This report provides a summary of key findings from evaluations of four programs, two in Kenya and two in Tanzania, supporting orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC). This study was conducted by MEASURE Evaluation in 2006-2007 and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The overall aim of these evaluations was to ascertain the extent to which program interventions are effective in improving the well-being of OVC and their families, and the interventions’ cost-effectiveness in achieving key outcomes.

The report findings include affirmation that initiatives extending beyond OVC to include guardians and the general community were found to be associated with some positive outcomes for guardians, as well as for the children under their care. For instance, support group participation of OVC guardians was associated with positive psychosocial outcomes for guardians as well as less household abuse and more prosocial behavior of the children in their household. Further, two interventions that provided guardians with an opportunity to supplement family income were associated with reduced household food insecurity and achieved such success at a low cost per beneficiary. Additionally, study findings highlight the importance of involving guardians in the development of interventions targeting children

In 2007, UNICEF and Save the Children UK convened a meeting entitled Advancing Policy Relevant Research Around Social Welfare Services. In response to the 2007 meeting, UNICEF Child Protection section commissioned three reviews examining the relationship between cash transfers and social welfare services.

In April 2009, social welfare and cash transfer experts gathered in Carmona, Spain to examine the results of the reviews. Meeting delegates explored the findings with a specific focus on integration of social welfare services and cash transfers in Ghana, Chile, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Kenya.

The reviews examined evidence which summarized the following:

• the efficacy of cash transfer initiatives on child outcomes including child protection outcomes;
• the potential contact opportunities within cash transfer programmes for linkages with social welfare services;
• common barriers and challenges faced by beneficiaries across a range of cash transfer programmes;
• the role of the education sector in providing social welfare services where school attendance is an explicit outcome objective in the provision of cash.

The participants determined that There is good evidence on the efficacy of cash transfers on child outcomes, yet it is clear that cash transfers are not enough on their own to respond to child poverty. This and other findings were compiled into a joint communiqué issued by the meeting participants, which can be downloaded by following the link below.

The systematic reviews, alongside advocacy briefs on what the findings mean for policy, practice and future research, will be published in a special issue of the Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies journal later this year.

The occupation of Palestine and the conflict and violence that have attended it has had devastating implications for protection and livelihoods in the West Bank and Gaza. This Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Working Paper analyzes the relationship between protection and livelihoods in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It explores:

• how threats to people’s protection are linked to their livelihoods,
• the impact of these threats on particular groups in the West Bank and Gaza, including youth and children (which account for over half of the populations in Gaza) and
• the strategies they employ in response.

The study analyzes the efforts of humanitarian organizations to link protection and livelihoods in their work, with recommendations on how this work could be expanded in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. Among other concerns, the report identifies persistent pyschological trauma in children, poverty caused by vioence and constricted movement, and lack of education due to poor people in the Palestinian territories withdrawing their children from school in order to increase the productive capacity of their households.

This report, published by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and UNICEF, is the third in a series of regional thematic reports produced for a study on social protection and children in West Central Africa. It focuses specifically on one kind of social protection mechanism – social assistance in the form of cash transfers – and explores how this can contribute to addressing specific risks and vulnerabilities faced by children in the region. There are still very few cash transfer programs in West Central Africa: those that exist are recent and often small-scale pilot schemes. Interest in this type of social protection is growing among policymakers in the region, however, partly as a result of positive experiences in other parts of Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.

The role of cash transfers is explored in relation to the following areas:

• Increase in monetary income
• Human capital development
• Enhanced household productivity and multiplier effects
• Reduction in child rights violations
• Reduction in inequality
• Strengthened evidence for support and sustainability

The report also highlights the specific regional challenges of implementing cash transfers to address childhood poverty.

Project HOPE’s orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) program, implemented in Mozambique and Namibia, uses a low literacy “Parenting Map” comprised of measurable child-specific indicators across all domains of critical needs for OVC. This map is designed to be used at the household level by project staff and volunteers as a road map for showing a quick but comprehensive snapshot of each child’s well-being, which identifies service needs and provides immediate feedback to caregivers.

