L'impact de la hausse des prix des produits alimentaires sur la pauvreté des enfants et les reponses politiques au Mali

L'impact de la hausse des prix des produits alimentaires sur la pauvreté des enfants et les reponses politiques au Mali

AUTHOR(S)
Sami Bibi; Massa Coulibaly; John Cockburn; Luca Tiberti

Published: 2009 Innocenti Working Papers
Depuis 2006, le Mali subit de plein fouet les effets de la crise alimentaire mondiale avec des augmentations de prix allant jusqu'à 67%. Cette étude propose des simulations des impacts de cette crise et de diverses politiques de réponse sur le bien-être des enfants. Les impacts analysés se situent au niveau de la pauvreté monétaire (alimentaire), la nutrition, l'éducation, le travail et l'accès aux services de santé des enfants. Selon les simulations, chez les enfants la pauvreté alimentaire aura augmenté de 41 à 51% et le taux d'insuffisance calorique de 32 à 40%, alors que les impacts sur leur participation scolaire, leur travail et leur accès aux services de santé auront été assez faibles. Pour préparer une réponse adéquate, le gouvernement doit tout d'abord identifier les individus pauvres à protéger sur la base d'un nombre restreint de caractéristiques sociodémographiques facilement observables. Dans cette étude, une méthode de ciblage est proposée. Toutefois, les simulations du modèle de ciblage montrent qu’environ un quart des enfants pauvres sont exclus par erreur (souscouverture), alors que plus du tiers des enfants non-pauvres sont inclus par erreur (fuites). Ces erreurs de ciblage, qui augmentent proportionnellement lorsqu'on vise les pauvres extrêmes, réduisent l'impact et augmentent les coûts de toute intervention politique. Cela dit, il est à noter que les fuites peuvent quand même agir au niveau de l'insuffisance calorique, de la participation scolaire, du travail des enfants et de l'accès aux services de santé où les besoins ne se trouvent pas exclusivement du côté des enfants pauvres. Le ciblage des enfants ou même des sous-groupes, par âge, d'enfants se bute au problème de la diffusion probable des bénéfices aux autres membres du ménage. De plus, pour des décisions concernant le travail, l'éducation et l'accès aux services de santé, c'est le revenu total du ménage qui est déterminant. La politique de cantines scolaires se révèle particulièrement efficace du fait qu'elle concentre tous les fonds publics consentis exclusivement sur la consommation alimentaire hautement nutritive, alors que des transferts en espèces aux ménages peuvent servir à diverses fins. De plus, il est probable qu'elle ait des impacts souhaitables sur la scolarisation et le travail des enfants. Toutefois, certaines mises en garde s'imposent sur l'exclusion des enfants qui ne participent pas à l'école, la difficulté de cibler uniquement les enfants pauvres et la possibilité que l'enfant se voit réduire proportionnellement ses rations alimentaires à l’intérieur du ménage.
The Impact of the Increase in Food Prices on Child Poverty and the Policy Response in Mali

The Impact of the Increase in Food Prices on Child Poverty and the Policy Response in Mali

AUTHOR(S)
Sami Bibi; John Cockburn; Massa Coulibaly; Luca Tiberti

Published: 2009 Innocenti Working Papers
Since 2006, Mali has experienced the full effects of the global food crisis, with price increases of up to 67%. This study presents simulations of the impacts of this crisis and a number of policy responses with respect to the welfare of children. The impacts are analyzed in terms of monetary (food) poverty, nutrition, education, child labour and access to health services of children. According to simulations, food poverty among children would have increased from 41% to 51%, with a corresponding rise in caloric insufficiency from 32% to 40%, while the impacts on school participation, work and access to health services would have been relatively weak. To prepare an adequate response, the government should start by identifying the poor individuals who are to be protected, based on a limited number of easily observed sociodemographic characteristics. A method of targeting these individuals is proposed in this study. However, simulations show that with targeting about one quarter of poor children would be erroneously excluded (under-coverage), while more than a third of non-poor children would be erroneously included (leakage). These identification errors, which increase in proportion with the extremity of poverty, reduce the impact and increase the cost of any public interventions. That having been said, it is important to note that leakage to the non-poor can nonetheless improve the conditions of children in terms of caloric intake, school participation, child labour and access to health services, none of which are exclusive to poor children. When targeting children or sub-groups of children by age, benefits will likely be deflected to some extent to other family members. Moreover, it is total household income, regardless of the member targeted, that determines decisions relating to child work, education or access to health services. School feeding programmes are found to be a particularly efficient policy in that they concentrate public funds exclusively on the consumption of highly nutritious foods, while cash transfers can be used by households for other purposes. Moreover, school feeding programmes are likely to have desirable effects on school participation and child labour. However, there are some caveats due to the fact that these programmes exclude children who do not attend school, the difficulty of exclusively targeting poor children and the possibility that child food rations at home will be proportionally reduced.
Children's Work and Independent Child Migration: A critical review

