Publications

The 30 narratives in this publication showcase the range and depth of the work UNICEF Innocenti has undertaken over three decades of existence. In everything we do, our overarching objective is to seek answers to the most pressing challenges for children, and to make the Convention of the Rights of the Child a living reality for every child.

In this retrospective, we look back at finalist research from six years of the Best of UNICEF Research exercise to gain perspective on its uptake and pathways to longer-term impact. The numerous  examples highlighted here, including six case studies, are drawn from the many interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 with UNICEF staff, on 37 finalist projects, supplemented by survey responses collected from 410 UNICEF staff, in 2017.

This paper examines a range of tools, guidelines and formats available to monitor and evaluate various aspects of national responses to migrant children and argues for the need to integrate them into a single coherent, child focused, rights-based framework. Their current disparate application leaves gaps in the child’s protective environment and is not consistent with a holistic, child rights-based approach. Building on an analytical framework adopted by the Council of Europe in March 2018 to support a child-rights based approach by local and regional authorities to migrant and asylum-seeking children, the paper puts forward for consideration an integrated evaluation framework that incorporates and links existing practice models in order to ensure quality child-centred monitoring at each and every stage of the migration process.

This quarterly digest synthesizes the latest research findings in adolescent well-being over the previous three months. Key themes in this latest edition include: the new UN General Comment on the Rights of the Child during adolescence; the risks refugee and migrant children face on the central Mediterranean migration route; and the work of the Know Violence in Childhood: Global Learning Initiative, established as a collective response by individuals from multilateral institutions, non-governmental organizations and funding agencies concerned about the global impact of violence in childhood and the need for investment in effective violence prevention strategies. The Digest offers News, Upcoming Events, Resources and Latest Research.

Esta investigación, el segundo de dos estudios de caso, explora la coordinación desde el punto de vista del registro civil y las estadísticas vitales, con especial referencia al registro de los nacimientos en el Perú. Se centra en el papel que puede desempeñar la coordinación para lograr que el registro del nacimiento funcione con eficacia. Aunque la cuestión principal de la que se ocupa este trabajo es la capacidad de las administraciones para prestar el servicio de registro del nacimiento, también se examina la importancia que reside en la comprensión de la coordinación para la mejora de los servicios públicos, especialmente los dirigidos a los niños.

This compendium is part of an international project entitled Ethical Research Involving Children. The project has been motivated by a shared international concern that the human dignity of children is honoured, and that their rights and well-being are respected in all research, regardless of context. To help meet this aim, the compendium acts as a tool to generate critical thinking, reflective dialogue and ethical decision-making, and to contribute to improved research practice with children across different disciplines, theoretical and methodological standpoints, and international contexts. Emphasis is placed on the need for a reflexive approach to research ethics that fosters dynamic, respectful relationships between researchers, children, families, communities, research organizations, and other stakeholders.

National and international policy frameworks and guidelines regarding ICT are now being developed, albeit unevenly and more in the global North than South. It is vital that policy is firmly based in evidence, taking into account children’s experiences and difficulties. This report asks whether sufficient research currently exists to support evidence-based policy and practice regarding children’s rights in relation to internet and mobile technologies.

A revised version of this report was published in the Journal of Children and Media

The paper assesses the available evidence on the potential effects of social transfers on child protection outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: the negative outcomes or damaging exposure of children to violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect, and improved outcomes or a reduction in exposure to these phenomena. The study identifies and evaluates three possible channels through which social transfers can influence child protection outcomes: direct effects observed where the objectives of social transfers are explicit chid protection outcomes; indirect effects where the impact of social transfers on poverty and exclusion leads to improved child protection outcomes; and potential synergies in implementation of social transfers and child protection. It also discusses how the design and implementation of social transfers can contribute to improved child protection outcomes.

A revised version of this report was published in the Children and Youth Services Review

This paper links the concept and practice of accountability with child rights, by asking: (1) What accountability means when children are the rights holders, and whose role is it to exact that accountability? (2) What are the assumptions underpinning social accountability, and how can they be revised from the child-rights perspective? (3) How do social and political dynamics at community and national levels, often not linked to child rights issues, shape accountability outcomes? The paper is addressed to child rights practitioners, while drawing from political economy and political science as well as the women’s rights movement. In doing so, it seeks to link the various lessons learnt in order to lay the ground for thinking about child-responsive accountability.

Child participation is closely linked and interdependent with civil and political rights and with the fundamental perceived concepts of childhood, evolving capacity and autonomy. The right of children to express their views freely and to have them taken into account is both a substantive right and a general principle relevant to all aspects of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The degree of children’s participation within a society and the ways of involving children and adolescents in all matters affecting them depend on various factors, including the perceptions of childhood and adults’ views about children’s capacity to participate. Independent human rights institutions for children promote, protect and monitor progress in the realization of children’s rights.

Children are often brutally targeted in modern warfare. Accountability mechanisms have begun to focus on crimes committed against children during armed conflict and to involve children proactively, including through testimony that bears witness to their experiences. But if children are to engage in transitional justice processes, their rights must be respected. This publication is intended to inform the work of truth commissions, child protection advocates and organizations, legal experts and other professionals in efforts to protect the rights of children involved in truth and reconciliation processes. It includes an analysis of emerging good practices and recommends policies and procedures for children’s participation in truth commissions.

UNICEF has long recognized that there is great value in children’s sport and play, and has been a consistent proponent of these activities in its international development and child protection work. Health, educational achievement and social benefits are just some of the many desirable outcomes associated with organized physical activity. During recent years, however, it has become evident that sport is not always a safe space for children and that the same types of violence and abuse sometimes found in families and communities can also occur in sport and play programmes. The research presented in this publication shows a lack of data collection and knowledge about violence to children in sport, a need to develop the structures and systems for eliminating and preventing this form of violence, and that ethical guidelines and codes of conduct must be established and promoted as part of the prevention system. By addressing these gaps, significant improvements will be realized for the promotion and protection of the rights of children in sport.