POLICY, ADVOCACY AND PARTNERSHIPS FOR CHILDREN ......WES to the areas where resources are needed the most. Thematic Report: Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights

Thematic Report 2007

POLICY, ADVOCACY AND PARTNERSHIPS FOR CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acronyms ..............................................................................................................................................2

OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................................................3

THEMATIC FUNDING FOR A NEW AREA OF WORK: Policy, Advocacy and

Partnerships for Children’s Rights.....................................................................................................4

STRATEGIC INFORMATION ......................................................................................................5

SOCIAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS....................................................................7

Child Poverty and Disparities........................................................................................... 7

Social Budgeting............................................................................................................... 9

Family Support/Social Protection Policies ..................................................................... 11

Decentralization ............................................................................................................. 13

Migration ....................................................................................................................... 13

LEGISLATIVE REFORM AND CRC/CEDAW LINKAGES..............................................15

ENHANCED PARTICIPATION BY CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE..................16

STRATEGIC ALLOCATION OF FUNDING..........................................................................18

Expression of thanks ..................................................................................................... 22

THE FUTURE: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES ..................................................23

Thematic Report: Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights 1

Acronyms AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome CEE/CIS Central & Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States CAF Country Assistance Framework CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminations against WomenCO Country Office CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child DHS Demographic and Health Survey DRC Democratic Republic of Congo DFID Department for International Development (United Kingdom) EAPRO East Asia and Pacific Regional Office ESARO Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office GFMD Global Forum on Migration and Development HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus ILO International Labor Organization IMF International Monetary Fund MBB Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks MDGs Millennium Development Goals MENA Middle East and Northern Africa MICS Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey MTEF Medium-Term Expenditure Framework NGO Non-Governmental Organization PAP Priority Action Plan PETS Public Expenditure Tracking Survey PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation UNCT United Nations Country Team UNDP United Nations Development Programme UN-DESA United Nations Division of Economic and Social Affairs UNFPA United Nations Population Fund UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees USAID United States Agency for International Development VP Village Planning WB World Bank WCARO West and Central Africa Regional Office WES Water and Environmental Sanitation


OVERVIEW

This report presents the progress and lessons learned from two years of new initiatives around the world that would not have been possible without the support of donors. The increase in thematic funding has allowed the area of Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights to work with much greater flexibility and responsiveness to country and global priorities (see box). In the pages that follow, examples from countries in every region will demonstrate how thematic funding to UNICEF’s nascent policy work is yielding results for children today, and laying the groundwork for transformational impacts in the future. In October 2004, a small gathering of UNICEF staff came together to collectively brainstorm how UNICEF could take its existing social policy initiatives to organization-wide scale and, in the context of UN reform, the Paris Declaration and changing aid modalities, what this could mean for children in our world. One year later, UNICEF’s Executive Board approved a new Focus Area for the Organization: “Policy Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights.” Now, for the first time ever, UNICEF’s 2006-2009 business plan includes a focus area which aims, among other objectives, to engage the organization in upstream economic and social policy work and to leverage new partnerships and resources for the fulfillment of children’s rights. The modalities for engaging in upstream policy work are data collection and analysis, policy analysis, and policy advocacy in macro-level social, economic and judicial policies. While not being sector specific in nature, implementation of these modalities creates the enabling environment for achievement of corporate objectives in child survival, education and gender equality, HIV/AIDS and child protection. Within the panorama of issues that could fall under the umbrella of work toward policy, advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights, UNICEF has identified a few priorities for social policy work in the 2006-2009 period. These priorities, which have been fostered through a strategic allocation of Thematic Funding, and significant investment in staff learning, encompass five substantive domains: child poverty and disparities; social budgeting, together with associated macro-economic frameworks and allocation processes; social security/social protection programmes; decentralization; and holistic legislative reform for CRC and CEDAW. As it has become increasingly apparent that migration is having a significant impact on the wellbeing of children around the world, UNICEF has also taken up the issue of children affected by migration, in migrant sending and receiving countries. To date, more than 100 country offices (COs) have been working in one or more of the above priority areas, with encouraging results found in all regions.


Thematic funding for Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights Thematic funds allow UNICEF to programme more responsively, based on country and global priorities, without having to negotiate project agreements and conditions. Thematic funds are pooled and designed to have fewer restrictions on their use than traditional earmarked contributions. They allow for longer term planning and lower transaction costs. Since its inception in 2003, thematic funding (for all focus areas, not only funding for Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights) has increased from about US$30 million in 2003 to US$294 million in 2007. As a proportion of total Other Resources income, thematic funding comprised only 3% in 2003 and reached 15% in 2007. Thematic contributions are pooled funds categorized as “Other Resources” and are applied by UNICEF upon receipt of cash from a donor to support the achievement of results in a thematic area. In the area of Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights we are particularly grateful to the governments of Spain, Norway and Sweden as well as the Korean and Spanish National Committees for UNICEF for thematic support which has enabled this work to flourish.

THEMATIC FUNDING FOR A NEW AREA OF WORK: Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights

The strategic intent of UNICEF’s organizational commitment to leveraging policy, advocacy and partnerships is to strengthen the capacities of Governments and societies to design and implement social and economic policies, legislative measures and budgetary policies that advance the realization of children’s and women’s rights and gender equality. The first two years of work in this arena have been characterized by large-scale investment and strategic focus on a few priority issues within social policy work, supported in large part by Thematic Funding. Strategies for global, regional and country level knowledge management have emerged, enabling better sharing of lessons learned and good practices across countries. Increasingly, UNICEF offices around the world are interested in and successful at engaging in socio-economic policy analysis, dialogue and design. While a vibrant network of social policy advisors and officers has emerged within UNICEF, important external partnerships are being strengthened and forged at country, regional and global levels- with Ministries of Finance, parliaments, the World Bank, the ILO, UNDP and UN-DESA, among others. At the same time, the process of upstream policy work, within a rights and gender framework, has generated increasing engagement with, and capacity-building of, civil society- enabling citizens to exercise their democratic rights to participate in public policy decisions. This groundswell of engagement is guided by commitment to results in four key areas:

