Profiles

Experience with urban social assistance programmes is still limited. Many of the existing urban programmes are extensions or duplicates of rural programmes, but urban-sensitive social protection needs to reflect the distinct vulnerabilities of the urban poor. Furthermore, applying a child lens requires identifying and addressing the specific risks and multiple deprivations that are experienced by half of urban children in developing countries. As a result, designing social assistance for urban contexts faces challenges such as accurately targeting the poor (given the spatial geography of urban poverty) and setting appropriate payment levels (given the high and variable costs of urban living). Geographic targeting (e.g. informal settlements), proxy means testing (if urban-sensitive) and categorical targeting (e.g. street children) are popular mechanisms in urban areas, but community-based targeting is often inappropriate (because of urban social fragmentation) while self-targeting can be unethical (e.g. where wages below market rates are paid in public works projects) and might contradict rights-based approaches. These are relevant challenges to address when designing urban social protection programmes. We apply these reflections to Ghana. The country is a relevant case study because it is growing and urbanizing rapidly. But as the result of urbanization, urban poverty and deprivations are rising even though national poverty rates have halved. Anti-poverty policies and social protection interventions remain biased towards the rural poor. The ‘urbanization of poverty’ in Ghana has created problems such as overcrowded housing, limited access to sanitation, and outbreaks of communicable diseases. This paper provides guidance on the critical questions to ask to design in Ghana a successful urban social protection programme with a child lens.

In the world’s richest countries, some children do worse at school than others because of circumstances beyond their control, such as where they were born, the language they speak or their parents’ occupations. These children enter the education system at a disadvantage and can drop further behind if educational policies and practices reinforce, rather than reduce, the gap between them and their peers. These types of inequality are unjust. Not all children have an equal opportunity to reach their full potential, to pursue their interests and to develop their talents and skills. This has social and economic costs. This report focuses on educational inequalities in 41 of the world’s richest countries, all of which are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and/or the European Union (EU). Using the most recent data available, it examines inequalities across childhood – from access to preschool to expectations of post-secondary education – and explores in depth the relationships between educational inequality and factors such as parents’ occupations, migration background, the child’s gender and school characteristics. The key feature of the report is the league table, which summarizes the extent of educational inequalities at preschool, primary school and secondary school levels. The indicator of inequality at the preschool level is the percentage of students enrolled in organized learning one year before the official age of primary school entry. The indicator for both primary school (Grade 4, around age 10) and secondary school (age 15) is the gap in reading scores between the lowest- and highest-performing students.

There is growing recognition among international organizations, scholars and policymakers that education systems must produce equitable outcomes, but there is far less consensus on what this means in practice. This paper analyses differences in inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity in educational achievement among primary and secondary schoolchildren across 38 countries of the European Union (EU) and/or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The analysis focuses on reading achievement, drawing on data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We use several measures to operationalize the two concepts of inequality in education. Our results show that inequality of outcome does not necessarily go hand in hand with inequality of opportunity. These two concepts lead to measures that produce very different country rankings. We argue that information on both inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity is necessary for a better understanding of equity in children’s education.

En los países más ricos del mundo, a algunos niños les va peor en la escuela que a otros debido a circunstancias que escapan a su control, como el lugar donde nacieron, el idioma que hablan o la profesión que ejercen sus progenitores. Estos niños acceden al sistema educativo en situación de desventaja y pueden quedarse aún más rezagados si las políticas y prácticas educativas refuerzan, en lugar de reducir, la brecha entre ellos y sus compañeros. Esos tipos de desigualdad son injustos. No todos los niños tienen las mismas oportunidades de alcanzar su pleno potencial, de perseguir sus intereses y de desarrollar sus talentos y habilidades, acarreando con ello costos sociales y económicos. Este informe se centra en las desigualdades educativas en 41 de los países más ricos del mundo, todos ellos miembros de la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) o de la Unión Europea (UE). A partir de los datos más recientes disponibles, se examinan las desigualdades a lo largo de la infancia —desde el acceso a la educación preescolar hasta las expectativas educativas una vez concluida la enseñanza secundaria— y se analizan en profundidad las relaciones entre la desigualdad educativa y factores como la actividad profesional de los padres, los antecedentes migratorios, el género y las características de las escuelas. La principal particularidad de este informe es la tabla clasificatoria, donde se resume el calado de la desigualdad educativa en la enseñanza preescolar, primaria y secundaria. El indicador de la desigualdad en la educación preescolar es el porcentaje de alumnos matriculados en centros oficiales un año antes de la edad oficial de ingreso en la escuela primaria. Tanto para la escuela primaria (cuarto curso, alrededor de los 10 años) como para la escuela secundaria (15 años), el indicador muestra la diferencia entre las puntuaciones obtenidas en las pruebas de lectura por los estudiantes que obtienen los mejores y los peores resultados.

