Last year, close to one million babies died on their first day of life, and 2.7 million during their first 28 days. Almost half of all under-five deaths took place during this newborn period. And 2.6 million babies were stillborn. These first hours, days and weeks constitute the most dangerous period in a human life. In the poorest, most… Read more →←
Topic: Data and research
Data hold more potential than ever before to shape the lives and living conditions of children. Much of that potential is the result of the rapid expansion of data sources and uses. We’ve seen firsthand what those results can be. Whether it is improving government data systems to improve the delivery of education and social… Read more →←
For the last three years, I’ve been working to make Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net (PSNP) both more nutrition sensitive and better connected to health services. PSNP is the main tool to help forward Ethiopia’s Social Protection Policy and Strategy, which provides regular cash or food transfers to over 8 million people in need.… Read more →←
UNICEF works on social protection programs in over 100 countries, and many are expanding rapidly. In discussions with stakeholders, there are two gender assumptions we hear repeatedly: giving benefits to women (rather than men) will result in better outcomes – particularly for children transfers will increase women’s empowerment. In… Read more →←
Registering a child in Angola is sometimes a real challenge. The lack of information, the weaknesses of the services and the bureaucracy of the system are among the main constraints. These problems caught the attention of a group of 40 students of Law at the Mandume Ya Ndemufayo Public University who decided to create what they called… Read more →←
In the sprawling urban settlement, a young mother deftly shells beans while answering survey questions and keeping an eye on her toddler. 300 kilometres outside the capital, a community health worker hits send on her mobile phone and an SMS transmits her day’s vaccination numbers to the Ministry of Health. 36,000 kilometres above the… Read more →←
Research on inequality often loses sight of where children stand in relation to one another. The new Innocenti Report Card Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries looks at differences between children at the bottom of the inequality ladder, and their peers in the middle, across 41… Read more →←
It is often said that the real commitment of a government to any issue can be measured by the money it spends. But measuring government investment is not always easy, especially when it is an issue as complex as early childhood development. Over the past decades in Latin America, early childhood has received increased government… Read more →←
Social cash transfers are an increasingly popular tool in African national governments’ social protection strategies, but a question that often comes up about their use is will such programmes – targeted to families with young children – encourage parents to have larger families in a region with stubbornly high fertility rates?… Read more →←
The leading medical journal The Lancet just released a new Series on Breastfeeding with remarkable new evidence on the health and economic benefits of breastfeeding. The Lancet found that breastfeeding could save 820,000 lives and add $302 billion into the global economy. The Lancet shows that breastfeeding lays the foundation for the… Read more →←