1. Collect and analyze strategic information on the situation of children and women 2. Research and policy analysis on children and women 3. Policy advocacy, dialogue and leveraging 4. Enhanced participation of children and young people

Results 2 and 3 potentially cover a very broad spectrum of economic and social policies. In order to sharpen the focus of work towards these results, UNICEF has identified the following priority areas in which to concentrate organizational efforts: child poverty and disparities; social budgeting, together with associated macro-economic frameworks and allocation processes; social security/social protection programmes; decentralization; and migration, including impacts on children and families in both migrant sending and receiving countries. In addition, work is underway to promote holistic legislative reform for CRC and CEDAW, and participation. Together, these priority areas represent core elements necessary to breaking the inter-generational poverty cycle by coherently addressing child poverty, inequalities, migration, and the public investment, social services and social protection required to advance children’s rights and gender equality. This upstream approach in the policy arena has also influenced UNICEF’s work in sectors like education and child protection, and opened new opportunities for intersectoral collaboration- both within UNICEF and with partners. In countries, budget and finance frameworks are winning more attention in service debates, and social protection systems are emerging as a means of addressing various sectoral goals via an integrated policy response. At the regional and global level, UNICEF’s 60+ years of experience in reaching out to our world’s vulnerable and excluded children is combined


with fresh new data and sharp evidence-based analyses to make a first call for children in high-level policy dialogues- both with Governments and within the UN family. Thanks to a few visionary donors who stepped in as partners in a critical moment, thematic funding has been an essential and timely support to UNICEF’s work towards policy, advocacy and partnerships to promote the rights of children and women. In every region, funds have been allocated to initiatives that further the priority areas within UNICEF’s social policy portfolio. Although the full impact of social policy work is often realized years after it is begun, as UNICEF’s policy work continues to develop, these early investments will be the foundation of progress toward the MDGs and social transformation in favor of children's rights in the future.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION

UNICEF has been a global leader in supporting the compilation of up-to date data, information and knowledge, including by disaggregating data to shed light on disparities and marginalized populations. In 2006/2007, UNICEF supported countries to collect data on the situation of children and women through the third round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) household survey program. These surveys provide data for 21 of 53 MDG indicators, and together with the USAID-supported Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), is the largest single source of MDG information. UNICEF has also worked extensively on developing indicators to track progress towards the MDGs, such as the new MDG indicators for reproductive health, and has led the effort to develop child survival indicators currently used in the Countdown to 2015 initiative. To share this data with the world, UNICEF maintains a series of global databases for tracking the situation of children, including data on disparities, such as by gender, urban/rural residence and wealth quintiles. These databases are updated annually through a process that draws on UNICEF’s network of 140 field offices. MICS reports and full country datasets are publicly available at: www.childinfo.org, and MICS data are published in the Secretary-General’s MDG report, UNICEF flagship publications (e.g. The State of the World’s Children and Progress for Children), the Countdown to 2015 reports as well as in sector-specific reports. In addition to sharing data, UNICEF has also continued to play a leadership role in a series of interagency monitoring groups, building statistical capacity at country level, developing joint estimates, and harmonizing monitoring work across partners. UNICEF is also involved in wider data dissemination activities through its DevInfo software development work. At national level, 103 countries are now using DevInfo as the platform to develop a national socio-economic data base for MDG monitoring and more than 172 customized versions of DevInfo have been published/launched (for more information, see www.devinfo.org). These custom tools help countries to use data on child outcomes at the national and subnational level, thus providing the evidence that can help direct resources for sub-national health, education, WES to the areas where resources are needed the most.


http://www.childinfo.org/

http://www.devinfo.org/

Cross-cutting support: staff capacity and knowledge management Taking on a new organizational focus on economic and social policy, advocacy and partnerships calls for significant investment in enhanced staff capacity for evidence-based analysis, advocacy and alliance building. In an innovative partnership with the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University, UNICEF developed a policy learning programme completed by 428 staff members to date. Additional customized courses focus on particular policy topics and expose staff to global experts: in 2007, 48 staff members completed a course in Social Protection at the Institute for Development Studies (University of Sussex), with a second cohort of 48 staff planned for 2008; nearly 100 staff have completed a course on budgets and children designed by Oxford Policy Management. This investment in staff capacity has stimulated new initiatives and awareness at country level; many country offices have also created new posts in social policy and have recruited staff with specialized expertise. Nevertheless, sustained effort is necessary to build state of the art capacity within the organization. Knowledge management is becoming a core value at all levels of the organization. As part of an enhanced focus on documentation and dissemination, in 2007 UNICEF prepared 30 working papers on various social and economic policy issues. A new series of Policy Briefs is currently in development, for release in 2008. An internal web-based database has been established to improve documentation and dissemination of lessons learned and good practices. In 40+ countries, teams of national experts working with UNICEF’s Global Study on Child Poverty use a common web based tool to share information and progress, and exchange ideas. ‘Knowledge Community for Children in India’ (www.kcci.org.in) was launched in 2006. In South and East Asia, UNICEF is developing enhanced tools in regional knowledge sharing. In 2008, a new online UNICEF social policy portal will foster policy knowledge networks and share resources with partners worldwide.


http://www.kcci.org.in/

SOCIAL POLICY AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Within the broad arena of social policy, UNICEF has focused its work in priority areas that represent core elements necessary to breaking the inter-generational poverty cycle by coherently addressing child poverty, inequalities, migration, and the public investment, social services and social protection required to advance children’s rights and gender equality.