Dans les pays les plus riches, certains enfants connaissent plus de difficultés scolaires que d’autres, liées à des circonstances sur lesquelles ils n'ont aucun contrôle, telles que leur lieu de naissance, leur langue ou la profession de leurs parents. Ils sont pénalisés dès leur entrée dans le système scolaire et se retrouvent encore plus marginalisés si les politiques et les pratiques éducatives, au lieu de résorber cet écart avec leurs pairs, le creusent. Ces inégalités constituent une injustice. Tous les enfants n’ont pas les mêmes possibilités de s’épanouir, de développer leurs centres d’intérêt et de cultiver leurs talents et leurs compétences. Ces disparités ont un coût économique et social. Le présent rapport se penche sur les inégalités scolaires dans 41 pays comptant parmi les plus riches du monde, tous membres de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) et/ou de l’Union européenne (UE). En se fondant sur les données disponibles les plus récentes, les auteurs examinent les inégalités aux différents stades de l’enfance – de l’accès à l’éducation préscolaire aux perspectives d’études supérieures – et analysent en détail les relations entre les inégalités scolaires et des facteurs tels que l’activité des parents, le parcours migratoire, le genre de l’enfant et le profil de l’établissement scolaire. Le tableau de classement constitue l’élément central de ce rapport : il résume l’étendue des inégalités dans le domaine de l’éducation aux niveaux préscolaire, élémentaire et secondaire. Au niveau préscolaire, l’inégalité est exprimée par le pourcentage d’élèves participant à des activités organisées d’apprentissage un an avant l'âge officiel de scolarisation. Aux niveaux de l’élémentaire (en quatrième année, vers 10 ans) et du secondaire (15 ans), elle se traduit par l’écart entre le score de lecture le plus élevé et le plus bas.

Nei paesi più ricchi del mondo, alcuni bambini hanno un rendimento scolastico inferiore ad altri a causa di circostanze al di fuori del loro controllo, come il luogo in cui sono nati, la lingua parlata o l'occupazione dei genitori. Al loro ingresso nel sistema scolastico questi bambini partono da una posizione svantaggiata, che può peggiorare ulteriormente se le politiche e le pratiche educative rafforzano, anziché ridurre, il divario esistente con i coetanei. Questi tipi di disuguaglianze sono ingiusti. Non tutti i bambini hanno pari opportunità per raggiungere appieno il loro potenziale, per perseguire i loro interessi e sviluppare i propri talenti e abilità. Tutto questo ha costi sociali ed economici. Il presente rapporto è dedicato alle disuguaglianze nell'ambito educativo in 41 dei paesi più ricchi del mondo, tutti membri dell'Organizzazione per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo economico (OCSE) e/o dell'Unione europea (UE). Utilizzando i dati più recenti disponibili, prende in esame le disuguaglianze durante tutta l'infanzia e adolescenza, dall'accesso alla scuola materna fino alle aspettative durante l'istruzione secondaria superiore, ed esplora in profondità le relazioni esistenti tra disuguaglianza educativa e fattori come occupazione dei genitori, contesto migratorio, genere del bambino e caratteristiche degli istituti scolastici. L’elemento chiave del rapporto è la classifica riepilogativa, che riassume l'entità delle disuguaglianze educative a livello di scuola dell'infanzia, elementare e secondaria. L'indicatore di disuguaglianza a livello prescolare è la percentuale di bambini iscritti a programmi di apprendimento organizzato un anno prima dell'età ufficiale d'ingresso alla scuola primaria. Per la scuola sia primaria (quarta elementare, 10 anni circa) sia secondaria (15 anni) è invece il divario nei punteggi relativi alla lettura tra gli studenti con il rendimento più basso e quelli con il rendimento più elevato.

