UNICEF Innocenti: Dominic Richardson profile

Dominic Richardson

Chief, Social and Economic Policy

Dominic Richardson leads Social Policy and Economic Analysis at UNICEF, Office of Research – Innocenti, where he oversees work on cash transfers and cash plus programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, multiple overlapping deprivation analysis, the Innocenti Report Card Series, and research on family policies and child well-being. Dominic previously worked with OECD Social Policy Division on a broad range of studies covering child well-being, evaluating family policies, integrating human services, and social impact investment. Dominic has led or co-authored multiple reports on comparative child well-being in high-income countries, and in 2014, was the lead researcher on a joint EC OECD project evaluating the content and quality of international surveys of school children in high and middle- income countries. In 2018, Dominic was awarded the Jan Trost Award for Outstanding Contributions in International Family Studies by the National Council for Family Relations in the United States.

Publications

Economic Crisis and Child Well-being in the West and Central Africa Region

Publication

Economic Crisis and Child Well-being in the West and Central Africa Region

The COVID-19 pandemic that swept over the world from early 2020 has triggered both health and economic shocks of unprecedented proportions in recent memory. Some estimates suggest that the consequences of these shocks will likely erase most of the progress made in global development over the past two decades. Many countries now risk falling further behind the attainment of national and international development goals, including the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of these shocks due to their persistent higher levels of vulnerability, and the reality that school closures and other COVID-19 containment measures can be more damaging to children. This report examines the effect of previous economic crises on children’s well-being in UNICEF’s West and Central Africa Region (WCAR) and makes projections regarding the potential impacts of COVID-19-induced economic crises on priority indicators for the region.

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Where Do Rich Countries Stand on Childcare?

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Where Do Rich Countries Stand on Childcare?

Even before COVID-19, some of the world’s richest countries were failing to offer comprehensive childcare solutions to all families. In some instances, this reflected their policy priorities rather than available resources. The COVID-19 pandemic also challenged children’s education, care and well-being as parents struggled to balance their responsibilities for childcare and employment, with a disproportionate burden placed on women. In the context of lockdown and school closures, childcare was one of the worst affected family services and had a significant knock-on effect. This report shows how governments can help parents through paid parental leave, followed by affordable and high-quality childcare. Using the most recent comparable data, it assesses the parental leave and childcare policies in the 41 high-income countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the European Union (EU). The report concludes with nine recommendations for how policies can be improved to provide comprehensive solutions to all families.

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School-Related Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Building an evidence base for stronger schools

Publication

School-Related Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Building an evidence base for stronger schools

The prevalence of school-related violence and, in particular, bullying is not a new or isolated phenomenon, nor is it limited to certain schools or countries. Abundant evidence indicates that bullying is widespread and has a negative impact on educational outcomes. Children who are victims of bullying can also be affected emotionally and physically in both the short and long terms. Evidence from low- and middle-income countries on bullying is less extensive when compared to the evidence available on predictors and effects of bullying from high-income countries. However, some findings for the Latin American and Caribbean region seem to suggest a similar picture, with a high prevalence of bullying victimization and association to lower reading scores in different subjects tested. This working paper first uses data from UNESCO’s Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study for nationally representative samples of sixth grade students to determine the prevalence of bullying and its association to learning outcomes in 15 countries of the LAC region. It then looks at interventions in countries of the region to mitigate the impacts of violence.

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Supporting Families and Children Beyond COVID-19: Social protection in high-income countries

Publication

Supporting Families and Children Beyond COVID-19: Social protection in high-income countries

COVID-19 constitutes the greatest crisis that high-income countries have seen in many generations. While many high-income countries experienced the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, or have had national recessions, the COVID-19 pandemic is much more than that. COVID-19 is a social and economic crisis, sparked by a protracted health crisis. High-income countries have very limited experience of dealing with health crises, having their health and human services stretched beyond capacity, restricting the travel of their populations or having to close workplaces and schools – let alone experience of all of these things combined. These unique conditions create new and serious challenges for the economies and societies of all high-income countries. As these challenges evolve, children – as dependants – are among those at greatest risk of seeing their living standards fall and their personal well-being decline. This new UNICEF Innocenti report explores how the social and economic impact of the pandemic is likely to affect children; the initial government responses to the crisis; and how future public policies could be optimized to better support children.