Child Poverty and Disparities In line with its mandated global role in supporting the elimination of child poverty, UNICEF has engaged in child policy-related research and analysis in more than 50 countries, and is taking an increasingly active role in policy design and implementation. By contributing to national development plans and poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), which are the main macro-planning frameworks in many low-income countries, UNICEF has supported the formulation, operationalization, monitoring and evaluation of key policies, with the aim of ensuring that they give high priority to the achievement of the MDGs and child rights. At the same time, UNICEF has also encouraged civil society participation in PRSP monitoring processes, as well as stronger involvement by parliaments. In India, UNICEF worked with the Planning Commission at union and state levels to advocate for child-sensitive policies and resource allocations in the 11th Five Year Plan. In Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UNICEF supported the preparation of the 2007 Priority Action Plan (PAP) to operationalize the PRSP, and the preparation of the Country Assistance Framework (CAF), to harmonize donor assistance in support of the implementation of the PRSP. In support of this work, UNICEF DRC also helped to set up the Congolese Poverty and Inequality Observatory, to monitor the PRSP. In Nepal, UNICEF is engaging with political parties to commit to child rights in their programmes and prospective work on a new constitution. Partnership with UN agencies is essential to progress towards poverty reduction. In China, UNICEF contributed substantively a joint UN paper prepared as an input for the formulation of China’s 11th Five Year Economic and Social Development Plan (2006-2010) In Bhutan and Nepal, UNICEF worked closely with national stakeholders and also with the UN Country Team to provide essential inputs to those countries’ development plans, ensuring that government concerns for child rights and development are also supported by the efforts of the UN system. Regional-level initiatives support and promote results at the country level. In the East Asia and Pacific region, UNICEF prepared a regional level study on geographic, gender and ethnic disparities. This study, submitted to the “7th East Asia and Pacific Ministerial Consultation on Children,” contributed significantly to the formulation of the “Siem Reap Declaration” advocating a concerted effort in the region to reduce disparities, and a mandate for UNICEF to assist governments in this work. In West and Central Africa, UNICEF has launched two regional studies, one on social protection and another on children, PRSPs and budgets, the results of which will be used to support policy improvements. Around the world, analysis of data is yielding new information about the children and families that are affected by poverty, and the policies that can make a difference. In Russia, UNICEF


supplemented earlier work on child poverty with a new policy assessment toward increasing child benefits and maternity support. UNICEF Tajikistan linked findings of a child poverty analysis to government budget planning through the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). And, in 2007, the Innocenti Research Centre’s “Report Cards” series provided a unique picture of child well being in industrialized countries. In September 2007, UNICEF launched a Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities. The study is being carried out in more than 40 countries and seven regions through a joint effort between UNICEF and national statistical and academic institutions. Using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and other sources, the country-specific studies use a common template to analyze child poverty and disparities in child health, education and protection alongside relevant policy frameworks. In almost every participating country, analyses are carried out by a team of national experts, and produced with the aim of contributing to the formulation of policies and legislation to combat child poverty more effectively and ensure greater equity in the realization of children’s rights. The engagement of this global network of national experts will contribute to the development of national capacity in data analysis and policy formulation. To date, national teams have exchanged ideas and technical support at six regional meetings, and also at the International Conference "Rethinking Poverty: Making Policies that Work for Children," jointly hosted in April 2008 by UNICEF and The New School, in New York. First drafts of country reports are expected in September 2008. UNICEF’s Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities: Participating Countries

In the future, continued investment will help ensure that research and analysis on child poverty contributes directly to sector-level work, for example through impact on strategies and policies in health, education, protection, water and sanitation. Many UNICEF country offices will need enhanced capacity and technical support to carry out high quality studies and effectively engage in policy dialogue; in particular through strengthened engagement in national development strategies,


PRSPs and other development planning processes. Resources will also be needed to capture lessons learned and share knowledge across countries through a global child poverty community of practice.

Social Budgeting The budget is a concrete expression of a country’s priorities. UNICEF is concerned with the share of resources and impact of public investments allocated to realizing children’s rights because it is directly linked to the priority given to children. While UNICEF’s role in the budget process varies from country to country, it usually involves: conducting baseline analysis of the budget and its process, making the process more transparent and participatory, influencing budget allocations in favor of children, and creating monitoring and oversight mechanisms and improving implementation to ensure that expenditure is as effective as possible. In Latin America, approximately half of UNICEF’s country offices are already involved in social budgeting work, with still others planning to engage in 2008, and major budget analyses have been supported in 14 countries. In Paraguay, a UNDP-UNICEF-UNFPA joint project to monitor the government’s social sector expenditure has helped to double national budget allocation to social sectors. This translated into improvements in social indicators, particularly for the poorest 40% of the population. In Ecuador, UNICEF helped establish a fiscal observatory and supporting processes that engage civil society organizations in the monitoring of the government budget. Ecuador, where UNICEF has been engaged in budget work since 1999, has also seen a continuous and significant increase in social expenditures over the past nine years. UNICEF has also organized visits of delegations from a number of East Asian countries interested in learning from the Ecuadorian experience. These successful experiences have inspired similar work and knowledge sharing in other countries in the region. In the Dominican Republic, UNICEF is working with UNDP to strengthen the capacity of the National Congress to analyze and monitor the implementation of the national budget. Using a methodology UNICEF has supported since 2005, the Ministry of Economy and Production of Argentina has assisted the Government of Haiti to analyze social sector expenditure on services for children. In Central America and Ecuador, UNICEF has just initiated a pioneering effort in partnership with experts from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos of Spain and the Central American Fiscal Studies Institute to develop an internationally comparable indicator of the overall benefit incidence of budgets – from the expenditure as well as the revenue side – on children and equity. While budget benefit incidence studies have been done in the past, it has been largely limited to industrialized countries, and have focused on the household level, not specifically on children. Once the methodology is tested and validated, it is hoped to expand its application to other countries and regions. Social budgeting has likewise been one of the areas of fastest growth in UNICEF policy analysis and advocacy in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 14 countries starting or scaling up work in 2008. Good initiatives include a pioneering approach to promote budgets for children within the parliamentary process in Kazakhstan, and a public expenditure analysis of services for children in Azerbaijan. Both of these initiatives are framed by oil–based economies, providing lessons that could be relevant for other oil-rich countries, notably in the MENA region.


