expressed in Children of Austerity are those of the authors and editors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of UNICEF, nor of any particular Division or Office. 

Welcome to the Septuplets! On behalf of the Lancet Commission and the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, I am very pleased to announce the birth of a new series of seven briefs on how to conduct research with adolescents in low- and middle- income countries. The current cohort of adolescents and young adults is the largest the world has ever seen - 1.8 billion. Investments in adolescent health and well-being offer a triple dividend:  to adolescents today, towards health and well-being across the lifespan, and to the next generation of the world’s children. While much is understood about adolescence, The Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing highlights the great need for continuing research with young people, so that we address the tremendous unrealized opportunities, not only for the health and well-being of young people themselves, but also for the future of society and future generations. These seven new briefs focus on research methodologies, and are intended to identify best-practice approaches for conducting research with adolescents. The briefs cover diverse topics including: indicators and data sources; research ethics; research with disadvantaged, vulnerable and/or marginalized populations; participatory research; measuring the social determinants of health, and economic strengthening interventions for improving adolescent well-being. Written by leading experts in adolescent health and well-being, the briefs are designed to improve how research on adolescent health and well-being in low- and middle- income countries is conducted and interpreted. The briefs cover: indicators and data sources; research ethics, research with disadvantaged, vulnerable and/or marginalized populations, participatory research, measuring the social determinants of health, and economic strengthening interventions for improving adolescent well-being.Adolescents are unique human beings—no longer children but not quite fully-formed adults. They have distinctive needs, exceptional capabilities, and matchless potential. As the father of two adolescent men, I understand first-hand the exhilaration, the frustration, and the pride that adolescence draws out of us. As an adolescent medicine physician, I have had the supreme pleasure of working closely with, and learning from, this special group of human spirits. And as a public health policy wonk, I have been amazed to see the recent global explosion of interest in adolescence. A key global force driving this recent interest has been the Lancet Commission and its fearless leader: George Patton from the University of Melbourne. The Lancet Commission provides a blueprint for a new understanding of the importance of adolescence in a lifetime of health and well-being. I was pleased to be able to lead the writing of Brief 3, Inclusion with protection: obtaining informed consent when conducting research with adolescents. This brief addresses ways to work ethically with adolescents in conducting research. Research ethics has been a long standing cause for me. Too often adolescents have been excluded from essential research, based on the false premise of protection from research risk. Brief 3 provides an avenue to inclusion with protection building on the concepts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly the concept of emerging capacities. Adolescents are often best able to make informed and sensible decisions about their own lives. Inclusion of adolescents in research is essential if adolescents are to reap the full benefits of research. Research can guide the creation of improved policies and programmes for adolescents and appropriately tailored services and infrastructure. Research can also strengthen adolescent resiliency, promote wholesome development, reduce adolescent morbidity and mortality, improve nutritional status, promote educational success and mental health, prevent risk behaviours, and prevent or treat infectious disease. In my own service on ethics committees, I have too often seen adolescents excluded from specific research projects – even low risk studies. Either the investigators or the ethics committee could not figure out an ethical way to include adolescents in studies which could promote adolescent health and well-being. We can and should do better. Brief 3 suggests ethical and practical ways to resolve these dilemmas. These briefs are part of a broader effort to increase understanding of the social and structural determinants of adolescent well-being. Adolescence is marked by multiple physical, psychological, and social role transitions. Social and structural determinants and social role transitions are key drivers of health and well-being during the adolescent period. By influencing vital social transitions from adolescence into adulthood, these social and structural determinants have enormous implications for an adolescent’s health and well-being during adolescence and across the lifespan. Briefs 1, 6 and 7 address the scope of these social determinants