Profiles

From a developmental perspective, skills or capacities, such as ‘relaxing’, are commonly considered necessary for children to achieve optimal development and reach their full potential. From this perspective ‘relaxing’ can be considered a capacity that could help children to cope with emotional and behavioural problems and lower their levels of stress and anxiety. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to map the existing evidence of cultivating ‘relaxing’ as a key core capacity with an explicit focus on children, and understand age-related development, links to wellbeing and other core capacities, and the levels and application of ‘relaxing’ among significant adults in children’s lives. These contributions will help inform real, positive and efficient changes in general policies and practices for child development.

This report explores how ‘core capacities’ – or cornerstones of more familiar concepts, such as life skills and competences – develop over the early part of the life course, and how they contribute to children’s personal well-being and development.

‘Sensory awareness’ relates to the way humans perceive, distinguish and focus on the world through the senses. This report focuses on the enrichment of sensory processing as a core capacity. Enrichment is understood both as the child’s ability to broaden their own sensory capabilities and as the societal mechanisms to support and nurture sensory development during childhood and adolescence by various means and in various contexts, such as school and family environments. This literature review maps empirical and evidence-based theoretical knowledge of the enrichment of children’s sensory awareness and how it interacts with overall child well-being throughout childhood.

There are many studies on how children ask questions and how this capacity develops over time. Drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical knowledge of children’s inquiry, and how does it interact with overall child well-being throughout childhood? This paper maps evidence of the development of inquiry as a core capacity for children, studies the relationship between inquiring and child well-being and explores the Learning for Well-Being Foundation’s theoretical framework.

By the end of 2019, 4.8 million refugees and migrants had left Venezuela – making it the largest external displacement crisis in the region’s recent history. Of these, 1 in 4 was a child. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, since November 2020, 137 million girls and boys are missing out on their education due to the prolonged closure of schools during COVID-19. The implications are troubling, especially for migrant and refugee children, for whom access to inclusive and equitable education remains a major challenge. This study collates evidence from Latin America, the Caribbean and across the world to gain a better understanding of the multifaceted linkages between education and migration. It estimates gaps in educational outcomes; identifies structural barriers to education; and highlights promising practices to inform policy.

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.

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.

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?

  The story of the COVID-19 pandemic is one of vulnerability, in which those with pre-existing deprivations are likely to suffer most. While the full range of economic and social consequences of the crisis are yet to emerge, it will undoubtedly affect many children, by exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and their underling conditions. Table 3 from the report below shows the country performance with regard to child well-being outcomes and the vulnerability they pose during the current COVID-19 pandemic.   UNICEF Innocenti is engaged in an intensive rapid research effort to generate evidence to increase understanding of what the COVID-19 health crisis means for children and their families. We have recently published a research report highlighting some of these findings for countries in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA). An analytical exercise on Supporting Families and Children beyond COVID-19 offers a look on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on early responses, by exploring the economic, social, and demographic preconditions and how they interlink with child well-being outcomes.   How is child well-being likely to be affected by a sudden change in the country’s GDP? Looking at the association between COVID-19 and GDP, the study undertakes an empirical analysis on a set of macroeconomic dimensions mirroring child-relevant targets across SDG areas of poverty, nutrition, infant mortality, education, youth employment and training, and youth violence. Drawing from previous economic crises, it is expected that GDP will likely fall in the region, and be protracted in some contexts. According to World Bank predictions, it is expected that worst-hit countries in the region with respect to GDP fall will be Croatia (-9.3), Bulgaria (-6.2), Russia (-6.0), Romania (-5.7), Albania (-5.0), and Hungary (-5.0). Smaller economies, such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and North Macedonia should be affected less. Taking the last world-wide economic crisis as the baseline, the current downturn is expected to last for at least two years and the recovery may take as long as 10 years for many countries. These trends project medium- to long-term risks to children and their families, which may impede the SDG progress towards the 2030 deadline. Our research found that GDP effects many child outcomes in the region. For ECA countries, a higher GDP is actually linked to higher levels of child poverty, in that higher economic wealth comes along with relatively higher levels of income poverty among children. This is a common trend across the region, but there are exceptions, as in the case of Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the relative economic wealth is matched by comparatively lower levels of child poverty. Faring better in child poverty reduction in relation to economic wealth is largely due to social protection investments of these countries, as shown in Figure 7.     Rapid economic growth frequently leads to the unequal distribution of wealth, and where there is inequality, poverty follows. Indeed, findings show that higher levels of child poverty are always seen when there are higher levels of income inequality (measured by Gini) in ECA countries. The notable exception to this trend is Belarus, where despite a lower income inequality rate, there is a fairly large proportion of children living in poverty. Lower GDP is linked to higher levels of youth not in education, employment or training (NEET), and high neo-natal, and under-five mortality in ECA countries. The COVID-19 health crisis is exacerbating child vulnerabilities by reducing economic growth. The economic shocks will be felt by families and children unequally, with those at risk of infant mortality, extreme poverty, and young people in the labour market most likely to be affected than the average population. How is child well-being affected by other preconditions? Several economic and social preconditions are likely to moderate the effects of the crisis on child poverty and well-being in the region. Lower income inequality, higher employment rates, and a sizeable service sector will likely fare better during the pandemic. Younger children are at a higher risk of poverty, as this age group often receives less social protection support both in normal times and during the pandemic. Furthermore, poorer children’s health outcomes are associated with higher rates of out-of -pocket costs, and lower healthcare service capacity. However, these preconditions are also affected by the crisis and would need monitoring and stabilising mechanisms. What will ECA children miss as a result of COVID-19? Children will struggle to improve their living standards. Considering the contractions in economic growth following the COVID-19 crisis, it is expected that the poorer children in ECA countries would have a higher sensitivity to reduced economic growth than the average population. This means that a contraction in the GDP is likely to exacerbate the incidence of poverty and income inequality across the region. Youth will have difficulties finding a job. Since 2006 the average NEET rate has stood at 21.5 per cent, or put differently: around one in five youth have not been in education, employment, or training in the region. A contraction in the country’s overall GDP can pose a serious challenge for the future ability of youth to access the labour market in ECA countries. An unexpected contraction in GDP can have detrimental effects on child health outcomes. Across the ECA region since 2006, an increase of 1 per cent of GDP per capita is associated with a fall in under-five child mortality rates and homicide rates.  The COVID-19 crisis continues to put pressure on national health systems of ECA countries, which disrupts the coverage of medical interventions and the delivery of routine health care during the early stages of children’s lives. Unless mitigating policies are put in place, the pressure on health systems will have serious repercussions for child and infant mortality. What needs monitoring and improvement? Lessons from previous crises show that expansionary and universalistic social protection responses have contributed to protecting children from the worst effects. To respond to challenges that children and families face within the COVID-19 context, policy responses need to focus on expansionary social and fiscal measures to increase consumption and investments in children and families. The universal coverage of social protection benefits for children in times of COVID-19 is not currently being achieved in any of the ECA countries. Austerity measures should be entirely avoided when it comes to children and their families.     Issues of quality of services and staffing in the health sector matter and should be scrutinized and accounted for at a country level. The evidence and reflections are based on existing data. Additional empirical evidence in the region is required to account for a diverse range of child outcomes in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.   Alessandro Carraro is a Social and Economic Policy consultant at the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti currently conducting research on child poverty with a particular focus on Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA). Victor Cebotari is a Strategic Advisor for Academic Affairs at University of Luxembourg and a former consultant at the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti whose research interests include social policy, education, migration, gender, child wellbeing, and multidimensional deprivation.