In South Asia, UNICEF India has completed four studies on the social and child impacts of national and state budget allocations and expenditure. New studies in 3 more states and 3 districts are also underway to examine planning and budget management systems, and identify constraints to effective expenditures. In 2008 the Government of India published for the first time the allocations benefiting children within the union budget. In Nepal, UNICEF supported a government analysis of the share of social services in government expenditures and is involved in building government capacity for MDG-based budgeting. At the regional level, UNICEF has undertaken a comparative study on fiscal budgets. Dissemination of findings and knowledge management is a key component of all this work, with advocacy targeted to decision makers at the district, state, and national level. In East Asia, UNICEF’s China office has made social budgeting one of its main priorities, with a view to leveraging increased government resources for basic education, maternal and child health, and other services for children, and to tackling disparities. A study on ‘China’s Budget System and the Financing of Education and Health Services for Children’ in 2006 was followed by a ground-breaking agreement with the Ministry of Finance to support research and policy analysis over the period 2007-2009. UNICEF Thailand supported a study on decentralized budget for social services, and in Philippines, UNICEF funded a study that offers policy options for increasing investments for children towards the MDGs. At the regional level, EAPRO produced a human-rights based analysis of budget decentralization and its impact on children In West and Central Africa, engaging with budget policy is a natural complement of the policy work on PRSPs, since one of the main challenges for countries is how to translate the policy priorities set out in the PRSPs into adequate, politically viable budget allocations. UNICEF’s regional office leads this work, and is currently undertaking a study on children in PRSPs and budgets with case studies in Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mauritania and Sierra Leone. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNICEF has recently begun a partnership with the Ministry of Finance to analyze expenditure in the social sectors. In Chad, working in partnership with the World Bank and IMF, UNICEF produces a quarterly analysis comparing real expenditures and budget allocations for the ministries of Health and Education that feeds into joint recommendations to the Government. In The Gambia, UNICEF has been partnering with civil society organizations to analyze government expenditure on the social sectors, a work that led to a presentation of findings to the full Gambian parliament in 2007. Work at the regional and country level is increasingly carried out with a view to sharing lessons and strengthening budget policy work by UNICEF across the region. In East and South Africa, Social Budgeting analysis and advocacy is ongoing in Uganda, Kenya, and Zambia. In Tanzania, UNICEF is a key partner in the Public Expenditure Review in Education to be commissioned next year, and in South Africa, UNICEF is proposing to spearhead a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) in 2008 in the Early Childhood Education sector. In Mozambique, following UNICEF support and advocacy, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) was improved to include disaggregated provincial expenditure data, and UNICEF took measures with other UN agencies to put most of its own cash assistance on-budget. To inform country level engagement on budget policy issues, the UNICEF regional office is developing a comparative analysis of public finance and expenditures. Work at the macro-level is supported by technical assistance to sector budgets. In China, UNICEF’s cooperation with the Ministry of Finance includes an in-depth study on policy options for the financing of maternal and child health services, to follow up a child survival strategy review


completed in 2007 by the Ministry of Health in partnership with UNICEF, WHO and UNFPA. In partnership with the World Bank, UNICEF developed the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks (MBB) tool, a methodology for improving health sector planning and budgeting, to cost and plan the expenditures needed to achieve MDGs 4 and 5. The MBB tool is used in nearly all West and Central African countries. Honduras recently became the first country in Latin America to apply MBB. As lessons emerge from UNICEF’s social budgeting work, cross-regional fertilization is becoming more urgent and relevant than ever before. At the global level, a new knowledge network of staff working on budget policy issues, shares resources and experiences across the organization. A new global learning programme on ‘Budget Policy and Investments in Children’ has helped to build up a cadre of staff with improved knowledge in this field, and internal capacity building is being complemented by aggressive recruitment of specialists in fiscal policy and public expenditure analysis. At the same time, UNICEF is reaching out to partners- both to our familiar counterparts in the UN family, and to new allies, in particular finance ministries.

Family Support/Social Protection Policies In recent years, Social Protection has emerged as a major new focus in efforts to reduce poverty around the world. Social protection has come to be understood as a set of public actions which address not only income poverty and economic shocks, but also social vulnerability, thus taking into account the inter-relationship between exclusion and poverty. Social protection does not have to explicitly target children in order to benefit them; small nuances in how social protection is delivered can make a huge difference for children. Child sensitive social protection systems mitigate the effects of poverty on families, strengthen families in their child care role, and enhance access to basic services for the poorest and most marginalized. Since the most at-risk children live outside family care, child sensitive social protection systems must also be responsive to this vulnerable group, as well as to children facing abuse or discrimination at home. Around the world, UNICEF is supporting the promotion, design and implementation of child sensitive social protection. At the global level, UNICEF is engaging with UN and NGO partners to develop a joint statement on child sensitive social protection. In New York, an inter-sectoral taskforce leads engagement in the international debate, manages an internal knowledge network of more than 200 staff around the world, and responds to requests from the country office that are working on the front lines of supporting national efforts to develop social protection systems and interventions. At the regional level, the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) has adopted a peer-reviewed regional social protection strategy and framework, with a 5 year plan for UNICEF action. This strategy is guiding and promoting country-level work in the region, while also inspiring other regions. The West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) has launched a regional study on social protection and children, with case studies in Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Mali and Senegal, with a view to deepening and sharing knowledge on social protection systems and their impact on reduction of poverty, vulnerability and risk among children. UNICEF is also actively engaging in the current all-Africa social protection initiative led by the African Union, culminating in a Ministerial level meeting in 2008.


