Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This report, focusing on evidence from Brazil, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador, forms part of Plan International’s ongoing research, Real Choices, Real Lives – a qualitative, longitudinal study following the lives of girls living in nine countries* around the world from their birth (in 2006), until they turn 18 (in 2024). Through annual data collection, Real Choices, Real Lives captures unique insights into what it means to grow up as a girl across different contexts, including how families and communities shape expectations of what girls can do, and be, right from the moment they are born.

What kind of opportunities can a child expect in life? Every child deserves to be loved, cared for, free from the threat of violence, and have the ability to fulfil their potential through exercising their agency, pursuing their education, and making choices in how to earn and spend money. However, due to entrenched gender norms and societal practices, girls are particularly at risk of living in an environment where many of their God-given rights are taken away from them. Child marriage is perhaps the most blatant sign of this. Every year, approximately 12 million girls are married before they reach the age of 18, robbing them of the opportunity to reach their full potential. Child marriage can result in early pregnancy (with associated serious health risks) and social isolation, interrupt schooling, limit opportunities for career and vocational advancement, and place girls at increased risk of domestic violence.

Conflict, climate change, the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fallout from the Ukraine crisis are interacting to create new and worsen existing hunger hotspots around the world. These overlapping crises are reversing the gains many families have made to escape poverty. While global food prices are now stabilising after reaching record highs, in many countries around the world, they continue to climb. High food prices are exacerbating existing humanitarian crises and putting the lives of millions of the world’s most vulnerable children at risk as policymakers are slow to take necessary large-scale action.

Over the past three years, children have suffered immensely from the health and socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic which threatened their rights to survive, thrive, learn and be protected. Many health systems were unable to respond adequately to the increased demand for health care due to the pandemic, nor could they maintain routine health services. With limited health financing, it is critical that we maximise the impact of the investments in the Pandemic Fund. The new fund must focus on the areas which both; strengthen primary health care to boost resilience for health shocks and build core preparedness capacities. By doing so we will make gains in child survival and improve health outcomes for all women, children and adolescents. It is therefore essential that interventions must be equitable, inclusive, integrated and that all stakeholders play an equal part in their design.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fragilities in the global health architecture that contributed to countries being ill-equipped to effectively respond to a global health emergency, which in turn led to devastating consequences for children’s access to essential health services. Increased political awareness and commitment to pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPR) efforts offer a pivotal opportunity to make gains in child survival through resilient health systems that are anchored in a primary health care and rights-based approach. Save the Children and UNICEF UK new policy briefing presents a series of measures for the WHO Pandemic Accord as well as recommendations for the broader health emergency PPR architecture.

The 2022 Global Strategy progress report provides an assessment of the situation of women’s, children’s and adolescent’s health in this third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Section 1 presents abundant evidence showing that inequities persist despite great progress in reducing maternal and child mortality in the two decades leading up to the pandemic. A child’s life trajectory and rights to health, education, opportunities and safety are still largely determined by where that child is born. Data showing stagnation or drops in coverage of lifesaving interventions similarly serve as a reminder of the need to be more vigilant about bridging gaps and placing women, children and adolescents at the centre of development efforts. It also showcases key drivers of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health and well-being. It emphasizes that women’s empowerment and adolescent participation are pivotal to achieving the 2030 Agenda yet notes that there is a long way to go in reducing gender inequality and increasing young people’s meaningful opportunities to actively engage in community and civic life. Also stressed is the importance of addressing the complex factors underpinning today’s unacceptable levels of malnutrition and developing effective strategies to reach women, children and adolescents affected by conflict, forced migration, poverty and climate change impacts. Section 2 takes stock of the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on women, children and adolescents. Although children and adolescents are less likely to experience severe health consequences from SARS-COV-2 infection compared with adults, multiple years of education, health, nutrition and social service disruptions have impacted and will continue to impact their lives.

In 2021, WFP Cambodia implemented a cash transfer programme to support households impacted by both the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale floods. This was done in consultation with the Royal Government of Cambodia and development partners. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), provided financial support to the implementation of the cash transfer programme and accompanying operational research. The objective of the cash transfer programme was two-fold: (1) to increase the beneficiaries’ ability to fulfil essential needs and to support their recovery in the face of these shocks, and (2) to create an operational model for shock responsive social protection programmes that could be adopted institutionally and rolled out to address future shocks. For the second objective, WFP commissioned Oxford Policy Management (OPM) to conduct operational research to generate and document key learnings regarding the WFP cash transfer programme. The research sought to answer the following research question: “To what extent did the design and implementation of the WFP cash transfer programme align with and support the building blocks for shock responsive social protection in Cambodia, and what recommendations do WFP, the Royal Government of Cambodia, and social protection actors need to take into account when designing and implementing future cash (and other) programmes to further strengthen the shock responsiveness of the social protection system in the country?”

This joint study by the Research, Assessment and Monitoring (RAM) Division and the School–Based Programme (SBP) Service aimed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted school–aged children and youth through a global web survey conducted across seven countries Cambodia, Colombia, Ghana, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya and Zimbabwe from May to July 2021.