Rigorous research in humanitarian settings is possible when researchers and programmers work together, particularly in the early stages when responses to humanitarian challenges are designed. Six new rigorous research studies from five countries: Ecuador, Mali, Niger, Lebanon and Yemen illustrate this point.

This short paper grew out of discussions at a two-day research workshop focused on famines and adolescents. It explores some of what we do and do not know about the impacts of humanitarian situations on adolescents’ lives. Adolescents and their specific capacities and vulnerabilities have tended to be overlooked in the design and implementation of humanitarian responses, including in social protection and further components of such responses. This paper seeks to bring these questions to the attention of researchers, policy makers and practitioners in order to address identified priority gaps; build on existing knowledge; invest in better evidence generation; and include adolescents in research and response efforts in meaningful ways. Such improvements to humanitarian responses would assist in developing more inclusive efforts that consider all ages in the child’s life-course; aim for more sustainable well-being outcomes and help meet core commitments to children in these settings.

Fiscal incidence analysis is the most widely used methodology to assess the distributional effects of fiscal policies. However, for 40 years, it has lacked a child lens. A child focus on the redistributive capacity of fiscal policy is increasingly important due to the disproportionate incidence of poverty among children globally. This paper provides a child-dedicated focus on fiscal incidence analysis by tracking child-relevant benefits, turning children the unit of analysis, and using multidimensional child poverty metrics. The analysis—Commitment to Equity for Children, or CEQ4C—integrates three analytical frameworks, namely, public finance, fiscal incidence analysis, and multidimensional child poverty analysis. The paper develops a proof of concept for Uganda that includes measurement, diagnostics, and a policy simulation package replicable across diverse contexts. The proof of concept confirms that CEQ4C provides a higher-resolution fiscal incidence analysis for children than the traditional fiscal incidence analysis.

This paper develops an econometric strategy to operationalize the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF’s) conceptual framework for nutrition, estimating the effects on child stunting that additional investments in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) intervention packages have across population groups (poor and non-poor) and residence (urban and rural). Moving away from estimating single intervention marginal returns, the empirical framework is tested in Tunisia; a country with notable but uneven progress in child nutrition. A successful reduction of stunting will involve mapping the distinctive most effective intervention packages by residence and socioeconomic status, moving away from universal policies.

Rigorous research in humanitarian emergencies is not only feasible but also necessary to determine what constitutes effective assistance in these settings. This column introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Development Studies which demonstrates that research establishing causal effects is vital for the design of efficient and effective social protection in settings of fragility and displacement. 

UNICEF Innocenti's Chief of Social and Economic Policy reflects on two years of research.When I am asked why I do research, what difference it makes, and especially in an institution, like Unicef, that does rather than thinks, my answer is 1.68.[1]This number has contributed to change the lives of many children and youngsters in Venezuela. It is the benefit-to-cost ratio of investing USD 211 million in 500,000 children annually over seven years in a social development program through music. The number resulted from an ex-ante evaluation projecting the socioeconomic (reduced school dropouts, reduced victimization, and increased tax revenue) and personal (discipline, school achievement and employability) benefits of the program against its costs.It is not important whether you are familiar with ex-ante evaluations, simulations or cost-benefit principles. This research did two things everyone can understand. First, it proved that a youth orchestra is not just a music project. It can be a pretty effective massive social development program. Second, it demonstrated that children armed with violins rather than guns have better chances in life.Let me give you another number: 16. These are the years I had been working on poverty and equity before joining UNICEF. Those years gave me ample opportunity to cover many issues: the (surprising) interconnections between poverty and inequality; the mutual links with conflict; how machismo can affect poverty; or how social transfers affect behavior among the poor; which are the most effective interventions to reduce poverty; or how best to measure this complex phenomenon.But it has been working for UNICEF that I have focused on the specific vulnerabilities of children and adolescents; that monetary poverty can be a dreadful proxy for children deprivations in some settings; that standard measures do not fare well in emergencies; and that while we invest so much time thinking whether we should equally weigh indicators in our indexes, governments are instead calculating political costs and benefiting of introducing a new poverty number that will hold them more accountable.The bottom-line is that working for UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti has allowed me to incubate fresh ideas that I might not hatch in other places. Intellectually, this is critical for a researcher. Innocenti has incredibly inspirational vibes. Florence hosts our office in premises that 600 years ago—this is not a typo—emerged as the first dedicated caring center for abandoned and abuse children in history. A dedication that inspires many of us day after day. I was enthused to work on understanding the equity effects of fiscal policies specifically on children or how different genocides––no two are alike––can affect the long-term wellbeing of surviving adolescents. These are just two examples of the many incredibly interesting and relevant themes and challenges we work on at Innocenti.A final number: 34. This is the number of researchers I have co-authored a piece of research with in these last two years. Some 26 are researchers I did not know before when I joined UNICEF. Thanks to them and Innocenti, I have developed my own evidence-based voice against injustices to children. Please keep listening!Jose Cuesta speaks at the 2018 Public Finance for Children workshop in Florence, Italy.More UNICEF Innocenti research by Jose Cuesta: UNICEF Evidence to Action BLOG by Jose Cuesta: From a human face to human emotion: Valuing feelings in developmentUNICEF Innocenti article: Economics of inequality and conflictUNICEF Innocenti article: Adolescents may be less resilient to catastrophic events than previously thoughtUNICEF Innocenti article: Global workshop raises capacity on Public Finance for Children All research produced by Jose Cuesta at UNICEF Innocenti.Jose Cuesta’s research for the World Bank.Other blogs by Jose Cuesta. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2010.517187?scroll=top&needAccess=true Presentation: UNICEF Innocenti - Fiscal Policy & Equity in Uganda + Equity in education finance for children