More than 25 UNICEF country offices are collaborating with Government ministries, civil society organizations and UN partner agencies to support the design and scale-up of national social protection systems and programmes to reduce the vulnerability of poor families and children as well as to improve their access to basic social services. In Malawi, UNICEF has been instrumental from the earliest stage in establishing a national debate around social protection for households living in extreme poverty that have no options for employment. By supporting pilot social cash transfers and advocacy targeted at integrating social protection into national development plans and budgets, UNICEF helped build and galvanize a network of high-level national and global partners around the benefits of social protection. The Government officially endorsed the Mchinji pilot scheme, committed to scale it up, and is now embarking, with UNICEF’s support, on the work of developing an integrated national social protection strategy. Results from an external evaluation show that pilot households display positive impacts in the areas of improved child health, education retention and performance, housing, food security and diversity, investments in livestock and assets and reduction of child labor. Nearby in Kenya, based on initial results of a UNICEF supported pilot cash transfer, the World Bank has committed major financing for this programme, while the Government of Kenya has tripled its budgetary allocation to the programme; the pilot is projected to cover 22,500 households by the end of 2009. Progress is underway in every region. In Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, UNICEF is supporting the reform of existing social protection systems, while in Ghana and Burkina Faso, UNICEF worked closely with Government to support the development of new national social protection strategies. In Costa Rica, UNICEF support to the Government’s social initiatives linked to the National Integrated Protection System included a proposal to create a fund for every student, to contribute to university fees or starting capital for a small business. In Mexico, following a technical review by UNICEF and the Ministry of Social Development, the “Oportunidades” cash transfer programme was extended to migrant children, irrespective of the status of their parents. In China, jointly with the Ministry of Finance and other government partners, UNICEF is currently undertaking a study on the financing of social protection programmes and a situation analysis of social assistance programmes and their role in reducing child poverty. In Nepal, UNICEF is leading the design of an innovative universal child benefit that is not only part of a broader social protection strategy, but also a “peace dividend” to help overcome the social, economic and emotional wounds of civil strife. In Pakistan, UNICEF partners with the World Bank and DFID to build government capacity and support the development of cash assistance in emergencies. And, in Afghanistan, UNICEF is working with the Afghanistan National Development Strategy Office to ensure that the new social protection strategy is child-sensitive and socially inclusive. UNICEF is working to better define its role, both in country level social protection work and in global policy debates, in order to promote child sensitive social protection, and to go beyond the narrow focus on cash transfers to include services to reduce vulnerability and risk among children. Going forward, UNICEF will need enhanced capacity in more countries to support and strengthen government agencies, promote innovative approaches, and offer technical assistance for scale-up, sustainability, and monitoring and evaluation, and most importantly, national ownership. There is much scope for inter-agency cooperation and joint UNCT advocacy (e.g. ILO for social pensions, WB for contributory social security, UNICEF for child benefits), given the resources necessary to seize these opportunities.


Decentralization UNICEF sees decentralization as a governance issue with important implications for the delivery of services for children. In most countries, services are managed (and fully or partially financed) by sub-national tiers of government in decentralized politico-administrative systems. In decentralized systems, there is potential to enhance local participation and accountability, and thereby improve the management and quality of services. However, whether this happens in practice depends crucially on the nature of sub-national governance. The respective roles and responsibilities of line ministries, the capacity of local governments, and the implications of fiscal decentralization can have huge impacts on geographical equity in the financing of social services- and thus huge impacts on the services that reach children. In most parts of the world, it has been rare for UNICEF to address policy issues concerning decentralization as such, although some country offices have been working to strengthen civic participation or participatory area-wide planning at the local level. In Brazil, UNICEF is mobilizing municipal governments and civil society to achieve progress toward the MDGs by awarding the ‘UNICEF Seal of Approval’ to municipalities that demonstrate measurable progress. In Colombia, the new National Development Plan 2007-2010 holds Governors and Mayors accountable for achieving progress on child rights; already, there is evidence from one province that access of rural households to improved water has increased from about 30% to over 70%. Similar encouraging results at the local level are found in Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru and Argentina. In Mongolia, UNICEF supports a study on the decentralization of water and sanitation services, and in the Philippines, UNICEF advocates for mainstreaming child rights in harmonized planning, budgeting and reporting on local performance. UNICEF India has been implementing an integrated district approach in 17 districts since the end of 2004. A key part of the approach is the five day Village Planning (VP) process in which communities assess and analyze their own situation; explore alternatives and potential actions; develop an action plan for development; and monitor progress against these plans. Field visits and other observations reveal a positive trend in most districts on indicators. A survey of quantitative results is underway with a report due by mid year, 2008. In some countries, fiscal decentralization issues, and related geographical equity challenges, have been addressed in the framework of broader budget policy questions (see social budgeting section below). For example, in China, due to the high degree of fiscal decentralization, financing and delivery of social services has fueled major disparities between urban and rural areas and between coastal and inland areas. To reduce inequalities, UNICEF works with the Ministry of Finance to assess policy options for improving expenditure assignments and adjusting the fiscal transfer system.

Migration UNICEF is committed to increase the visibility of children in policy debates on migration. In 2007/2008, UNICEF joined UN partners UNDP, UN-DESA, ILO, and UNHCR in the Global Migration Group, a high-level partnership dedicated to the issue. UNICEF also engaged in the preparation of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) held in Brussels, and used that strategic forum to disseminate a joint position paper with UNDP on Migration, Human Rights, and Sustainable Human Development, as well as briefs on the social impact of migration on children and women left behind. With UN-DESA, UNICEF has also launched an initiative to estimate the number of international migrant children.


