Publications

Best of UNICEF Research showcases the most rigorous, innovative and impactful research produced by UNICEF offices worldwide. While evidence highlights emerging issues, it also informs decisions and provides policy and programme recommendations for governments and partners, to improve children's lives.

This year, Best of UNICEF Research celebrates its 10th edition. It features 12 research projects that the selection panel concurred deserved special recognition for delivering results for children in 2022. How? By informing decision-making, shaping policy, raising public awareness, driving social change, and giving children and young people a voice on the issues that affect them most through participatory research.

These endeavours showcase both the power of innovation in the face of emergency and crisis, and the virtues of agility, endurance and scalability. They also offer solutions and ways to learn from each other. Each piece of research offers a set of adaptable tools: validated methodologies; templates for emergency response plans; methods of monitoring and measuring progress; and examples of successful collaboration between stakeholders. 

 

Effective collaboration around knowledge management and organizational learning is a key contributor to improving the impact of international development work for the world’s most vulnerable people. But how can it be proven?

With only 10 years from the target date for the Sustainable Development Goals, nine of the world’s most influential agencies set out to show to the connection between the use of evidence, knowledge and learning and a better quality of human life. This book – a synthesis of stories, examples and insights that demonstrate where and how these practices have made a positive impact on development programming – is the result of the Multi-Donor Learning Partnership (MDLP), a collective effort to record the ways each of these organizations have leveraged intentional, systematic and resourced approaches to knowledge management and organizational learning in their work.

UNICEF has undertaken hundreds of gender evidence generation activities, supporting programmatic action, advocacy work and policymaking. The Gender Solutions project aims to draw together the knowledge, innovations and impacts of gender evidence work conducted by UNICEF offices since the first UNICEF Gender Action Plan was launched in 2014.

A desk review identified over 700 gender-related UNICEF research, evaluation and data evidence generation activities since 2014. Twenty-five outputs were shortlisted because of their high quality and (potential for) impact and three were selected as Gender Evidence Award winners by an external review panel. By capturing the impact of this broad body of work, Gender Solutions aims to showcase UNICEF’s evidence investments, reward excellence and inform the rollout of the UNICEF Gender Policy 2021–2030 and Action Plan 2022–2025.

This new ILO-UNICEF report provides a rigorous review of what the latest research says about the power of social protection to combat child labour. Providing families with direct assistance to help them weather crises can help reduce negative coping strategies like child labour and child marriage.

Parents or caregivers of children with disabilities play a crucial role in supporting their child’s learning. This includes navigating the education system and supporting their child’s participation in an inclusive school. They may face various challenges, which have been amplified even more due to the remote learning and other COVID-19 restrictions. This guide for caregivers aims to (1) help them understand their rights and national inclusive education laws; (2) identify challenges and barriers they are facing in supporting their child’s learning needs and (3) find solutions that can help them to overcome these challenges. It is part of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education.

Teachers play an important role in making sure that all children feel safe, supported and included at school. Marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities face various challenges in navigating newly-emerging inclusive education settings. Teachers can learn about the specific needs of children from their caregivers and help caregivers to identify the best ways and materials to support their child’s learning. This guide for teachers aims supports them to engage with caregivers in (1) identifying their children’s individualized learning needs; (2) identifying the challenges in meeting these needs and (3) identifying solutions in to address these challenges. It is part of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education.

Support from caregivers is critical for children’s learning both at home and at school. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of education systems globally created additional expectations for parents to support their children’s learning at home. This particularly affected the most marginalized children as the crises exacerbated already existing inequalities in education. This document introduces the approach and purpose of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education. It presents lessons learned from proof-of-concept pilots in Armenia and Uzbekistan, followed by step-by-step guidelines on how to adopt and adapt the resources for education ministries and others who want to implement them in their education system.

The Directory of Associations and Organizations to Support Caregivers of Children with Disabilities is a template to develop a directory of local associations, organizations and networks that exist to connect and support parents and caregivers of children with disabilities.

 

Inclusion is most effective when schools create a culture that celebrates diversity and builds on the strengths of each student. Family engagement may look different from school to school, and it is important for schools to support families in a variety of ways, not just relying on one method. This guide aims to help schools to (1) identify specific needs faced by marginalized families of children with disabilities; (2) identify challenges they face to meeting these needs and (3) identify solutions in the form of resources that address these challenges. It is part of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education.

This document is part of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education, which also includes guides for caregivers, teachers and schools, a workbook containing tools to support the activities, and a template for a directory of associations and organizations to be adapted for different systems. An initial set of helpful materials, information and links from proof-of-concept pilots in Armenia and Uzbekistan have been included, with templates to add more local resources within each system. It is designed to be  a useful first place for caregivers, teachers and school staff to search for solutions to challenges they have identified while using guides. 

This document is part of a set of resources to support the marginalized caregivers of children with disabilities with inclusive education, which also includes guides for caregivers, teachers and schools, as well as templates for directories of resources and organizations to be adapted for specific systems. This workbook contains tools to be used by caregivers, teachers and other school staff to apply and work through the steps presented in the guides. Based on proof-of-concept pilots in Armenia and Uzbekistan, the tools work best when they are used in collaboration between these different stakeholders. Completing the activities in the workbook will help to identify the specific challenges caregivers face as well as to identify solutions to address them. 

UNICEF Innocenti’s Annual Report 2021 highlights the key results achieved by the office in research generation, research facilitation, knowledge management and ethics in evidence, and convening and thought leadership. In 2021 UNICEF Innocenti produced more than 100 research publications, which were cited in 331 policy documents across the globe. UNICEF Innocenti also expanded its scope of work by amplifying children’s voices, opinions, and experiences, exploring emerging research areas, and producing fresh and innovative reports. The office continued to focus much of its research on at-risk populations including girls, migrants, refugees and children with disabilities; on the impact of the COVID pandemic on children; and on established areas of research such as social and economic policy, learning and education and child protection, as well as emerging areas including online safety, blended learning and mental health. While continuing to generate high quality global reports on such themes as learning losses and social spending for children, UNICEF Innocenti enhanced its support to national and regional programming through implementation research, scaling science, behavioural sciences and systems strengthening analysis. More than ever, there was growth in the proportions of research on the Global South, increased work, collaboration, and engagement with other UN agencies, and with other UNICEF offices in every region.

This compendium brings together six papers on new and emerging gender-related priorities developed by UNICEF staff and external partners, which engage with deepening understanding of the pressing gender challenges children and young people are facing today, and call for more ambitious actions to achieve gender-transformative change and accelerate progress towards gender equality for all children and adults. These papers inform the development of the UNICEF’s new Gender Policy 2021-2030 and Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2022-2025.