Children and COVID-19 Research Library

At least 1.2 million children across Lebanon have had their education disrupted for more than one year, with many having last attended school in October 2019, following protests and civil unrest. This is impacting Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian children alike. With the country slipping deeper into an economic crisis, a safe and systematic school reopening in Lebanon is difficult to imagine. Even before this, children across the country already had lower than average literacy and numeracy rates in the Middle East region. This brief by Save the Children calls for global attention and action on the unfolding education crisis in Lebanon.  It draws from national and global data sources, sectoral recommendations, and the experiences of children in the country.

On 16 March 2020, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) took the decision to close all education institutions, including public and private schools, as a preventative measure against the spread of COVID-19. These school closures have resulted in disruptions to learning in all of Cambodia’s estimated 13,482 schools, from pre-school through to upper secondary schools, with an estimated 3.2 million students effected. In response, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), together with development partners (and other stakeholders, made significant efforts to provide continuous distance learning to children across all education levels. To assist with continuous quality improvement of distance education services during this difficult time, MoEYS and the Education Sector Working Group (ESWG) decided to undertake a comprehensive, coordinated assessment of the sector to gain evidence to help identify the best approaches to inform the further development of COVID-19 response and recovery efforts; to support the development of evidence-based response policies and practices, and to inform a holistic national response and recovery plan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an existing learning crisis in Sierra Leone, and has disrupted the learning of over 2.4 million children across the country. The most marginalised and deprived children, including girls, children from poor households, and children from rural areas, already had limited access to good quality education prior to the pandemic, and are now at an increased risk of being left behind, and not returning to school at all. Save the Children are calling on the Government of Sierra Leone to commit to realising the right to quality education for all children by ensuring that all children are able to return to school safely, and that long-term, systemic issues with the education system damaging the quality of learning are acted on to ensure that all children are able to access good quality education.

This briefing calls for a global response and the global, equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in order to make real progress on ending the pandemic and minimizing its impact on children. It makes the case for why this is a matter of rights, equity, public health, and economics and must be addressed as a matter of urgency. It sets out key areas of action for governments, donors, and other key stakeholders.

A generation of children in America are experiencing multiple hardships brought on by the coronavirus. Many millions more children are now hungry, missing out on school, and worried about their family’s economic future. For children who were struggling before COVID-19, things have gotten worse.

A year after - as the world still grapples with COVID-19, children and families' lives are being turned upside down with devastating impacts on children and their rights. From health systems are being overwhelmed, economies are sliding down, and children have had their education disrupted by school closures, these conditions affect children from around the world including children from the world’s poorest countries in Asia. To mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Save The Children Asia Team presents ‘Under the Same Sky: How a year of Covid-19 affected Asia-Pacific children’.​ This brief focuses on how children’s daily lives have changed, comparing how they spent a day before the pandemic and during it across the Asia region. It also reviews the impacts & changes to the lives of children in the past 1 year. Reflects on the impact of school closures, home isolation/quarantine, and community lockdown on children's wellbeing and education & health. It includes policy asks on the need for strengthening social protection systems for the most marginalized and vulnerable children in a post-pandemic world.

The European Union (EU) is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of children. In the era of Covid-19 pandemic, it is undertaking two major pieces of work to contribute to making this commitment a reality: a strategy on the rights of the child 2021-2024 and a child guarantee to ensure every child in Europe at risk of poverty has access to essential services. To find out what children are experiencing and what they say needs to change, the EU approached five child rights organizations – Child Fund Alliance, Eurochild, Save the Children, UNICEF and World Vision – to consult with children on their lives, aspirations and concerns for the future. This report presents the findings of that consultation with over 10,000 children aged 11–17 across Europe and beyond.

Compared to the previous generation, the incidence of child marriage worldwide has declined. However, strides forward have suffered from substantial limitations. At the global level, child marriage is still too widespread, and progress too slow, to meet the SDG target in 2030. At the regional level, some areas have achieved remarkable progress, while others are lagging behind. Worryingly, in the majority of cases, progress over the past decade (2010-2020) has not matched advancements achieved in the decade prior (2000-2010). At the country level, inclusive progress hasn’t always materialized: in a number of countries, gaps are widening not only between wealth groups, but also on the basis of residence. In a nutshell, progress has been unevenly distributed not only across time, but also across geographies, with stark divides both among and within countries. COVID-19 is expected to have a damaging impact on child protection, including according to Save the Children’s own projections. Urgent efforts are needed to guarantee girls’ rights and prevent devastating setbacks. In the longer term, more research is needed to understand what drives child marriage, so as to tackle it more effectively in different regions.

Nearly a year since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, children worldwide continue to grapple with unprecedented hardships. However, the virus did not destroy children’s resolve to find and use their voices as forces for change. This brief explores factors that inhibit children’s meaningful participation and outlines key takeaways from children on how their participation can lead to outcomes that are more meaningful and impactful.

The COVID-19 education emergency has not affected all children equally. Refugee children already faced significant barriers in accessing good quality learning because of poverty and discrimination. The pandemic has further compounded these challenges. Progress under threat highlights the impact this pandemic is having on refugee children, including in the ten countries with the largest refugee populations where Save the Children works. Refugees are much less likely to access remote learning, will have lost many months of learning and may drop-out of school. The pandemic has severely impacted their learning and wellbeing, which was already more complex than their host community peers due to the very nature of forced displacement.

Across the globe and in Africa, COVID 19 has spread rapidly. A series of measures have been implemented across countries that include school closures, home isolation and community lockdown. This resulted in secondary social and economic impact on children an their households. This reflection report for Save the Children’s West and Central Africa region is developed to highlight the impact of COVID 19 on children based on the global research data, secondary resources and made policy recommendations and asks going forward.

Save the Children Somalia conducted a rapid assessment covering the entirety of Somalia between the 13th to 16th of April, 2020. The findings of the assessment will inform the defining and prioritizing of the RCCE strategy and key communication and community engagement plan; including contextualized key messages tailored to circumstances of vulnerable communities, defining key actions/activities, and tailor and test materials. Ultimately, the exercise will increase the effectiveness of our communication activities and therefore the impact of the overall response. Furthermore, meaningful participatory engagement and adapting messages to the local context and audience is also proven to lead to stronger ownership, buy-in, and commitment, as well as maintaining/increasing access, and strengthening the organization’s integrity and reputation. 

The briefing note examines the impediments of access to learning caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in northwest Syria, further compounding issues caused by conflict and years of underinvestment in the education sector in Syria. Save the Children surveyed 489 teachers in northern Syria to try and understand what they see and believe when it comes to the reasons that lead children to drop out of education and what would it take to bring them back.

The connection between civic space, civil society engagement and access to healthcare has been sharply highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Civil society around the world has mobilised to bring attention to the needs of the most vulnerable people, and demonstrated the invaluable role it plays in addressing inequities and championing health for all. It is this commitment and zeal that will make UHC possible. This study sets out why accountability is vital to achieving universal health coverage. It also makes the case for protecting and expanding civic space as a way of encouraging civic engagement, resulting in accountability. We put forward recommendations to governments and global health actors to improve meaningful civil society inclusion in health governance.

Save the Children conducted research in three refugee camps in Dadaab in Kenya which explored the impact of COVID-19 on children’s education, young mothers’ livelihoods and gender-based violence. This study highlights programmatic adaptations made in response to COVID-19, identifying what has worked well or less well and considers practical recommendations for the sector. The research gathered views from children, young mothers, caregivers and key stakeholders working in child protection and education in the camp.