In several countries and in close collaboration with other UN sister agencies and financial institutions, UNICEF, including the Innocenti Research Centre, is undertaking policy research to measure the incidence, magnitude and impact of migration and remittances on children left-behind, as well as the location, age, ethnicity/origin and household situations of children affected by migration. Ecuador, Albania, Moldova, Mexico, Philippines, El Salvador and Morocco are already involved in this initiative, while others like Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Vietnam have expressed interest in participating. Field work will also examine the situation of children migrating alone. Some preliminary results of UNICEF-supported studies are already contributing to global understanding of the impact of migration, and creating awareness of the need for holistic legal and policy frameworks and investment to ensure social and economic rights of children and adolescents in at risk communities. In Ecuador, an assessment on the impact of migration contributed to the establishment of an institutional training and awareness-raising program within the National Child and Family Institute. In South Asia, UNICEF is compiling evidence on migration streams and the impact of migration on children to develop policies for improving access to services. UNICEF has also begun to address migration issues in China, home to one of the largest patterns of internal migration in world history, where migration affects an estimated 200 million people and well over 25 million children are left behind in rural villages when their parents migrate to cities. Here, UNICEF has piloted new mechanisms for the registration of migrant children, to ensure their access to basic social services in the cities, and has begun research on measures to support left-behind children through the Government’s Rural Poverty Alleviation Programme.


LEGISLATIVE REFORM AND CRC/CEDAW LINKAGES

Thematic funding has promoted significant progress towards UNICEF’s organizational target of supporting the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) reporting processes as well as new initiatives in supporting legislative reform for the implementation of the CRC. At the global level, three examples stand out. In 2005, 73% of country offices provided significant support to the most recent CRC reporting process, while in 2007 this percentage reached 86%. In November 2007, UNICEF together with Cambridge University Press launched “Protecting the World’s Children: Impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Diverse Legal Systems”, the first such publication examining the challenges and opportunities of implementing the CRC in four different legal traditions or systems (civil law, common law, Shari’a based law and plural systems). UNICEF also developed the first technical guidance document on legislative reform, which has been translated into French, Spanish and Arabic. And, UNICEF partnered with UNFPA to develop a draft learning manual on CRC/CEDAW Linkages, which was piloted in Nepal. Following UNICEF advocacy, several countries have formulated legislation consistent with the CRC. In Sierra Leone, Parliament adopted the Child Rights Act in 2007. The Togolese Parliament adopted the new Children’s Code in 2007, while a similar code is now pending approval in the National Assembly in the DRC. In Iran UNICEF supported the drafting of a comprehensive child protection bill that removes the differences between girls and boys in preventive and protective measures. And in Bolivia, UNICEF responded to the Constituent Assembly’s requests for technical assistance on issues including education and child labour. To promote the evidence necessary for effective reform, UNICEF has supported the analysis of current legislation through the lens of the CRC/CEDAW values and principles. In an unprecedented effort, UNICEF is supporting efforts of religious leaders in Iran to interpret the articles of the CRC from Islamic perspectives. In Indonesia, a mapping of local laws became a tool to promote the revision and adoption of legislation more in line with CRC. In South Asia, UNICEF works with the SAARC Secretariat and independently on an innovative study of legislation, policies and programmes around the rights of women and children and the MDGs in the region. In promoting legislative reform and CRC/CEDAW linkages, practical tools can have a big impact for children. In 2007, Malaysia developed the first edition of a child index of survival, growth, development, protection and participation. In Vietnam, UNICEF assisted the government in the development of an index- a major step forward in understanding child poverty. Child rights ombudspersons are having an impact in several countries across central and Eastern Europe, such as Russia, Serbia and Moldova. Children’s observatories play an important role in monitoring child rights in Latin America including in Belize (jointly with UNDP), Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras. In Ecuador, UNICEF supported the establishment of two observatories (child rights, and fiscal policy) and a broad civic movement to support education, which, along with advocacy and technical support, was critical for the adoption of universal access to 10 years of education as a national goal, and policies to eradicate malnutrition and protect child rights.


ENHANCED PARTICIPATION BY CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

At the global level, UNICEF has supported adolescent development and participation to ensure that they have the opportunity to make a successful transition from childhood to adulthood. This has included expanding its support and technical assistance for the appropriate role of children and young people themselves as partners and participants in global advocacy and societal decision-making. At the global level, during the Third Junior 8 Summit as part of the G8 Leaders Summit in Germany, 74 children and young people from G8 and non-G8 countries were given the opportunity to have a voice and present their recommendations on global issues to G8 leaders. More than 20 children and young people participated in the Roundtable discussions and plenary session of the World Fit for Children +5. Approximately 20 young people, mostly adolescent girls from marginalized communities, participated in the 51st Session on the Commission of the Status of Women dedicated to the elimination of all forms of violence and discrimination against the girl child and presented a youth report on this theme. As part of the 10-year Strategic Review of the Graca Machel study on children in armed conflict, UNICEF facilitated the production of a Youth Report “Will you listen? Young voices from conflict zones” based on focus group consultations with over 1,500 people from 19 countries affected by conflict. At the regional level, UNICEF’s regional office in Latin America supports the first four-country study on the impact of small arms on children and adolescents in Central America and the Caribbean. The East Asia Pacific regional office conducted a pioneering regional study on young people’s civic engagement in almost all countries of the region aimed at developing a typology of civic engagement, describing policy and legislative frameworks, mapping existing initiatives and institutions and identifying possible options for UNICEF. East and Southern Africa coordinated and supervised the first mapping of children and young people’s participation in the region, involving 16 out of 24 countries and producing 65 case studies on various participation activities executed in the region. In the past three years, four regions have developed Regional Strategies on adolescents and youth, and in the coming year, priority will be given to developing similar regional strategies on adolescent development and participation in the remaining three regions: East/Southern Africa, West/Central Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe/ Central & Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). Building on these regional strategies and drawing from lessons learnt at country level over the past years, the Adolescent Development and Participation unit in Headquarters is also finalizing a Global Strategy for UNICEF on adolescents. In 2007, 23% of UNICEF country offices reported implementation of institutionalized mechanisms for the sustained involvement of children and young people in policy development, up from 14% in 2005- a clear sign of progress. In East/Southern and West/Central Africa regions, the percentage surpassed 30% of country offices. Fifteen countries in Latin America supported innovative initiatives in the area of adolescent development, including in the Dominican Republic where the right to authentic participation of adolescents was made visible, for the first time, in the context of the constitutional reform process. At the national level, assistance was provided for the formulation


