Events & Convening
Latest events

The debt crisis is likely to hit two-thirds of the world’s population. Even before the pandemic 1 in 8 countries spent more on debt than on education, health and social spending combined. And African countries are already spending three times more on debt repayments to banks and private lenders than it would cost to vaccinate the entire continent against Covid-19.
So how can this ticking time bomb be defused?
To coincide with the release of an important policy brief from UNICEF on the debt crisis, Leading Minds will ask the expert panelists:
How do we stop mortgaging children’s futures?
Can debt relief measures turn this tide?



On Tuesday 16th March at 13:00 CET, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti presents its 3rd webinar on the research on violence against children during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the webinar series on Violence against children & COVID-19.

Several months into the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers across the globe are attempting to find out how the health and socioeconomic crisis brought about by the coronavirus is affecting children’s exposure to violence. Four articles published in the Child Abuse and Neglect Journal provide valuable insights.
On Tuesday 23rd March at 13:00 CET, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti presents its 4th webinar on the modelled effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on violent discipline against children as part of the webinar series on Violence against children & COVID-19.

While Africa may be winning the numbers game, it has come at a massive cost and the real losses are only just being counted. Among them 250 million more children out of school; a loss of more than 6% of economic growth throwing the region into its first-ever economic recession. Added to the climate crisis that is making vast swathes of the continent unlivable, a perfect storm is looming. With aid budgets shrinking in donor countries, can Africa benefit from its own demographic dividend to find African solutions?
We ask our panelists if youth leadership today will bring a brighter tomorrow on poverty, climate action and governance and we explore some out-of-the-box approaches for the region to avoid financial ruin.
On Thursday 3rd December at 15:00 CET | 16:00-17:00 Central African Time EST, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti presented its 10th and last Leading Minds for 2020 with a special focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.




This golden age of innovation, with a flourishing of new technologies and online platforms, has created extraordinary opportunities for children and young people to enrich their knowledge and information, their social networks, and their solidarity and civic activism like never before. But those same technologies are used, abused and misused to promote fake messages and harm - leading to hate speech, racism, and hostility with often dangerous consequences to democracies, mental health and children and young people.
The infodemic that has spread at the same rate as the COVID pandemic has brought this into sharp relief. Why now, why has this exploded in 2020 with data being exploited at an unprecedented level?
How can children and young people develop the ability to decipher disinformation and misinformation?




The UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti presented its sixth Leading Minds Online webcast ‘What the Experts Say - Coronavirus and Children' on Economic Impact.
While children and young people have been spared the full force of Coronavirus itself, the worst is yet to come for this generation as the global economy enters unchartered territory. Latest projections from UNICEF and partners indicate that nearly half a billion children in total will live in poor households by the end of 2020. Lockdowns to control the health crisis are having severe repercussions as they cascade down, with children being twice as likely to end up in poverty than other groups and prospects for young people drastically reduced.Just in Europe and north America alone some 90 million full-time jobs were lost in the second quarter, according to the ILO. The COVID-recession not only threatens to erode global development but is predicted to have a broader and deeper impact than the 2008 financial crisis as it hits both supply and demand chains as well as informal sectors across Africa and South Asia. But does it have to be as bad as it seems? We asked a panel of experts where the economy stands now, what lies ahead and how do we make the best of the worst that is to come for children and young people.
Panelists:
- Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Jayati has consulted for international organizations including ILO, UNDP, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNRISD, and UN Women and is a member of several international commissions. She is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. Jayati has received several prizes, and she is the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates, an international network of heterodox development economists. - Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development, Oxford University
Ian is a Professorial Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford University, Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, and founding Director of the Oxford Martin School. Ian previously was Vice President of the World Bank and the Group’s Director of Policy, after serving as Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Economic Advisor to President Nelson Mandela. - Sacha Nauta, Editor, Public Policy, The Economist
Sacha writes across the paper about societal change, looking particularly at how issues around gender and diversity are reshaping business, finance, and economics as well as society at large. She previously wrote for the finance, business, international, and Europe sections. Before joining The Economist, she worked at the United Nations in New York and at Her Majesty’s Treasury in London, where she worked on public spending and European budget negotiations.
- Joel Kibazo, Africa analyst, former FTI and African Development Bank
Joel was Managing Director-Africa at international business and communications consultancy FTI Consulting; Director of External Relations & Communications at the African Development Bank, the continent’s premier financial and economic development institution; and Official Spokesperson and Director of Communications & Public Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat, the inter-government body serving the 54 nations of the Commonwealth that span the globe.

