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International conferences and workshops
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OSLO, Norway: Rethinking poverty and children in the new millennium:
Linking research and policy
By Katharine Hall |
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In the last quarter of 2007, two staff members from the Child Poverty Programme attended a conference which focused on the “nexus between children and poverty” and how it (poverty) affects not only poor children “but also the development of generations and the future of countries and continents”. Hosted by the Comparative Research on Poverty Programme (CROP) and Childwatch International, the CI staff were amongst the very few people from the African continent to attend the workshop of 40 participants in Oslo. Other countries represented included Kenya, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Brazil, Cuba and Italy – as well as the United States, the United Kingdom and Norway.
Johannes John-Langba presented an analysis of the predictors of child poverty in South Africa, based on data from the General Household Survey 2005. Using two poverty lines, he examined the impact of various household and individual characteristics on the probability of a child living in poverty.
Children living in households with a single mother were significantly more likely to grow up in poverty than children in households with an additional adult resident. And the presence of a male head of household who is a regular wage earner and who has completed at least primary school was found to significantly decrease the odds of a child being poor. The results of this study will have implications for child poverty alleviation strategies in South Africa, where the numbers of parental deaths is likely to increase as a result of AIDS.
Katharine Hall presented a paper entitled “The 'ins' and 'outs' of poverty targeting: Using research to make poverty alleviation work for children”. The paper drew on the Means to Live research of the Children’s Institute. It examined the targeting of a range of poverty alleviation programmes in South Africa, focusing on a package of services, grants and other benefits of which children are the direct or indirect beneficiaries.
Targeting mechanisms for these programmes are varied – ranging from universal fee waivers to means-tested cash transfers. In the absence of an integrated poverty alleviation strategy, programmes to address child poverty tend to be conceptualised in isolation. The research found that the lack of a coherent approach can result in multiple exclusions that are unintended by policy and risk violating children’s rights. The presentation described some of the advocacy activities following the Means to Live research – activities ranging from support to the government through information sharing, to more adversarial approaches that include litigation.
It was refreshing to attend a forum where sufficient time was allocated to each presentation so that there could be some depth of discussion.
See www.crop.org/workshops for the summarised conference proceedings, or contact Katharine Hall and Johannes John-Langa for more information on their research. |
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CHICAGO, USA: Going global with child indicators
By Lizette Berry
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The need to describe, analyse, and monitor children’s well-being and the realisation of their rights is increasingly being recognised across the globe. An initiative to generate debate and share knowledge in this area is the International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI), which held its inaugural conference in Chicago, USA, in mid-2007. The conference was a landmark occasion, attended by over 200 participants from 22 countries. Under the theme “Child indicators: Diverse approaches to a shared goal”, it highlighted the multiple contexts and disciplines in which child indicators are being used.
The Institute’s Children Count – Abantwana Babalulekile Project stirred much interest and stimulating discussion at the conference with its presentation on the project’s conceptual framework. The presentation focused on the use of child-centred data to monitor the realisation of children’s socio-economic rights in the South African context. It gave an overview of the post-apartheid context for children in South Africa, and government’s obligation to ensure children’s rights are realised. In particular, the presentation emphasised the project’s location within a rights-based, socio-economic framework. It further highlighted the dire need for child-centred data, and described the project’s functioning with regard to data generation, collection, development of child-centred indicators, and monitoring. The presentation also showcased the project’s key findings.
Lastly, data from three indicators were presented to illustrate the development and monitoring of child-centred indicators. This exercise also demonstrated the project’s critical role in portraying and monitoring the socio-economic conditions of South Africa’s children.
The conference presentations are available at www.childindicators.org. Contact Lizette Berry for more information on the Children Count – Abantwana Babalulekile Project, or visit www.childrencount.ci.org.za.
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LAGOS, Nigeria: Forum discusses knowledge management of African child policy issues
By Johannes John-Langba and Anthea Arendse
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Children’s Institute expertise on child policy and knowledge management fed into discussions at a roundtable in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2007. The event was organised by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), an independent, not-for-profit pan-African advocacy centre based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In its mission to put the African child on the public agenda by focusing on the development and implementation of effective policies and laws, the ACPF convened the roundtable to discuss the publication of an Africa Report on Child Rights, and the establishment of a knowledge and information centre on African child policy.
Over four days of discussions, child policy and knowledge experts debated the key focus areas or themes to be covered in the proposed report; how to determine an effective methodology and approach for data collection, validation and analysis; the overall tone, structure and target audience of the report; and how to evolve a framework for measuring African governments’ performance in meeting their obligations to child rights.
Representing the Children’s Institute, Child Poverty Programme manager Johannes John-Langba chaired a session on “A child rights framework for measuring government performance”. The session included presentations on frameworks for measuring government performance in protecting and promoting child rights and tools of implementing women’s rights in Africa. He also participated in the panel on “The child as a source, agent and user of information”.
During a session on the proposed knowledge and information centre, CI information officer, Anthea Arendse, presented on the information needs of non-governmental organisations and policy-makers by focusing on the fundamental philosophy of knowledge management – that an organisation cannot function without its people, technology and processes. Drawing on the work of the Institute’s communication and knowledge management team, the presentation focused on who is involved in knowledge management at the Institute, what tools are used for knowledge management, and how these tools are utilised.
There was a great interest in the work and outputs of the Children’s Institute among participants, which provided CI staff with the opportunity to strengthen networks with peers in other organisations that were represented.
Visit www.africanchildforum.org/index.asp for more information on the African Child Policy Forum.
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