and ways to address them in research. A 14 year old Syrian refugee from Kobani, stands for a portrait at the car repair shop where he works in Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, 2016.The briefs should be useful to a wide range of stakeholders interested in adolescence research, but are primarily designed to assist professionals, including UNICEF staff, who conduct, commission, or interpret research and/or evaluate research findings in international development contexts, in order to make decisions about programming, policy, and advocacy. The seven briefs are available online at: unicef-irc.org/adolescent-research-methods/ The UNICEF research briefs are the result of a year’s work by a small army of contributors: authors, reviewers, and advisors, all acknowledged in the briefs, who worked tirelessly to refine the briefs and made special efforts to insure the writing was accessible and its utility, maximized. Special thanks to my collaborator and co-editor Nikola Balvin from the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. I join her in thanking the UNICEF Innocenti, which insightfully recognized the importance of this effort and generously supported the writing and publication of these briefs. Serving as an editor is a bit like having a baby. There is always a bit of uncertainty about arrival dates and how the offspring will arrive. The gestation period often seems a bit longer than expected; the labour pains can be sharp. Despite all the travails, the delivery is accompanied with pride and wonder. What a beautiful product we have helped bring into the world! We hope this effort will make the world a better place for the adults who care about adolescents and - especially - for the adolescents themselves. Dr. John Santelli is a Professor of Population and Family Health and Pediatrics and was the chair of the Department of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. 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 couple of years ago the view of the perfectly terraced rice paddy fields of Viet Nam from my airplane window seemed both beautiful and unnerving. Like most Americans of my generation the violent conflict that engulfed this region in the 60s and 70s still evoked powerful feelings. I was on a UNICEF mission to Hanoi to help set up a study on the drivers of violence. Viet Nam was included in the study to represent the East Asia and the Pacific Region, complementing three other countries: Italy, Peru and Zimbabwe which together comprise the focus nations of the UNICEF Innocenti Multi Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children. The Multi Country Study is now comprised of a multi-national team of UNICEF offices, Government partners, research institutes and universities determined to understand what drives violence and what can be done to prevent it. I had been forewarned that undertaking rigorous work to gather evidence on a sensitive issue like violence affecting children in Viet Nam would be challenging. I found a UNICEF Hanoi office full of hardworking, experienced child protection specialists eager to allow me to join them in an exploration of why so many children were at risk of suffering emotional, physical or sexual violence. I also found a Government more than willing to discuss violence prevention and willing to make this important topic a priority. They immediately established a steering committee and set out to form their national research team. Viet Nam is a proud country-and it should be: it has survived not only a war (the American War, as they gently remind me), but also life under a rapidly changing socio-economic context. In 1986, the government introduced a package of economic reforms known as Doi Moi, or renovation, which transformed the previously planned, vertically oriented, largely agricultural economy into a market system which opened up trade to the rest of the world. In 2013, Viet Nam officially became a lower middle-income country with a highly diversified economy and per capita income of almost $USD 2,000.   That's progress by most development indicators, the kind of progress often marked by the premature retreat of foreign assistance and donors. (The following "YouthSpeak" video presents data from the Multi Country Study, empowering Vietnamese children and youth to work on ending violence in their communities.)The effects of Doi Moi were not only economic; the opening of the economy has exposed the country to new ideas and attitudes. With Doi Moi, traditional values have shifted, including concepts of gender equality. Migration, largely a feminized phenomenon in Viet Nam, has accelerated as women seek better options for their families. But with this rapid growth comes the inevitable companions of poverty and inequity, creating a sometimes toxic mix for children who need protection. These are the things we have been studying-the drivers of violence-and   ultimately one of the key lessons from our study is that violence prevention can't be tackled in isolation from a deep understanding how a country's history, politics, and economics shape a child's experience growing up. The Government of Viet Nam has done much to document and mitigate