and implementation of National Youth Policies in at least 10 countries, including Djibouti, Timor-Leste, Lebanon, Belarus and Tanzania. The involvement of adolescents and young people in situation analysis and research has provided evidence of the valuable role they can play in providing in-depth knowledge of their situation. In MENA, for example, adolescents have been actively involved in surveys, research and situation analysis in Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. UNICEF has also been a key partner in supporting Children/Youth Parliaments in Malawi, Albania, Uzbekistan and Central African Republic. In Argentina, adolescents participated in the debate on new education legislation, and shaped the resulting laws. In Cambodia, the first-ever Youth Advisory Panel to the United Nations was established to provide a more structured forum for youth participation and feedback on current cooperation. Several other countries (Philippines, Mongolia, Timor Leste) are also exploring mechanisms for youth panels, councils and advisory boards. The CRC Committee is also preparing a General Comment on Article 12 to provide greater guidance to governments in implementing children’s right to expression of opinion and participation Although adolescents and young people make up over half (50%) of the total population in most of UNICEF programme countries, interventions and strategies to address their needs and concerns are most often single-sector focused and fragmented. In many regions the issue of unemployment, livelihoods and lack of opportunities for development of adolescents and young people is emerging as a major concern and issue for programming where governments expect UNICEF to provide leadership and technical assistance for policy development and programming. More strategic advocacy is needed to influence policies and leverage budgets and resources at the national level in favour of adolescents within a life-cycle approach. In particular, positive, opportunity-focused approaches to adolescent development and participation, rather than negative, problem-centered responses, will support the adolescent towards a successful transition from childhood to adulthood and assume a positive role as citizens in their families, communities and society at large.


STRATEGIC ALLOCATION OF FUNDING

This section provides financial information on UNICEF’s focus area on Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights. The following analysis refers to contributions received in 2007, although it is important to note that over 50% of these contributions were allocated in January 2008. 1) 2007 Thematic Donor Support to Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights (Focus Area 5) Donor Amount (US $) Governments Spain 14,749,300Norway 2,425,410Sweden 45,846National Committees Korean Committee for UNICEF 300,906Spanish Committee for UNICEF 189,189Grand Total 17,710,651

2) 2007 Expenditures by Funding Source for Focus Area 5 Funding Source (US $)

Other Resources - Emergency

Other Resources – Regular (includes Thematic Funds)

Regular Resources

Total Policy (US $)

% of all MTSP Focus

Areas expenditure

CEE/CIS 708,508 4,391,923 7,765,381 12,865,812 14% East Asia and the Pacific

4,836,745 8,006,651 11,396,386 24,239,782 8%

South Asia 9,265,415 5,556,220 26,577,971 41,399,606 9% Eastern and Southern Africa

10,163,444 11,384,155 37,420,124 58,967,723 10%

West and Central Africa

8,261,876 6,353,175 29,936,143 44,551,194 8%

Middle East and North Africa

212,996 2,873,321 3,299,348 6,385,665 2%

Americas and the Caribbean

240,189 12,693,122 7,534,188 20,467,499 16%

Inter-regional 1,710,589 11,464,379 11,507,540 24,682,508 26% Total 35,399,763 62,722,946 135,437,081 233,559,789 9%


3) 2007 Breakdown of Thematic Contributions by Medium-Term Strategic Plan (MTSP Priorities)

Humanitarian Response $84M

29%

Young Child Survival and

Development, $13M4%

Basic Education and Gender

Equality$121M42%Child Protection

$39M13%

HIV-AIDS & Children

$19M6%

Policy, Advocacy and Partnership

$18M6%

Thematic Contributions 2007: US$294 million

OR Contributions 2007 Thematic vs Non-thematic

592306 294

1,0291,358

1,419 1,613

1580%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2004 2005 2006 2007

US$

Mill

ions

Non-thematic

Thematic

Thematic Contributions 2007 excl. Thematic Humanitarian

Basic Education

and Gender Equality

$121 million58%Young Child

Survival and Dev,

$13 million 6%

Child Protection $39 million

19%

HIV-AIDS & Children $19 million

9%

Policy, Advocacy

and Partnership $18 million

8%


0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Norway

US Fund

Sweden

German NC

UK NC

Spain

Japan Committee

Italian NC

Canadian NC

Canada

US$ millions

2007 103.815.049.110.97.036.90.08.61.40.0

2006 99.023.350.920.913.719.010.210.24.410.1

2005 121.7146.545.560.237.70.023.211.520.214.3

2004 57.614.844.10.15.60.08.14.71.30.0

NorwayUS Fund SwedenGerman NCUK NCSpainJapan CommitteeItalian NCCanadian

NCCanada

382.1 M

199.6 M

189.6 M

24.4 M

92.1 M

64.0 M

55.9 M

27.3 M

41.6 M

35.1 M

Top Ten Donors to Thematic Funding2004 to 2007

Thematic funding has been driven by several key government donors such as Norway and Sweden and National Committees such as the US Fund for UNICEF and the German and United Kingdom National Committees. After contributing thematic funding for the first time in 2006, Spain almost doubled their thematic contribution in 2007. Government donors’ proportion of overall thematic contributions amounted to 76%. Thematic funding greatly streamlines financial and administrative processes allowing for reduced transaction costs. UNICEF looks forward to a continued strong growth in the pool of thematic donors and thematic funding to improve effectiveness in achieving programme results.


4) 2007 Global Thematic Allocations for Focus Area 5 by Country Income Level The next set of charts refers to the allocation of thematic funding.