Children's Work and Independent Child Migration: A critical review

AUTHOR(S)
Eric Edmonds; Maheshwor Shrestha

Published: 2009 Innocenti Working Papers
This review considers the evidence from child labour research that is relevant to understanding independent child migration for work. Three factors are relevant: first, migration for work is one of the many possible alternatives for child time allocation. The methodological and analytical tools used in the study of child labour are thus applicable to this study. Second,independent child migration for work will be reduced by factors that improve alternatives to migration. Child labour at home is one possible alternative to migrating. Thus, influences on child labour will affect independent child migration by altering the pressures that push children into migration. Third, the issues that arise in understanding why employers use children are also relevant to understanding what factors pull children into migration. In existing data resources, two methods are used to identify independent child migrants: the roster method and the fertility survey method. The roster approach identifies migrants by enumerating residents in sampled households. As such, it measures migrants in destination areas and misses children that are difficult to locate, especially those who migrate out of country. In the fertility survey method mothers account for the status of all of their children. This is useful for identifying origin areas for the migrants but is uninformative about the current condition of the child migrant. Stronger data collection efforts are necessary to better measure the extent of working independent child migrants and understand both the source and the living conditions of independent child migrants.
The Subterranean Child Labour Force: Subcontracted home-based manufacturing in Asia

The Subterranean Child Labour Force: Subcontracted home-based manufacturing in Asia

AUTHOR(S)
Santosh Mehrotra; Mario Biggeri

Published: 2002 Innocenti Working Papers
Child labour is widespread in home based manufacturing activities in the informal sector in most developing countries. This form of child labour will not attract the penal provisions of a country’s laws banning child labour. This paper draws on surveys carried out in five Asian countries – two low-income (India, Pakistan) and three middle-income countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand) – where production of manufactured goods is subcontracted to home based workers widely. It examines the incidence of child work in such households, the child’s schooling, reasons why children are working, their work conditions, their health, and gender issues.
Social Protection in the Informal Economy: Home based women workers and outsourced manufacturing in Asia

Social Protection in the Informal Economy: Home based women workers and outsourced manufacturing in Asia

AUTHOR(S)
Santosh Mehrotra; Mario Biggeri

Published: 2002 Innocenti Working Papers
Home based work has a dual and contradictory character: on the one hand, as a source of income diversification for poor workers and the emergence of micro-enterprises, yet on the other, it is a source of exploitation of vulnerable workers as firms attempt to contain costs. This paper examines the social protection needs of women workers in this sector, and also argues for public action to promote such work as a possible new labour intensive growth strategy in these and other developing countries.
What is the Effect of Child Labour on Learning Achievement? Evidence from Ghana

What is the Effect of Child Labour on Learning Achievement? Evidence from Ghana

AUTHOR(S)
Christopher Heady

Published: 2000 Innocenti Working Papers
This paper analyzes the links between child labour and poor school performance, using data gathered in Ghana in recent years. Author Christopher Heady moves away from conventional studies on child labour and education, which tend to focus on low school enrolment and attendance. He goes further, to examine the day to day impact of child labour on those in school, finding that, as well as leaving children too tired to learn, child labour robs them of their interest in learning. Children who are already contributing economically to their family income may be less interested in academic achievement, resulting in lack of motivation that affects both their learning and their future prospects.
Cite this publication | No. of pages: 40 | Thematic area: Child Work and Labour | Tags: child labour, education, right to education | Publisher: Innocenti Research Centre

What Works for Working Children?