these effects, including targeted programmes for family well-being and specifically for children. But challenges remain in a country which almost four decades later is still struggling to heal the wounds of a traumatic war. Traces of Agent Orange, an herbicide designed to destroy jungles during the war, still leach from the soil. UNICEF-Viet Nam estimates that there are 1.2 million Vietnamese children (out of the 30.5 million Vietnamese under 18) suffering from disabilities and it is suspected that many of these are related to dioxin, one of Agent Orange's chemical components. In general, there are higher rates of disabled children in the areas of the country that were more heavily sprayed, as well as in areas where there are current dioxin hotspots. The causation is still unclear. However, we do know with certainty that children with disabilities face a significantly higher risk for all types of violence. Even for Vietnamese children elsewhere in the country, violence is an everyday issue made worse by intense family pressure to succeed. Evidence from Viet Nam shows, for example, that children who are violent at school are often from families where they experience physical or emotional violence from parents, caregivers or siblings. When Phuong Anh's case was reported, the news of her ordeal spread quickly in her school and she became victim of stigma and rejection from other students. With support from UNICEF's trained case manager, Phuong Anh has overcome the stigma in school and now enjoys learning and she wants to become a teacher.These children tend to be quick to anger, see others as aggressive, and use violence to solve disagreement. Violence in the home shapes and determines children's personalities, peer networks and environments. Breaking the cycle of violence is critical. Early interventions must be timely. For instance, evidence from Viet Nam shows that children who report violent physical discipline at age eight, have poorer cognitive outcomes, poorer math scores, lower self-esteem and lower self-efficacy in adolescence than their non-abused peers. Experiencing violence in schools was children's number one reason for not liking school. In fact, teachers' use of violence against students is a significant cause for school dropout in Viet Nam. That's discouraging for a country with aspirations to continue to grow its economy and secure its place as a regional leader. Despite important advances, Viet Nam's child protection system currently remains nascent and lacks the necessary resources to address the complex and interrelated drivers and risk factors of violence affecting children throughout the country. After two years of research it's clear today that the national solutions to violence are not only possible but already underway. On a recent visit, the Director of Children's Affairs in our study's lead Ministry introduced our research to colleagues as a "scientific study with a very different kind of approach". That sort of willingness, to grapple with what drives violence, is exactly how social change begins. During the same workshop the Director proudly announced that a new law had been passed making implicit the link between children's experience of violence in the home and the school. Evidence generated from our Multi Country Study's findings helped shape the law-and because of it, new prevention efforts are likely to be more effective. It's progress like this, in a place where the uptake of evidence is historically slow, that makes our work so meaningful. Mary Catherine Maternowska is UNICEF Innocenti's lead researcher on  violence affecting children. At the A Billion Brains high level meeting 7-8 November in Malaysia violence against children was one of the major themes with case studies from research conducted in Viet Nam profiled.  

The UN recently raised a red flag that we are heading for one of the worst humanitarian crises since 1945. 20 million people in four countries – South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria – face the risk of famine. The world could witness horrors again. Adding to our concern is the prediction that climate change will bring even more weather variability to these regions, interacting with many complex, man-made conflicts and risks. Children are among the most vulnerable: some will not survive and others will suffer the consequences of undernourishment, including stunting. The severe consequences of neglecting the needs of a child during their first thousand days, is well evidenced. The message about the importance of the first thousand days has echoed widely – perhaps to the point where concerns may be raised about the policy implications being overstretched. There is an anthropometric impact of famine on those exposed as infants, but surprisingly even more so on those exposed as adolescents.The world has witnessed famines before. Publicly available household survey data sets, such as UNICEF/MICS and DHS, enable us to shed additional light on the long-term consequences. An article in the American Economic Review (R. Akresh et.al. 2012) presents evidence of the long-term impact of exposure to the Biafra famine (Nigeria 1968-70). The outcome measure is height