Thirty years ago UNICEF  reminded the world that development had a human face.  Making up for the "lost decade" of the Eighties did not have to be funded through macroeconomic management, debt service or growth recovery alone. How relevant that reminder continues to be today. Back in the 1990s, optimism soared on the capacity of interpersonal trust and participation in social networks - social capital - to explain development. Social capital has been used ever since to explain child anthropometrical development, household expenditures, farming practices, migration, academic performance, democracy, economic growth, and even military desertion during the US Civil War. And even those who hew to the belief that criminal offences occur only when monetized benefits exceed expected costs - to be adjusted by impunity rates - take exception to crimes of passion, completely unexplained by rational motives. Embracing the idea that human beings cannot be understood solely as homo economicus has now inspired a whole new field: behavioural economics, where psychology and economics intersect.Embracing the idea that human beings cannot be understood solely as homo economicus has now inspired a whole new field: behavioural economics, where psychology and economics intersect. At one time individuals were subjected to laboratory experiments to reveal factors driving voting preferences: interpersonal trust, envy, cooperation, and obedience to authority. Best known is the Milgram experiment in the early 1960s where individuals were willing to unduly inflict pain on innocent victims simply because a perceived authority ordered them to do so. Outside the lab, behavioural insights have been translated into real-life developmental policy design: for example, "nudging" has become a new popular strategy to get people to do the "right" thing and an alternative to the more mainstream but controversial conditionality. Printing tax bills on pink paper typically used for debt collection in Singapore led to an improvement in the payment rate of between 3 to 5 percentage points. In Kenya, stickers in the notoriously dangerous matatu minibuses inviting users to complain about bad drivers helped reduce the number of traffic accidents by an estimated 140 accidents per year. Explaining development through the lens of emotion The much-publicized inclusion of happiness in national accounting in Bhutan perhaps clouds the more relevant contribution that subjective well-being has to offer development. Take the case of subjective life satisfaction and the Arab Spring. One could not possibly explain the Arab Spring based on objective developmental indicators. Tunisia, where the revolution exploded before it sprawled across the region, had years of growth at respectable rates; reduced its monetary poverty sizeably; and even modestly reduced consumption inequality. Here is the catch. As economic growth took place, expectations of improved quality of life grew as well. In time, feelings of frustration replaced those expectations and were then fuelled by growing awareness of pervasive corruption, nepotism, social immobility and lack of economic opportunities for youth. This is a common story in the Middle East and North Africa region. A recent analysis shows that the gap between perceived and actual prosperity distribution has widened. And, in Egypt, while before the revolution, the poor used to believe their lives were better than indicated by objective measures, after the upheaval they believed themselves worse off than they objectively were. http://www.worldbank.org/pspIn a sense, the Arab Spring is a story of withered aspirations rather than lack of "objective" development. In fact, aspirations showcase the increasing importance of emotion in the inter-generational transmission of opportunities, a.k.a poverty. Psychologists refer to "socio-emotional capital" or "psychological capital" as a key driver for later-life outcomes and opportunities. Take the case of empowerment among adolescents. Socio-emotional capital determines, for instance, self-belief about one's ability to accomplish tasks and cope with challenges, as well as attitudes with respect to one's future. These emotions help explain adolescents' education and labour market aspirations which, in turn, have a bearing on future education and labour market outcomes. They also affect other aspects of adolescents' lives, from prevailing attitudes on gender roles to early marriage and fertility decisions. Similarly, a study in India found that parents' aspirations for their children - their level of education, likelihood of graduating from high school, potential for getting a job, appropriateness of early marriage - affected their decisions to invest in their children's human capital. Children's emotions and social benefits One could expand the list of emotional drivers of development. Let's focus