The parenting map form comprises 30 separate indicators grouped into 6 domains of service:

• health
• nutrition
• shelter/care
• education
• protection
• psycho-social

Each indicator represents a commonly desired measurable outcome for children (e.g. attending school). Each indicator is scored by the caregiver as either being completed (scored as a 3), not completed (scored as a 1), or unsure of status (scored as a 2). A map is completed on each child in the household and is designed to be left with the caregiver.

Click on the link below to download the Parenting Map, as well as a summary of the data collected between July and October 2008. The comparative results from Namibia are presented, showing the Map’s effectiveness for assessing program impact, targeting most at-risk subgroups, and guiding responses to OVC priorities, and in achieving improvements in child well-being.

This report by Save the Children emphasizes the role of cash transfers in lowering child mortality. It argues that well-designed cash transfer programs can help tackle many of the determinants of child mortality, most immediately by increasing access to healthcare and reducing malnutrition.The report draws on evidence across a number of countries to demonstrate that cash transfers have helped poor people to access food and healthcare, and to enhance the status of women (itself one of the most significant determinants of child survival). It further argues that cash transfers also have important positive economic benefits, helping to create livelihood opportunities, increase labor productivity and earnings, stimulate local markets, and cushion families from the worst effects of crises.

This report makes the case for redirecting the response to HIV and AIDS to address children’s needs more effectively. Drawing on the best body of evidence yet assembled on children affected by AIDS, it shows where existing approaches have gone off track and what should now be done, how, and by whom. The report summarizes the evidence from two years of research and analysis by the Joint
Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA).

Focusing mainly on countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the report examines what has worked and what hasn’t in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and emphasizes the need for HIV and AIDS services to be complemented with a social protection agenda, placing children front and center. Strengthening families, supporting collaborative action within communities, and securing the human capital of rising generation will be key elements in future efforts to end the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Click the link below to download the report in English. It is also available in French and Portuguese here.

In 2005 and 2006 UNICEF arranged for children and young people who had been trafficked while under 18 years of age to be interviewed in their home countries: Albania, Kosovo, Republic of Moldova and Romania. Based on these interviws, the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, prepared this report to stimulate thinking and action.

The study:

• Illustrates, through concrete examples, the complexity and dynamics of child trafficking.
• Provides insight into how the children and young people perceived the assistance they were offered
• Identifies the extent to which the participating children and young people, at the time they received assistance, had been questioned about their views and given the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding their situation.
• Provides an understanding of the importance of listening to children and young people and involving them in the design and implementation of actions to prevent and address child trafficking.

The Child Status Index (CSI) is a simple instrument used to assess child well-being through visits with children and their caregivers.

This booklet, presented here in beta version, contains both a picture and written form of the CSI. The drawings or pictures show children in both a very good status (far left) and in a very bad status (far right) for each of the 12 factors. The booklet also provides basic instructions for how to complete the CSI, including sample questions and observations to enable you to make your own judgments and rate the child in all 12 outcome areas based on local standards.

This paper looks at the impacts of the food price crisis on developing countries and examines the direct and indirect effects on consumers and producers. It analyses the implications of these impacts on children’s wellbeing. The distinct features of childhood poverty and vulnerability mean that children are likely to be affected by the food price crisis in different ways at both the household and intra-household level.

There are two major effects of higher food prices on developing countries and their populations.

• One is direct: as the higher international prices of food push up local prices, food becomes less affordable for consumers but provides an incentive for local farmers to increase their production of foodstuffs. In both cases real incomes and welfare of the population, including the poor, are affected.
• The second is indirect: as the higher cost of imported food leads to trade deficits that depress the level of activity in the economy leading to unemployment and lower government revenues that might depress spending on public services.