Library Home | Reset filters
Select one or more filter options and click search below.
Reset filters
AUTHOR(S) Jennifer Requejo
This action brief summarizes the latest status and trends of key areas related to women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and well-being from a global perspective. It aims to promote coordinated action among global and national partners to recognize and overcome the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, children and adolescents and to accelerate progress to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Rise, Respond, Recover is an update to Protect the Progress: 2020 progress report on Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy for Women’s, Childrens’ and Adolescents’ Health (September 2020), capturing key evidence points presented in May 2021 to the World Health Assembly as well as top priorities and activities among partners.
This report presents findings from the Survey of National Education Responses to COVID- 19, jointly conducted by UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and OECD, and administered by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and OECD. Three rounds of questionnaires have thus far been administered.1 This report focuses on responses to the survey’s more recent third round. All numbers presented and discussed in this report refer to the share of countries that responded to each relevant question in the survey. The number of countries that provided valid responses to the question are noted in each figure. Where relevant, countries that responded with ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Not applicable’, or countries with no response to any of the options or for a level of education, are excluded from the analysis. Caution is advised in generalizing the results represented in some figures as the countries that responded to this question cover less than 50 per cent of the total four- to 17-year-old population. These instances are noted under the respective figures. Detailed information on the country and student coverage of each figure, including by income group, is available in Annexes 1-3. In each country, the survey questionnaire was completed by the Ministry of Education officials responsible for education planning at the central or decentralized levels. The survey instrument was designed to capture de jure policy responses and perceptions from government officials on their effectiveness, providing a systematic understanding of deployed policies, practices and intentions to date.
AUTHOR(S) Camilla Landini; Shadia Elshiwy
AUTHOR(S) Marco Valenza; Cirenia Chávez; Annika Rigole (et al.)
AUTHOR(S) Susanna Trotta; Johanne Kjaersgaard; Mario Mosquera (et al.)
This publication highlights the actual and potential roles of faith actors in contributing towards an effective and holistic response to child displacement in Europe and Central Asia. It illustrates a plurality of ways in which faith actors actively support children and youth on the move, including through ensuring protection and social inclusion, providing spiritual and psychosocial support, countering xenophobia and discrimination, and advocating for policy changes.
The purpose of this brief is to summarize current evi[1]dence and guidance for maintaining safe and effec[1]tive care across the spectrum of maternal, newborn and infant care while protecting mother and child and health care providers during COVID-19. Furthermore, we review implications of the principle of “do no harm” for maternal, newborn and infant care deliv[1]ery during COVID-19, so that this information is con[1]veniently and readily available to clinical and health system policy leaders and stakeholders in countries and communities. Additionally, considerations for safe oxygen delivery as well as key Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures at home and in health[1]care facilities for pregnant women, newborns and children are described in detail later in the brief.
The latest global estimates indicate that the number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years. 63 million girls and 97 million boys were in child labour globally at the beginning of 2020, accounting for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. This report warns that global progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years. The number of children aged 5 to 17 years in hazardous work – defined as work that is likely to harm their health, safety or morals – has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016. In sub-Saharan Africa, population growth, extreme poverty, and inadequate social protection measures have led to an additional 16.6 million children in child labour over the past four years. Additional economic shocks and school closures caused by COVID-19 mean that children already in child labour may be working longer hours or under worsening conditions, while many more may be forced into the worst forms of child labour due to job and income losses among vulnerable families. The report warns that globally 9 million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the pandemic. Children in child labour are at risk of physical and mental harm. Child labour compromises children’s education, restricting their rights and limiting their future opportunities, and leads to vicious inter-generational cycles of poverty and child labour.
AUTHOR(S) Deborah Fry; Karina Padilla; Lakshmi Neelakantan (et al.)
During the first quarter of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in LAC in a context of social and economic vulnerability and persisting high inequality. At the time, countries in the region were already experiencing a weakening of socioeconomic indicators and of social cohesion, and a rise in expressions of popular discontent and political crisis. In the decade following the global financial crisis (2010-2019), GDP growth for the region dropped from 6 to 0.2 percent. This RTA was conceived as a ‘light-touch’ evaluative exercise to assess how four COs adapted and implemented their response to COVID-19. Nevertheless, the RTA synthesis findings and conclusions are not fully representative of UNICEF’s overall response in the region, which encompasses 24 country offices operating in highly diverse local contexts. The Evaluation section at UNICEF LACRO and the RTA team adopted a flexible approach in adjusting objectives, scope, and methods throughout the evaluative process to ensure the usability of the recommendations. The focus of the RTA evolved from an initial programmatic approach (‘what to prioritize’) to an analysis of the quality of the response (‘how to reinforce quality’).
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting economic crisis, UNICEF in the Republic of Moldova commissioned research to assess the impact of the reduced flow of remittances on families with children in the areas of health, education, nutrition and other child related social services, and to drive the development of an equity-focused and gender-sensitive midterm mitigation plan. The report revealed that worryingly, 15 per cent of households with children have even had to cut down on meals, especially expensive categories of food such as meat, fish, fruit and vegetables.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an enormous challenge for all countries due to its public health consequences and socio-economic effects on families. In this difficult context, the Latin America and the Caribbean region is facing the largest displacement in its recent history, with approximately 4.2 million Venezuelans now living in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago. This migrant population faces various risks, whether linked to the migration process or their migratory status, or others that were aggravated by the health emergency. Their extreme vulnerability to the socioeconomic impacts of the measures adopted in response to COVID-19, given their overrepresentation in the informal sector of the economy, coupled with their low inclusion in social protection mechanisms, profoundly jeopardizes their welfare and compromises public health as well as the overall well-being of local populations. Faced with this scenario, social protection may play a fundamental role in reducing the vulnerabilities of migrants and in helping to mitigate the impact of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.
Subscribe to updates on new research about COVID-19 & children
Check our quarterly thematic digests on children and COVID-19
COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response