Early learning provides tremendous lifelong advantages to children both in terms of their future education and life skills. Enrolling early in age-appropriate programmes allows children to learn at the right age and to be prepared for moving forward to higher levels of education. In this context, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)… Read more →←
Maryama* is just 17 years old, but already she has attempted to migrate from Hargeisa in the Horn of Africa to Europe twice. While most migrants face harrowing journeys, her story can help us understand some of the additional challenges facing young women and girls on the move in the Horn of Africa. She was interviewed as part of a… Read more →←
How do we know if a programme made a difference? The answer to this question is not as straightforward as it seems, because we never know what would have happened without the programme. This concept is referred to as the ‘missing counterfactual’ (or simply ‘the counterfactual’ since, by definition, a counterfactual is… Read more →←
Pinocchio is sitting at the defendant’s seat with his lawyer, when the judges enter the hall. On one side the prosecutor looks at him grimly, with the Cat and the Fox, Mangiafuoco, the puppet master, and the teacher next to him. On the other side, the father Geppetto, a poor woodcarver, and the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair, the… Read more →←
If UNICEF were a rich country instead of my employer, it would rank 24th out of 41 EU and OECD countries in the league table of our new report “Are the world’s richest countries family friendly?” on the indicator of full-rate equivalent childcare leave available to female staff (see figure below, which shows where UNICEF would… Read more →←
As access to education increases around the world, so does the concern about schools providing the necessary support to children with disabilities. Oftentimes unaccommodating environments for students with functional difficulties prevent them from making the most of their educations. A new questionnaire — the Child… Read more →←
Over the past decade there has been escalating concern that the time children spend using digital technology might be harmful. Calls have been made to protect children by restricting the amount of time they spend in front of digital screens. But recently there has been a change in tune, following research showing that the effects of… Read more →←
Getting the ‘development’ right in sport for development (S4D) means that on the pitch, disabilities are dissolved into strengths. It means that traditional ‘no girls allowed’ attitudes are torn away. It means that children’s voices are valued in both the planning and the playing, and real efforts are made to protect children… Read more →←
In 2014 the World Economic Forum called the rapid spread of misinformation online one of the ten most critical issues for our societies. A 2016 Stanford study of 7,800 student responses from middle school to college highlighted discomforting results. Researchers found that students had a “dismaying inability” to recognize the… Read more →←
It is a known fact that in nearly every country, children are more likely to live in (monetary) poverty than adults (19% versus 9% respectively in 2018). This has immediate effects on the well-being of children, their development prospects and consequently their adult life. Cash transfer programs targeted at the poorest households have… Read more →←