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Time to Teach: Teacher attendance and time on task in Eastern and Southern Africa

Publication

Time to Teach: Teacher attendance and time on task in Eastern and Southern Africa

There is a learning crisis. Fifty-three per cent of children in low- and middle-income countries are in ‘learning poverty’, i.e. they cannot read and understand a simple text by the end of primary school age. In sub- Saharan Africa, the learning poverty rate is 87 per cent overall, and ranges from 40 per cent to as high as 99 per cent in the 21 countries with available data. Teachers attending lessons and spending quality time on task is a critical prerequisite to learning. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, teacher absenteeism ranges from 15 to 45 per cent. Teacher absenteeism and reduced time on task wastes valuable financial resources, short-changes students and is one of the most cumbersome obstacles on the path toward the education Sustainable Development Goal and to the related vision of the new UNICEF education strategy: Every Child Learns. Whilst the stark numbers are available to study, and despite teacher absenteeism being a foremost challenge for education systems in Africa, the evidence base on how policies and practices can influence teacher attendance remains scant. Time to Teach (TTT) is a research initiative that looks at primary school teacher attendance in eight countries and territories in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region: the Comoros; Kenya; Rwanda, Puntland, State of Somalia; South Sudan; the United Republic of Tanzania, mainland; the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar; and Uganda. Its primary objective is to identify factors affecting the various forms of teacher attendance, which include being at school, being punctual, being in the classroom, and teaching when in the classroom, and use this evidence to inform the design and implementation of teacher policies.

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Supporting Families and Children Beyond COVID-19: Social protection in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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Supporting Families and Children Beyond COVID-19: Social protection in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Acknowledging that health, economic, and social crises can rapidly become a crisis for children, this paper seeks to contribute evidence to understanding what the crisis means for children and for families with children in the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In particular, what governments and stakeholders should be looking for when seeking to protect children from the worst outcomes of the crisis. In doing so, this paper asks: Through which mechanisms can COVID-19 affect children in the region? What can we learn from previous crises about the potential effects on children and those who care for children? How is vulnerability to poverty and child well-being likely to be affected? Are initial government responses to the crisis likely to worsen or mitigate risks to children’s well-being? And how might future public policies be optimized in the short and medium term to protect child outcomes?

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Childcare in a Global Crisis: The Impact of COVID-19 on work and family life

Publication

Childcare in a Global Crisis: The Impact of COVID-19 on work and family life

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A Rapid Review of Economic Policy and Social Protection Responses to Health and Economic Crises and Their Effects on Children: Lessons for the COVID-19 pandemic response

Publication

A Rapid Review of Economic Policy and Social Protection Responses to Health and Economic Crises and Their Effects on Children: Lessons for the COVID-19 pandemic response

This rapid review seeks to inform initial and long-term public policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing evidence on past economic policy and social protection responses to health and economic crises and their effects on children and families. The review focuses on virus outbreaks/emergencies, economic crises and natural disasters which, similar to the COVID-19 pandemic, were rapid in onset, had wide-ranging geographical reach, and resulted in disruption of social services and economic sectors without affecting governance systems. Lessons are also drawn from the HIV/AIDS pandemic due to its impact on adult mortality rates and surviving children.

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Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals

Publication

Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals

This report explores how the role of families, and family policies from around the world, can contribute to meeting the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given the key role that both families and family policies have in determining social progress, and the national and international focus on meeting the SDGs by 2030, the timing of the publication is opportune. The report summarizes reviews of evidence across six SDGs that cover poverty, health, education, gender equality, youth unemployment, and ending violence to highlight some important issues that policymakers might consider when making future policies work for families, and family policies work for the future. A key contribution of the work, given the broad scope of the SDG ambitions, has been to map how the successes of family-focused policies and programmes in one SDG have also been successful in contributing to positive outcomes in other goal areas.

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DEVELOPING A GLOBAL INDICATOR ON BULLYING OF SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN

Publication

DEVELOPING A GLOBAL INDICATOR ON BULLYING OF SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN

The rate of bullying among children is a key indicator of children’s well-being and an important marker for comparing global social development: both victims and perpetrators of bullying in childhood suffer across various dimensions, including personal social development, education, and health, with negative effects persisting into adulthood. For policymakers and professionals working with children, high rates of bullying amongst children should raise warning flags regarding child rights’ failings. Moreover, bullying amongst school-aged children highlights existing inefficiencies in the social system, and the potential for incurring future social costs in the communities and schools in which children live their lives. Inevitably, these concerns have contributed to bullying becoming a globally recognized challenge – every region in the world collects information on children’s experiences of bullying. Yet, despite the identification and monitoring of bullying having global appeal, so far, a validated global measure has not been produced. To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper develops a global indicator on bullying amongst children using existing school-based surveys from around the world. The findings of this paper show that bullying is a complex phenomenon that takes multiple forms, and is experienced to widely varying degrees across the world.