among adult women, with height loss well known to be a strong predictor of a range of adverse impacts. The study takes into account the regions and ethnicities most exposed to the famine, as well as the age at exposure and its duration. As expected, those women who were exposed to the famine as infants, are shorter, with the impact estimated to be minus 0.75 cm. Far less expected is that the height impact on those exposed as adolescents – the second period of life marked by a strong physical growth surge – is much greater, an astonishing minus 4.5 cm! The finding should raise some eyebrows, as stunting is almost exclusively discussed as a phenomenon linked to undernourishment among infants; much more rarely as a phenomenon developed in adolescence. Source: DHS, all available Cambodia data sets (rounds 2000/2005/2010/2014). Lines based on five-year rolling averages by age at exposure, using 1977 for age 0. Minuses if unborn (-5=born 5 years after 1977). All women above 20 at time of survey are included.The graph above conveys a highly simplified visual replication of the Biafra findings, related to another tragic famine: Cambodia 1975-79. In terms of excess mortality its estimated impact is 1.5-2.0 million. In an overview of 20th century famines (S. Devereux 2000) the Cambodia famine stands out in terms of its magnitude and the share of the population that was affected. In a spirit of simplicity, the above graph plots the average height of women (blue line) and the prevalence of adult female stunting (<145 cm, red line) against age in 1977. That year is chosen for being the mid-year of the 1975-79 episode. Data on height and year of birth has been brought together from all available Cambodia DHS surveys. All estimates are national averages; no adjustments have been made of more or less exposed regions or population groups, nor for the length of the exposure to the famine (both adjustments would probably further underscore the message conveyed by this graph). The graph echoes the message from the cited Biafra study: There is, as expected, an anthropometric impact of famine on those exposed as infants, but surprisingly even more so on those exposed as adolescents. These findings lend themselves to a number of interpretations. A first could be that excess mortality primarily affects infants, which implies that those most severely affected by famine are no longer with us in the data-sets we use. Additional research could probably indicate the extent to which this is a factor at play here. However, notwithstanding its importance, this does not diminish concerns over adolescent vulnerability. A second interpretation could be related to the much debated issue of catch-up growth. A recent study by Young Lives – based on longitudinal data from Peru, India, Ethiopia and Vietnam – does lend further support to earlier results, which indicate catch-up growth among adolescents who were stunted as infants. So one interpretation may be that we see less height impact on those exposed as infants in the graph above, or in the Biafra study, because catch-up growth has taken place. Furthermore, it may be that catch-up growth does not repair other detrimental impacts of infant stunting, and that the curve somehow masks that. The fast brain development of infants is often cited as a specific cause of concern. However, recent brain science research tends to emphasize the crucial brain growth that also occurs during adolescence. The research on the long-term consequences of stunting depending on at which age it occurs, have important contributions to make here. In any case, the notion of catch-up growth underscores one unique aspect of adolescents’ vulnerability to famines: Adolescents will not be given a second opportunity to grow. A third interpretation of the graph above, not necessarily incompatible with the first two, could be that adolescents are indeed disproportionately neglected during famines.  Concerns over such biases are not new (P. Salama 1998). Infants require less food and are possibly given more attention by immediate caregivers, as well as by emergency relief operations, while adolescents tend to be treated as adults, despite their nutrition-related vulnerability. If this is the case, then policies and practices need rethinking. At UNICEF Innocenti, we were considering setting up our own research project to add more evidence and nuance to the issue discussed here, including replicating it with more precision for other outcome variables and to other incidents of famine. However, given the urgency of the matter, we have chosen to share these incipient findings and puzzles, in a blog. We invite the research community to help us sort out this issue, urgently. Please share your findings and research plans in the comment field below, or contact us directly! If there is a sufficiently strong response, we may consider setting up an Innocenti conference on “Famines and anthropometric impact on adolescents,” hopefully soon enough to make a difference, as the world responds to the upcoming humanitarian disasters. Goran Holmqvist is Associate Director and Audrey Pereira is a consultant at 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.  