The COVID-19 health crisis has turned into a global economic crisis, putting at risk the health, jobs and incomes of millions of people across the world. The pandemic is becoming persistent and seemingly slow to eradicate, with medium and long-term consequences affecting the trajectories of the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) targets across the countries. Better understanding of the implications of COVID-19 containment these measures for food systems, food insecurity and malnutrition is vital to prevent this global health crisis from becoming a food crisis and to rebuilt resilient food systems. The regional review presented in this report is broad-based but provisional since we are still dealing with an active pandemic having just moved past the fourth wave (dominated by Delta variant) and now facing a new variant, Omicron (whose real impact is still under review). As we approach 2022, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 and its variants for longer than initially believed. So the numbers related to COVID-19 infections and vaccination rates are only provisional and reflect the situation as of the time of writing.

This report is part of a series of country profiles that describe: (i) policy measures enacted by the government of Iraq to contain the spread of the virus; (ii) policies and measures to stabilize the functioning of agri-food systems; (iii) potential effects of policies on agri-food systems and vulnerable groups. Finally, the profiles also assess longer-term options for agri-food system policies and investments to make them more resilient.

COVID-19 continues to have severe impacts on the societies, economies and environment of forest communities. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on forest communities have been shaped by pre-existing social, economic en environmental vulnerabilities. Despite existing vulnerabilities, forest communities have shown a great deal of resilience. Forest communities have not been passive in the face of these significant impacts. Key responses have included the use of informal and formal social protection programmes. Reflecting on past crisis and building on the initial COVID-19 responses found in the case studies and lessons from producer organisations, this working paper identifies seven key pathways and 14 strategic actions for forest communities to recover and building back better from COVID-19.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized the stability of agrifood systems and the welfare of the rural households that are actively engaged in the different components of these systems, particularly in developing countries. Efforts are underway to redress the negative impacts of the pandemic through investments to ‘build back better’. These efforts represent an enormous opportunity to make significant and lasting contribution to the longer-term resilience and sustainability of agrifood systems in the context of climate change.The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the current opportunities for harnessing short-term response and recovery efforts to address longer-term impacts on resilience and sustainability. The analysis focuses on the role of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in recovery strategies and outlines concrete policy objectives that can be implemented by national governments and their development partners. The report is structured in two parts. The first part outlines the nature of the challenges presented by climate change and COVID-19, their interrelationships, and the potential role CSA can play in addressing these interrelated challenges. The second part of the report outlines a set of policy options for enabling post-pandemic recovery efforts to contribute to longer-term resilience of agrifood systems through investments in CSA and associated enabling conditions.

This review aims to look into the consequences of (1) the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to mitigate the spread of the pandemic and (2) the policies and programmatic responses to mitigate socio-economic consequences of the pandemic and how they have potentially interacted with child labour drivers, especially in agrifood systems. Thus, this review aims to document and spell out how policy and programmatic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular social protection measures, have the potential to prevent or contain an increase of child labour in agriculture at large.

Following the commitment to ensure ‘inclusive and equitable quality education’ and promote ‘lifelong learning for all’ made in 2015 in Goal 4 of   the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2016), the Asia-Pacific region made significant progress in terms of   both access to, and the quality of, education. However, as the mid-point to the 2030 deadline approaches, millions of   learners have failed to learn what they need to reach their fullest potential, producing a ‘learning crisis’ of   serious proportions. This crisis has only become more severe as a result of   COVID-19,increasing pre-existing inequalities, hindering the achievement of   equitable and inclusive education and stalling global progress towards meeting the SDG promise to ‘leave no one behind’. This learning crisis, however, does not affect all learners equally. The most vulnerable and excluded learners before the pandemic – girls; those with disabilities and living in poverty, remote areas and refugee/migrant families and those not speaking the language of   formal education – are facing increased vulnerability and exclusion compared to their more ‘included’ peers after the pandemic – in other words, even greater learning loss. Unfortunately, due to a range of   barriers, there is currently an insufficient number of   national and local policies, strategies and programmes to mitigate this loss.

This background paper outlines the scale and urgency of   financing education for SDG4 in the post-COVID Asia-Pacific  region.  The  paper  focuses  primarily  on  the  public  financing  of    education  and  it  directly addresses three main questions: (i)  What are the key issues and challenges for education finance in the Asia-Pacific?   Situating   public   education financing   within   the   broader  contexts  of     human   capital development   and  social  sector  spending;  (ii)  What  has  been  the  impact  of    COVID-19  on  education finance? From the immediate economic and education system impacts to the longer-term effects linked to  significant  and  inequitable  learning  loss;  and  finally  (iii)  What  are the  priority  areas  for  action?  The paper  proposes  five  main  recommendations  to  guide  post-COVID  recovery  and  the  financing  of    more inclusive, efficient and resilient regional education systems. The paper includes a list of   resources at the end to support the implementation of   the recommendations.