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Key Findings on Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Synthesis Report

Publication

Key Findings on Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals: Synthesis Report

This synthesis report, ‘Families, Family Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Key Findings’ explores how the role of families, and family policies from around the world, can contribute to meeting the SDG targets. Given the key role families and family policies play in determining social progress, and in view of the national and international focus on meeting the SDGs by 2030, the timing of this publication is opportune. The report summarizes evidence across the six SDGs that cover poverty, health, education, gender equality, youth unemployment, and ending violence. It highlights important issues that policy makers may wish to consider when making future policies work for families, and family policies work for the future. Given the broad scope of the SDG ambitions, a key contribution of this work is to map how the successes of family-focused policies and programmes in one SDG have been successful in contributing to positive outcomes in other SDG goal areas.

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Comparing Child-focused SDGs in High-income Countries: Indicator development and overview

Publication

Comparing Child-focused SDGs in High-income Countries: Indicator development and overview

The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aim to build on the achievements made under the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by broadening their scope and building upon a consultative process. The MDGs contributed to substantial social progress in eight key areas: poverty; education; gender equality; child mortality; maternal health; disease; the environment; and global partnership. The SDGs not only include a greater number of development goals than the MDGs, but are also global in focus, including advanced economies for the first time. This paper draws attention to the main challenges the 2030 Agenda presents for rich countries, by highlighting a set of critical child specific indicators, evaluating countries’ progress towards meeting the Goals, and highlighting gaps in existing data. The paper will inform UNICEFs Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries.

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Young People (not) in the Labour Market in Rich Countries during the Great Recession

Publication

Young People (not) in the Labour Market in Rich Countries during the Great Recession

This paper investigates changes in unemployment, the NEET rate and temporary employment among 15-24-year-olds in 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and/or the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) between 2008 and 2013 and analyses the relationship between these indicators and changes in economic conditions.

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Comparing Inequality in the Well-being of Children in Economically Advanced Countries: A methodology

Publication

Comparing Inequality in the Well-being of Children in Economically Advanced Countries: A methodology

This paper tries to respond to the complex challenge of going beyond a research approach into child well-being based on averages and proposes a complementary approach to compare inequalities across economically advanced countries. More specifically, the objective of this paper is to explore and compare the extent of disparity at the bottom-end of the distribution of child well-being, focusing on the gap between the child in the middle of the distribution and those who are disadvantaged, i.e. those at the bottom of the distribution.

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Comparing Child Well-Being in OECD Countries: Concepts and methods

Publication

Comparing Child Well-Being in OECD Countries: Concepts and methods

This paper is produced alongside Innocenti Report Card 7 Child Well-being in Rich Countries. It provides more detail on how the indicators were chosen for the Report Card, and how they were combined into components and then into dimensions. It also provides additional analysis to complement the Report Card.

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Articles

Social protection for children not adequate according to new World Social Protection report

Article

Social protection for children not adequate according to new World Social Protection report

A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) provides a global overview of progress made around the world over the past decade in extending social protection and building rights-based social protection systems, in the context of COVID-19, and with input from UNICEF Innocenti on social protection gaps and opportunities for children.

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Blogs

Reducing poverty while achieving gender equality: the potential of social protection

Blog

Reducing poverty while achieving gender equality: the potential of social protection

The UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti has launched a new four-year research programme called Gender-Responsive and Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP), funded by the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID), and other partners. The research programme will examine how gender-responsive and age-sensitive social protection can reduce poverty and achieve gender equality sustainably. It will also examine how social protection can better address and prevent stubborn vulnerabilities and inequalities experienced by people simply because of their sex or age.

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League tables apart: Report Card 14 League Table on children and the SDGs

Blog

League tables apart: Report Card 14 League Table on children and the SDGs

The League Table presented in UNICEF’s latest Innocenti Report Card 14, Building the Future: Children and the Sustainable Development Goals in Rich Countries, clearly shows which high-income countries are doing well, and which are doing poorly, in terms of achieving outcomes for their children as broadly defined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Improving school systems from beyond school walls

Blog

Improving school systems from beyond school walls

No one would disagree that education systems should develop every child’s personal and social skills, and should equip them with the competencies needed for adult work. Recognising this, governments aim to achieve the dual ambitions of economic growth and social stability through investment in schools.

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Journal articles

Protocol: Impact of social protection on gender equality in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic review of reviews

Journal Article

Protocol: Impact of social protection on gender equality in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic review of reviews

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Events

International Conference on Universal Child Grants

Event

International Conference on Universal Child Grants

6-8 February 2019 - This conference, convened by UNICEF, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), brings together national governments and policy practitioners, researchers and the international community to explore the arguments and the evidence emerging from the implementation of alternative cash transfer schemes and their implications for UCGs.

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Podcasts