AUTHOR(S)
Jo Boyden; Birgitta Ling

Published: 1998 Innocenti Publications
The current upsurge of international concern about exploitative child labour has focused new attention on fundamental questions regarding children's work in general. What is the effect of work on children? When is it positive and when negative? What kinds of work help children develop valuable skills and attitudes and which violate their rights? This book approaches such questions from a rigorously child-centered perspective which constantly asks, "What is in the best interests of the children involved?" From this point of view it examines recent information and thinking about children's work in relation to child health and development, education, child protection laws, the market economy, children's role in society, and other issues of key importance for policy makers, programme planners and children's advocates. It reviews and summarizes recent research and experience regarding not only child work, but also the processes of child development as they relate to work. Many widespread beliefs and assumptions about both work and childhood are shown to be invalid or highly questionable. Alternative concepts and approaches that better reflect empirical evidence are suggested. This book offers a new way of thinking about children's work from a child development perspective. It is based on new ideas from the social sciences and new research findings. It presents an issue-oriented overview from recent literature and experience on how to approach critical concerns in children's work. This books attempts to look at responses to child labour problems that help working children. In doing so, it examines such complex problems as: How can policy makers and programme managers know what kinds of intervention to undertake? How can children be protected against abuse and exploitation in the workplace? What measures will indeed advance the well-being and development of the children involved? How can ineffective and counterproductive measures be avoided?
Cite this publication | No. of pages: 420 | Thematic area: Child Work and Labour | Tags: child labour, child workers, education, right to education | Publisher: Rädda Barnen and UNICEF ICDC, Florence
School-related Economic Incentives in Latin America:  Reducing drop-out and repetition and combating child labour

School-related Economic Incentives in Latin America: Reducing drop-out and repetition and combating child labour

AUTHOR(S)
Ernesto Schiefelbein

This paper examines the barriers to educational achievement presented by child labour and the formal education systems of Latin America. Parents put pressure on children to work rather than study, and historically the formal education systems have had no safeguards to remedy the resulting knowledge gaps. Knowledge gaps lead to repeated failure in academic courses, which in turn prompts parents to view education as irrelevant. The paper examines the various economic-incentive programmes that have tried to break this vicious circle and identifies four strategies for educational improvement in the region: involving communities, increasing time available for learning, providing bilingual education to serve minorities and indigenous groups, and introducing computers.
Cite this publication | No. of pages: 28 | Thematic area: Education | Tags: child labour, child workers, education, educational systems, right to education | Publisher: UNICEF ICDC, Florence
Child Labour in Historical Perspective 1800-1985: Case Studies from Europe, Japan and Colombia

Child Labour in Historical Perspective 1800-1985: Case Studies from Europe, Japan and Colombia

AUTHOR(S)
Hugh Cunningham; Pier Paolo Viazzo

Published: 1996 Historical Perspectives
The aim of the Historical Perspectives series is to use a greater understanding of the history of childhood to shed light on the quest for improved policies and programmes for dealing with contemporary child-related social issues. In investigating the social and economic factors and policy measures that have proved instrumental in all but ending child labour in industrialized countries, these papers aim to direct attention to measures that might be adopted to accelerate substantially the movement towards elimination at least of the most harmful and exploitative forms of child labour in today’s developing world.
Cite this publication | No. of pages: 106 | Thematic area: Child Work and Labour | Tags: child labour, historical analysis | Publisher: UNICEF ICDC, Florence
Exploring Alternative Approaches to Combating Child Labour: Case studies from developing countries

Exploring Alternative Approaches to Combating Child Labour: Case studies from developing countries

AUTHOR(S)
Jo Boyden; William Myers

Cite this publication | No. of pages: 56 | Thematic area: Child Work and Labour | Tags: case studies, child labour, child workers, developing countries, education, right to education | Publisher: UNICEF ICDC, Florence
Learning or Labouring? A compilation of key texts on child work and basic education

Learning or Labouring? A compilation of key texts on child work and basic education

AUTHOR(S)
Judith Ennew

Published: 1995 Innocenti Publications
This publication samples current thinking on the critical relationship between child work and basic education. The contents are thematically broad-ranging: case studies and country-specific analysis rub shoulders with papers at the theoretical core of the subject. 'Learning or Labouring' should provide busy programme planners, project workers and students with both a practical working tool and an innovative source of information.
Cite this publication | No. of pages: 152 | Thematic area: Child Work and Labour | Tags: basic education, case studies, child labour, child workers, right to education | Publisher: UNICEF ICDC, Florence
El Trabajo Infantile y la Educación Básica en America Latina y el Caribe

El Trabajo Infantile y la Educación Básica en America Latina y el Caribe

AUTHOR(S)
James R. Himes; Vicky Colbert de Arboleda; Emilio Garcia Mendez

Published: 1994 Innocenti Essay
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