This brief outlines the major findings of a research project into livelihoods and parental planning in Southern Africa. The aim of the study was to find out how parents and other caregivers are planning and acting to secure their children’s future. The intention was to paint a broad picture of people’s livelihoods to understand their perspectives and experiences, what is affecting their families and welfare, which interventions they are benefiting from, and how they are responding. The results of qualitative household research in rural Chikwawa District in Malawi, as well as peri-urban Amajube District and urban Durban in South Africa, indicate that vulnerable people are aware of the threats to their welfare and that they have limited options to sustain their families and livelihoods, let alone provide their children with the means to achieve a stable existence.

This document offers practical guidance for programs aimed at addressing the needs of children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. It provides key definitions, guiding principles, and important considerations for programming decisions. The guidance clarifies PEPFAR/Emergency Plan priorities and the activities that it will fund related to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). It builds on the principles outlined in the U.S. Five-Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy, and extends the vision and guidance of the President’s Emergency Plan. The knowledge and evidence base underpinning this guidance continues to grow. With new experiences and learning over time, this OVC Guidance is expected to evolve. Updates will incorporate new insights, improved practices and lessons learned.

How do economic shocks, in particular the current economic downturn, affect the wellbeing of children? What can be done to mitigate harm? This paper explores these questions, presents a framework for analysing the impact of shocks on children in different contexts and suggests initial policy implications.

This paper, written from a health/HIV practitioner perspective, analyzes strategies for addressing the economic strengthening of orphans and vulnerable children in countries with a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS. It makes program and policy recommendations, filling an important gap in our understanding of programming for children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Asia and by inference, in other regions of low prevalence.

The study’s hypothesis is that:

• Economic strengthening (ES) of children affected by HIV/AIDS and families is more effective if it is community based (rather than just household or individual based)
  
• Examples of ES with children affected by HIV/AIDS in low prevalence countries may be different to those found in high prevalence countries
  
• Examples of ES in Asia involving communities are many, home grown and not necessarily in the HIV portfolio, with many lessons learned from the poverty alleviation sector
  
• Whatever the examples and interventions, ES is critical as it directly affects children’s access to services – education, health, nutrition and psycho-social

The study used a case study method to test this hypothesis, identifying four programs of ES and children affected by HIV/AIDS in three countries of Asia – India, Bangladesh and Cambodia. The projects are representative of the diversity and scope of the study and were selected using a child lens – which projects address children who are most affected and vulnerable to HIV?

This report reviews the evidence on conditional cash transfers (CCTs) — safety net programs that have become popular in developing countries over the last decade. This report considers the impact that CCTs have had on current poverty, education, health, and nutrition outcomes. It draws heavily on a large number of carefully constructed impact evaluations of CCT programs to conclude that CCTs generally have been successful in reducing poverty and encouraging parents to invest in the health and education of their children, while recognizing that even the best-designed and best-managed program cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system.

This report is the result of a series of participatory workshops with children who are part of the Kwa Wazee Project in the Kagera district of Tanzania. The main activity of the Project is to provide a cash transfer in the form of a small monthly pension to grandparents (mostly grandmothers) who are caretakers for orphaned children.

The report provides an understanding of the issues children are facing and directions for policy and programme intervention. It is clear that children living in elderly-headed households have more stressors in their lives than children living with parents. The findings in this study suggest that the following characterise the issues affecting elderly-headed households:

• poverty
• grandchildren as caretakers
• an uncertain future
• a generation gap

This review of different approaches to and tools for economic strengthening was prepared by Hugh Allen and was done in response to the priority tasks identified by the CYES Network. The paper contains a summary and analysis of the status of the literature and reviews on economic strengthening and livelihood tools, as well as recommendations of best practices and guidelines on which tools work.

This HPG Working Paper draws heavily on a review of the Danish Refugee Council’s (DRC) work on livelihoods and protection in the Zalingei corridor in eastern West Darfur. It focuses in particular on threats to physical safety, freedom of movement and access to adequate means of subsistence, and their resulting impacts on people’s livelihoods and protection.

Section 4.3 of the working paper outlines lessons learned from the DRC’s programming activities, which include vocational and recreational training with youth.

This training manual details how to set up and run a Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) programme. The programmes are designed to empower orphans and other vulnerable children aged 12 to 18 years who live in communities where HIV/AIDS has had a strong impact on food security. This Getting Started manual comprises two parts. The first part provides background information on the JFFLS approach, its origins and guiding principles. The second part describes how to initiate and manage a JFFLS. This part is divided into nine chapters, each representing a step that needs to be taken to implement a school.

The manual incorporates experience from people working with orphaned and vulnerable children living in areas with high HIV prevalence levels in Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The manual is generic and is meant to be used in different regions of the world. It can be adapted for use in areas where HIV prevalence is still very low but children are made vulnerable by extreme poverty, trafficking and conflict.

This publication highlights initiatives that are using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to make a real and meaningful difference in communities around the world, no matter how disadvantaged or isolated they may be. These stories on Youth, Poverty and Gender intend to provide snapshots of the learning process that accompanies the introduction and implementation of ICTs in a community development project.

In sharing experiences and lessons learned, the goal of the publication is to increase global understanding of how ICTs can be used to address poverty, injustice and inequalities.