In God we trust, all others must bring data.Longitudinal studies are an irreplaceable resource for understanding trajectories, transitions and shocks over time. Undeniably, the UK leads the world in tracking the life course of its citizens through longitudinal research. The British birth cohorts - a treasure trove of data covering five generations of children - now comprise the longest running studies of the way human beings develop over time, anywhere. With so much invested in research of the life course, UK data stands at a cross-roads, facing important questions for the future of longitudinal research. It also provides important lessons for other countries considering large investments in this extremely valuable form of research. The urgency for making greater use of longitudinal research has arguably never been greater. The UK is undergoing vigorous change, due to technological innovations, financial and economic crises, demographic and political shifts. Longitudinal studies remain the single best tool to understand how society is affected by the powerful forces unleashed by these changes. The bizarre new climate of post-truth populism adds an exclamation point to the urgency for quality data and rigorous research to underpin policy. Recently, experts from across the UK and abroad came together at Nuffield College, Oxford, to share their experiences of longitudinal data design, collection and use. The meeting was convened by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to inform their investments in longitudinal research. Over the course of ESRC's 50 year existence it has allocated a significant volume of funds to longitudinal data gathering, and currently invests up to 10% of its total budget in longitudinal research. As well as a series of birth cohort studies starting in 1958, ESRC also funds the world's biggest household panel survey, Understanding Society, a number of Census-linked Longitudinal Studies, and the Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources (CLOSER).  Keep calm and focus on data linkage The workshop focused on future needs and how they can be met. Experts discussed how to relate longitudinal data investments with other data, such as cross-sectional or administrative data. Over two million Britons have enrolled in one longitudinal study or another. One popular suggestion was to create a 'spine' that longitudinal data can be linked to, or to create direct linkages among various longitudinal data resources. Restructuring the current set of studies into a broad based resource has financial, technical and political challenges. Linking data sets has large infrastructure costs which need to be weighed against the potential benefits. The upcoming Digital Economy Bill, with its implications for data management, civil registration and privacy, will bear on the success of data linkage. Here, the UK could learn from other countries. The Nordics have a long history of collecting data on vital events, migration, disease and social conditions. For example, the Danish national registers link different data domains through a unique personal identification number. High-quality data made available through a national data repository can be accessed for the whole population over long periods of time. ESRC has made progress in the area of data linkage by funding the Administrative Data Research Network: a network of centres that negotiate access to administrative data.  Technology - all that glitters is not gold. Technology could be a crucial amplifier for longitudinal researchers. Digital devices can provide ways to increase retention, improve quality and decrease costs of data collection. These technologies can have profound effects. They can expand the way we think about survey data collection and increase the ways we can interact with survey respondents. However, to harness the full potential of technology for longitudinal research, more study is needed, including better understanding the relationships between online and offline behaviours. Data protection - in particular regarding ethics and privacy - warrants much closer consideration. Beyond British borders Longitudinal research is central to the promise of a 'data revolution' to accelerate the achievement of development goals. It is also key to tracking the contributions toward improving human lives. The UK plays a leading role in promoting the international development agenda; hence, it can and should lead efforts to promote use of longitudinal research to inform international development programmes. Impact evaluations, including randomised control trials and quasi-experimental studies, are responding to the call for 'what works' in low- and middle-income settings. These studies collect data over repeated rounds, though much of it remains under-analysed, and poorly linked to other data. How these can be harnessed beyond their narrow purpose remains an important question. Significant investment will be required to close capacity gaps in low income settings in order to bring data collection up to international standards. The discussion is timely: RCUK has recently pledged £1.5 billion over the next five years under its Global Challenges Research Fund. This could spearhead data initiatives in the developing world, and contribute to better measurement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Global Longitudinal Research Initiative (GLORI) launched by UNICEF Innocenti could provide a valuable contribution to North-South dialogue on longitudinal research. In addition to exploring data linkage and technologies, concurrent investments in data governance, interdisciplinary research, user and producer capacity, as well as in oft forgotten science journalism, are also critical. Many are watching to see how UK investments will respond to the challenges of a new world order. The UK should not underestimate the crucial role it plays globally in bolstering good science and research across the life course. More information on the ESRC Longitudinal Studies Review 2017 can be accessed here. Prerna Banati s Chief of Programme and Planning at  the UNICEF Office of Research - 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.