The regional workshop for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States region was held on April 2-4, 2008, where country teams from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine participated. Please find below some reflections that were shared:
- Although the Study is currently viewed as a one-off exercise, it is expected to create institutional, methodological, networking arrangements at country, regional and global levels which go beyond 2008 or 2009. Furthermore, the Study is expected to make a lasting mark on the way MICS and other surveys are used. Lastly, the Study also may act as catalyst to create lasting partnerships in policy work and advocacy, and building a strong network.
- The usefulness of conducting national child poverty and disparities studies as part of a global, coordinated effort. Besides providing quality control and methodological as well as technical support, it mobilizes national interest in conducting child poverty analysis and policy work, and ensures good results, that can be carried forward. There was a good balance of government agencies, national research institutes/think-tanks and UNICEF staff, which gave a very practical and applied angle to the discussions.
- The Guide and the Templates/Indicators should be seen as a generic, basic frame to child poverty and disparity analysis. Countries could build their own contextual analyses on this frame but should ideally adjust and/or augment them to reflect context-specific issues or key policy concerns in the country.
- It was suggested that countries develop a set of indicators which are more appropriate to transition economies. In particular, countries would like to understand how this will be addressed in the global analysis. In terms of the global analysis, while there is a need for comparability, one needs to be very clear on the central methodology, messages, and how these can be best deployed to bring about change in the lives of children.
- The usefulness of looking at national development strategies to ensure that country analyses will be forward looking. Chapter 1, included in the suggested outline of the Global Study Guide should discuss national development frameworks in an analytical rather than in a descriptive manner. This can enable the analysis to project expected outcomes and to draw conclusions on what could be done today in order to prevent unwanted side-effects (e.g. child labor, child abandonment, migration, conflict etc.).
All related documents and presentations can be viewed here.
Focal Point: Gordon Alexander galexander@unicef.org
