News & Commentary
Article
Preventing the sale and exploitation of children in a rapidly changing world
States must step up their efforts to eradicate the sale and sexual exploitation of children to keep up with evolving risks. The UN Special Rapporteur stressed this message at the Human Rights Council earlier this month, where she released the final report of her six-year tenure. In the report, Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, provides an analysis of key challenges, trends, and recommendations for the way forward.
Press Release
Greater support needed for working families as COVID-19 takes hold – UNICEF and ILO
NEW YORK, 30 March 2020 – As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its exponential growth, it is essential to support working families to minimize negative consequences for children, UNICEF and ILO said today. Job loss, school closures, and unavailability of childcare mean that families, especially those in low-income households, need extra support. “The fallout from the pandemic – job losses, prolonged stress and a deterioration of mental health – will be felt by families for years to come,” said UNICEF Chief of Early Childhood Development Dr. Pia Rebello Britto. “For the most vulnerable children, the absence of adequate social protection systems exacerbates their exposure to the crisis.”
Press Release
UNICEF support for education as COVID-19 forces schools worldwide to close
NEW YORK, 26 March 2020 – As nationwide school closures disrupt education for more than 80 per cent of students worldwide, UNICEF today announced it will significantly scale up support in all countries to help children continue their learning while keeping schools safe. “Schools in the majority of countries worldwide have closed. It is an unprecedented situation and unless we collectively act now to protect children’s education, societies and economies will feel the burden long after we’ve beaten COVID-19. In the most vulnerable communities, the impact will span generations,” said Robert Jenkins, UNICEF Global Chief of Education.
Press Release
COVID-19: Children at heightened risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence
NEW YORK, 20 March 2020 – Hundreds of millions of children around the world will likely face increasing threats to their safety and wellbeing – including mistreatment, gender-based violence, exploitation, social exclusion and separation from caregivers – because of actions taken to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF is urging governments to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children amidst the intensifying socioeconomic fallout from the disease. The UN children’s agency, together with its partners at the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, has released a set of guidance to support authorities and organizations involved in the response.
BOOKS
Twenty-five years of progress for women since the Beijing Declaration
(19 March 2020) Twenty-five years ago the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was issued. However, girls are far from being free of discrimination and far from enjoying their full rights, especially adolescent and marginalized girls. Despite much progress made in advancing the condition of women and girls, gaps remain in achieving the commitments agreed upon in the 1995 Platform for Action.
Article
How to survive coronavirus: Italy shows the world
(18 March 2020) First there was racial distancing – locals taking a wide berth around Chinese tourists – then came the jokes, Italians having a good time when the world thought they were in the midst of a plague. Locals scoffed when one after the next foreign universities and colleges in Florence closed – “it’s just like the flu,” many said. Others cringed at “hysterical” headlines about their beloved country. That was late February when there were only a handful of Coronavirus cases in northern Italy.
DATA VISUALIZATIONS
Everything you need to know about conducting evidence synthesis research
(5 March 2020) UNICEF places evidence-informed thinking at the heart of its strategic planning. Evidence is seen as key to understanding the barriers that hold children back, and to developing the solutions that can overcome those barriers to ensure that no child is left behind. In order to build capacity and expand use of evidence synthesis as a tool for improving the situation of the world’s most vulnerable children, UNICEF Innocenti has released a new series of eight methodological briefs on evidence synthesis that will be important resources for global evidence generation efforts.
BOOKS
Impacts of the Ghana Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty 1000 programme
(5 March 2020) Ghana’s flagship social protection programme, LEAP provides bi-monthly cash payments to extremely poor households in all districts of the country. In addition to the cash transfer, LEAP offers free registration in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). In order to participate in LEAP, poor households also needed to have at least one member who was elderly, living with a disability, or an orphaned and vulnerable child. LEAP 1000 introduced an additional group for inclusion, targeting households with pregnant women and mothers with infants, to support the window of the first 1,000 days of life in order to alleviate household poverty and improve nutritional status of infants.
DATA VISUALIZATIONS
A global decade of action to deliver on the SDGs
(27 February 2020) In September last year, the UN Secretary General announced a global call for a Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs by 2030. This appeal to governments, the UN system and all development partners, sets out a need for scaled up ambition and urgent action for the goals. UNICEF is committed to do its part, starting with efforts to improve SDG awareness, inspire action and hold leaders to account on the commitments made in the goals.
Event
Exploring how gender equality can be achieved through social protection
(28 January 2020) UNICEF’s Office of Research—Innocenti has today launched its new five-year research programme exploring gender-sensitive and age-responsive social protection (GRASSP). Funded by the Department for International Development, the programme will examine how social protection can enhance gender equality outcomes throughout the world.
BOOKS
World Bank blog lists top social protection papers of 2019
(8 January 2020) A World Bank blog has included eight papers by UNICEF’s Office of Research—Innocenti and the cash transfer research collaborative, the Transfer Project, among its top social protection papers of 2019. The papers cover a wide range of topics, highlighting the variety of research being undertaken in this increasingly important area.
Event
Our top research and convening web stories of the year: A replay of 2019
(31 December 2019) Over the last few years a huge amount of effort has gone into publication of web articles on the latest research, evidence and thought leadership news at UNICEF Innocenti. 2019 was an important year for our research, with findings on migration, sport for development, family friendly workplace policies and child internet use contributing to new ways of understanding critical issues for child and family related policy makers. It was also a banner year for the renewal of Innocenti as a global centre of thought leadership on child rights. We hope you enjoy this rewind through our web news coverage of 2019!