Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The pandemic’s impact is unequivocally unequal. This is true for educational opportunity and outcomes as well as other dimensions: the poorest are far more vulnerable to the economic, health and learning support shocks of the pandemic. Furthermore, policies to limit COVID-19’s transmission impose unequal burdens, exacerbating inequality and poverty. This is magnified for the youngest, with the pandemic unleashing large negative spillover impacts for children, and these effects are compounded for those in poorer households. Parenting practices and a stable environment during a child’s early years are critical in determining outcomes in later life. The addition of formal learning becomes vital in later childhood and teenage years for determining life outcomes in adulthood.

This survey collected data on the status of remote learning among school-going children across the country. It was conducted in 86 out of the total 335 sub-counties across 42 of the 47counties. We leveraged technology to collect data using the KoboCollect platform via phone calls from 3,735 households spread in 258 villages.

COVID-19 poses a grave threat to the world’s children. As it has been showed in a previous report, while the mortality rate for healthy children infected by the virus has been lower than for adults and those with pre-existing conditions, 30 million are still at risk of illness and death. It is the indirect effects and impacts of this disease that pose a clear and present danger to children, particularly the most vulnerable. This report looks at one those impacts of COVID-19 on girls and boys. Violence. It predicts a major spike in the cases of children experiencing physical, emotional and sexual violence, both now and in the months and years to come. Whether they are forced to stay at home, or, in time, are sent to work or pushed into early marriage, boys and girls face a bleak future – unless governments, UN agencies, donors, NGOs, and the private sector do everything thing they can now to protect them.

At the beginning of April, the 2020 edition of the Global Report on Food Crises was issued, presenting a stark warning for the future. In 2019 – prior to the COVID-19 pandemic – 135 million people experienced crisis and worse levels of acute food insecurity. A further 183 million were on the edge in stressed food security conditions – in other words, just one shock away from severe acute food insecurity. COVID-19-related restrictions risk pushing many more into crisis. As the pandemic progresses in food crisis contexts, food availability as well as food access could emerge as a serious concern – in both rural and urban areas.The Global COVID-19 Humanitarian Response Plan has been revised significantly upwards to reflect the increasingly urgent need to address non-health impacts of COVID-19. Of these needs, the food security sector represents the largest component, for a total of USD 1.6 billion. As part of this, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is seeking USD 350 million to ensure the provision of critical assistance where there are already high levels of need, while meeting new needs emerging from the effects of COVID-19.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in West Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in West Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.

This impact assessment aims to highlight the urgent, medium and long-term needs of families and children in Albania as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in Albania. The assessment methodology has an exploratory approach that involved the collection of socio and economic data related to Albanian families during the lockdown period.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was living a learning crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic now threatens to make education outcomes even worse.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools around the world, disrupting the education of almost 1.6 billion students according to UNICEF, classrooms were closed to millions of displaced children. Less than half of school-aged refugee children were enrolled while only one in four were attending secondary school. Months-long school closures risk reversing small gains recently made in expanding access to education for refugee children.

This report has been compiled jointly by 36 international organizations, under the aegis of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA).
It covers different aspects of public and private life from economic and environmental fluctuations to changes that affect individuals in terms of income, education, employment and violence and changes affecting public services such as civil aviation and postal services. The report also puts a spotlight on the affects for some sub-population groups like women and children as well as geographical regions. Children already left behind will likely bear the brunt of the pandemic’s impact, whether through missing out on life-saving vaccinations, increased risk of violence, or interrupted education. Many children, especially those in the poorest households and the poorest parts of the world, risk losing their lives to pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, HIV and other preventable diseases unless urgent action is taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

 

Nearly half the national school student population is at risk of having their learning and wellbeingsignificantly compromised by not being at school because they are in a vulnerable group, due to their young age; social disadvantage; specific needs; or family employment context. As soon as health restrictions permit there is an urgent need to reconnect these students to the physical context of school-based learning to support their learning and wellbeing outcomes. Concurrently there is a need to invest rapidly in developing significant capability in schools to deliver education both online and on-site

This report aims to highlight one major initiative, the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) implementation of the Reach Up and Learn program in the Middle East, and the ways in which this initiative is providing vital support to both children and their caregivers affected by the Syrian refugee crisis. The first section includes a description of the adaptation process, with following sections highlighting the diverse characteristics of frontline staff and clients, program costs and the early-stage measurement piloting conducted in preparation for the planned randomized controlled trial. By sharing these experiences and lessons learned, the report aims to provide practical guidance for early childhood leaders, practitioners, policy-makers and researchers interested in designing, delivering, testing and scaling home visiting programs in crisis- and conflict-affected settings.

Home quarantine may lead to families developing a variety of psychological distress. The purpose of this research is to examine the psychological status and well-being of children and their parents during 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Spain. It aims to offer testimonies and reflections of the confinement period along with its living conditions, emotional mapping and an analysis of the effects that confinement is generating on boys and girls.

This report describes national policy and strategy responses for ensuring educational continuity in the context of widespread school closures implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on a selection of high-income and low-income contexts. The evidence highlights the current, and rapidly changing status of national policy and strategy responses to date. The report examines key themes emerging form policy and strategy response and reflects on these: which are working, and which are not working so well? The nature of the evidence and material available at this stage of the crisis makes firm conclusions hard to reach. Despite this the report concludes with a set of recommendations supported by the literature as it stands.

As many as 30 million children are at risk of disease and death because of the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. World Vision’s Aftershocks report considers what would happen if the devastating secondary impacts of the 2015-2016 Ebola outbreak on children were replicated in the 24 most fragile countries covered by the UN’s COVID-19 humanitarian appeal. Secondary impacts will threaten many more children’s lives than COVID-19 itself. As many as 30 million children’s lives are in danger from secondary health impacts such as deadly diseases like malaria, a lack of immunisation, or increased malnutrition, as health systems are overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in East, Central and Southern Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in East, Central and Southern Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.