Headquarters13%

Regional Offices7%

Non-Least Developed Countries

54% Least Developed Countries

26%

5) 2007 Global Thematic Allocations for Focus Area 5 by Policy Areas

Social Budgeting25%

Child Participation10%

CRC/CEDAW Implementation

9%

Social Protection20%

Migration1%

Decentralization18%

Child Poverty and Disparities

17%


6) 2007 Global Thematic Allocations for Focus Area 5 by Region/HQ

CEE/CIS8%

East Asia and the Pacific

8%

Eastern and Southern Africa

9%

Middle East and North Africa

9%

South Asia10%

Americas and the Caribbean

34%

West and Central Africa

9%

Headquarters13%

Expression of thanks As this report has outlined, Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for children’s rights is a new and growing area of UNICEF’s work, recognized formally in UNICEF’s strategic plan for the first time in 2006. As such, we are particularly grateful to the governments of Spain, Norway and Sweden as well as the Korean and Spanish National Committees for UNICEF, who are enabling this area to flourish into what we believe will be a core area of work for UNICEF in coming years, and one where significant and positive upstream policy changes for children will continue to be made.


THE FUTURE: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

The inclusion of policy, advocacy and partnerships as a formal focus area within the UNICEF organizational workplan, combined with institutional energy and support for work in this area, and strategic allocation of thematic funding, has resulted in innovative initiatives at the country, regional and global levels. Increasingly, UNICEF expertise in collecting and analyzing strategic information, especially through MICS is adding value to national and international policy debates. UNICEF’s technical knowledge and expertise as well as its role as guardian of children’s rights have allowed it to become a trusted partner to governments and other stakeholders in designing and implementing policies that benefit children and families, including in industrialized countries. Work in all priority areas of UNICEF’s policy agenda form part of an effort to build systems and institutions oriented toward universal realization of children’s rights, with support to systemic change, social transformation, national ownership and national capacity development. Several specific areas for future progress have been identified in this report, and there are many more proposals flooding in. At the same time, every step forward has revealed areas for further improvement. Specifically, in line with our mandate to promote the rights of all girls and boys, UNICEF is committed to enhancing performance in a few key areas.

Continually improving conceptual clarity and coherence of the policy agenda UNICEF’s organizational business plan provides guidance on the types of activities to be carried out in order to influence policies and to strengthen and broaden partnerships to benefit children, and further work has identified the priority areas of work detailed in this report. However, more clarification of UNICEF’s specific goals for policy work is needed, both to support staff engaging in policy debates, and to build awareness of child concerns among national and international partners. To this end, work has begun on a guidance paper and conceptual framework for work in the arena of policy, advocacy and partnerships, including improvement of expected results and indicators.

Building innovative, effective partnerships at all levels as part of a more coherent UN System It will be impossible for UNICEF to achieve its ambitious policy agenda alone; broad partnerships with sister UN agencies, national counterparts and parliamentarians, civil society, local and international experts are essential. Partnerships at all levels must seize opportunities to empower communities, and engage young people as well as societies as a whole more actively in policy making, which is essential to a rights-based approach. Lessons learned from work thus far shows that policy work needs to be linked directly, where possible, to ongoing government-led policy processes, responding to demand from policymakers, rather than being autonomous initiatives driven by UNICEF. This requires partnerships with the requisite government bodies, including in particular ministries of finance and planning, where UNICEF links have traditionally been weak. This will require patient work to develop UNICEF’s credibility as a source of high-quality, evidence-based policy advice.


Strengthening knowledge management Despite some progress, UNICEF still needs to do much more in knowledge acquisition and sharing. It is evident from reviewing the annual reports of country offices that offices working on similar issues often do not seek out existing experience and expertise in other parts of the world. Even when there is the desire to learn from the experience of others, the best information is often difficult to find, because knowledge is not yet systematized and managed adequately. UNICEF is working to improve existing channels for reporting on experiences, and to develop new mechanisms and systems to facilitate better knowledge management, such as communities of practice and interactive websites. Regional Policy Advisors have committed to fostering communication and knowledge sharing, and country offices will need to devote more resources and time to considering and also documenting results and lessons learned in programme development, implementation and reporting.

Enhancing internal capacity in economic and social policy through training and recruitment In 2007 and 2008, UNICEF has invested significant human and financial resources to develop and deliver global learning programmes to enhance internal capacity in the areas of public policy, social budgeting and social protection. Continued investment will be essential to ensure UNICEF is prepared to influence policy debates on behalf of children. UNICEF staff, particularly at senior levels, need to enhance their skills in the non-technical aspects of policy work, e.g. identification and relationship building with key partners; facilitation of dialogue and consensus building with and among diverse national and international actors; communication/articulation of UNICEF policy priorities and goals in ways that ensure resonance with national political priorities. At the same time, new policy posts are needed in many countries, and recruitment of new qualified specialists, both for staff positions and consultancies, will bring new competencies to core policy work- this effort is already underway; in 2008 a UNICEF advert for social policy specialists in the Economist magazine garnered roughly 400 applicants.

Ensuring evaluation and strategic dissemination of results Headquarters, regional and country level commitments and new guidelines are in place to ensure evaluation, assessment and dissemination of policy work. UNICEF will need to devote significant time and resources to deliver on these commitments and ensure the highest quality results. The global network of UNICEF staff working to promote children’s rights are united in a new agenda with ambitious goals. So far, thematic funding has enabled us to realize what was once a dream: around the world, UNICEF is substantively engaging in upstream policy decisions to achieve downstream results for children. With sustained support from current donors, and new resources to energize future innovation, UNICEF will continue to respond to new opportunities, enhance existing work, and work with partners towards a world fit for children.


Documents

POLICY, ADVOCACY AND PARTNERSHIPS FOR CHILDREN ......WES to the areas where resources are needed the most. Thematic Report: Policy, Advocacy and Partnerships for Children’s Rights