attention on children and sports for development. The argument being that sports constitute a compelling alternative to violence among youth at risk, as well as instilling the values of team work, discipline, respect and inclusion. Unsurprisingly, many of UNICEF's most successful Goodwill Ambassadors are celebrity sportswomen and men. Less well understood - and perhaps even more beneficial than sports - are social development programmes through music and arts. A paradigmatic case is the child and youth orchestra in Venezuela, El Sistema, which aspires to benefit 500,000 children a year from low socioeconomic backgrounds. A rigorous assessment of El Sistema expansion plans estimated a benefit to cost ratio of 1.68, mostly coming from social benefits in the form of reduced school dropout and community victimization rates among beneficiaries. Who said 'soft' development? Ironically, our emotions are the main hindrance for developing a comprehensive emotional lens for development. Many still think emotional development is 'soft' development. But the evidence that supports the few examples used above comes from rigorous evaluations and carefully designed household surveys. A young violinist from the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela which is supported by the 'El Sistema' approach to musical education performs at the 'Celebration of Leadership' concert at the United Nations.   ©UNICEF/UNI37128/BronsteinCollecting emotion-related data is typically a heavier task than data on consumption, incomes or wealth. Emotions are not directly observed. Asking individuals directly about their aspirations may be subject to serious errors in measurement, coming from, among others, the unwillingness of individuals to report private knowledge. A consensus definition on the measurement of emotion is still a work in progress. Indices used so far remain diverse, and essentially a factor of the personal choice of the researcher. But regardless of those choices, high quality emotion-related data requires an impressive display of precision. A study of aspirations of children in Ethiopia conducted painstakingly detailed analyses of usability, reliability and validity of the survey instrument before it would scale up into a reasonably sized household survey.[i] So where is all this heading to? First, the belief that rational behaviour should dominate development analysis and policy design has been largely contested. And quite compellingly so. Second, emotions play a substantive role in development, especially among children, adolescents and youth. This is not, however, a horse race to determine whether emotions or rationality are more important to explain development. It is a question of how they complement each other to make policies more effective. Third, emotions are not just the soft side of development, they are simply part of development. Four, in terms of quality data collection, they remain as much, if not more, of a challenge, than collecting standard indicators of well-being. Besides, how emotions affect individual decisions that bear consequences on their human capital, labour, saving, fertility or criminal behaviour need to be further understood. But, by all means, this is not a flavour of the month among policymakers and donors or a short-lived fashion among academics eager to publish on trending topics. Certainly, at UNICEF Innocenti we take emotional development seriously and join those already working on these issues. Researchers at UNICEF work on multiple aspects of adolescent well-being including, for example, the measurement of their life satisfaction or estimating the effects that cash transfers have on mental health and aspirations. By engaging in this work we hope to expand the toolkit of good policies that development practitioners can use to design effective policies for children, adolescents and youth. Without a doubt, much more remains to be done and we certainly call for more work in this area. Because - as it was the case thirty years ago -we need to remind ourselves that development also has many human faces. Jose Cuesta took up his position as Chief of Social and Economic Policy at the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti in October. He holds a PhD in Economics from Oxford University and most recently worked at the World Bank where he co-directed the Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016 flagship report series. Explore the  UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue  for new publications. Follow UNICEF  Innocenti on Twitter  and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF  Innocenti website.   [i] Those three properties of the survey refer to the willingness of individuals to answer proposed questions; responses are consistent to repeated application of the questionnaire; and answers measure only aspirations and no other emotion.