Child Poverty and Equity:
Concepts, methods and action
Content
1. Multidimensional Child Poverty. The experience in LA
- Conceptual, Methodological and Political Issues
2. Equity and Poverty
- Framework
- Equity for Children- New School Program (EFC)
- CROP & EFC program
- Research on equity: some results
3. Final Comments
Multidimensional Child Poverty:
Recent LA experience and debate
Conceptual and Methodological decisions are Political
decisions
- Rights approach, capability approach
- Thresholds and social protection floor / Redistribution and social
justice/Childhood and citizenship/ Inter-generational and gender
equity
- Multidimensional poverty or wellbeing?
• Which Dimensions, Indicators and Thresholds?
• Intersection or Union? Weights?
• Poverty cutoff = Number of deprivations
Indicator : Education
Different Options
Threshold Options
Threshold Age
% Not Attending
1. Basic Education
7-15 years
6%
2. Preschool and Basic
Education
4-15 years
12%
3. Preschool, Basic and
Secondary Education
4-17 years
17%
Multidimensional household survey in El Salvador (Pilot study, 2013)
What is the ‘social minimum’?
Dimension: Housing
Union or intersection?
ROOF
Deprived
No
No
Yes
Yes
FLOOR
Deprived
No
Yes
No
Yes
WALL
Deprived
No
51%
7%
16%
3%
Yes
7%
7%
4%
4%
49% of
children
housing
deprived
Union
(1 or more
depriv.)
=
Intersection
Multidimensional household survey in El Salvador (Pilot study, 2013)
Impact on Total Multidimensional Child Poverty
Union = 73.6%
Intersection (2 or 3 deprivations) = 63.0%
2 or 3 depriv.=
18% of
children;
3 depriv. = 4%
of children
Total Multidimensional Child Poverty:
Impact of Union or Intersection
Total Child Poverty number of deprivations by Income and Relative Gap
19.6
100%
90%
Intersection (2 or 3 depriv.)
in Housing Materials
81%
80%
65%
70%
63%
60%
50%
47% 41%
40%
45%
30%
25% 4.1
20%
16%
10%
1.77
2%
0%
7
6 or +
5 or +
4 or +
3 or +
2 or +
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1 or +
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
7
6 or +
5 or +
K
Gap T1/T3
National
20
19
86.1% 18
17
16
73.6% 15
73%
13.1
14
13
12
58%
62.4% 11
10
48%
9
8
7
34%
6
28%
5
2.5
4
3
1.38
2
1
4%
0
3 or +
2 or +
1 or +
Union in Housing Materials
4 or +
K
T1 (poorest)
T3 (richest)
Gap T1/T3
National
T1 (poorest)
Multidimensional household survey in El Salvador (Pilot study, 2013)
T3 (richest)
Multidimensional Child Poverty:
Recent LA experience and debate
Methodologies:
1. Rights Approach: CEPAL- UNICEF (2012)
2. Capability- OPHI K > 1 (Chile, Colombia, Mexico)
3. Well-Being
What is poverty to a child?
“I feel bad. I feel like the odd one out…You lack self-esteem. You
feel like you shouldn’t talk wherever you are, like you shouldn’t
be expressing your ideas. You feel lonely. You feel ashamed.
Like if you have only two underpants and you have to wear one
and wash the other and hang it up to dry everyone will always
see that you have only two – the red one and the green one –
and you are alternating between them.”
16 year-old girl, Rusinga, Kenya
Christian Children’s Fund Study
How Children Experience Poverty:
Three interrelated domains
Deprivation: A lack of material conditions and services
Exclusion: A result of unjust processes through which children’s dignity, voice,
and rights are denied
Vulnerability: An inability of society to cope with existing or probable threats
to children in their environment
D
E
V
Equity & Poverty
A Conceptual Framework
Sources of Inequity
Material Deprivations
Vertical Inequalities
(income and
basic social services)
Yes
Discrimination
Horizontal
Inequalities
(gender, ethnicity,
disability, noncitizen,
refugee, etc.)
No
Yes
No
Multidimensional
child poverty
• Overlapping categories of inequity but different causes
• Call for different policies
Vulnerable groups
Child
Rights
Child
Poverty
Equity
and
Equality
Public Policy
How?
Research| Events | Engaging Students, Practitioners, Governmental &
Non-Profit Organizations
Our Actions
• Create and disseminate knowledge
• Promote awareness
• Increase communication and action
Our Vision
• Social, economic, cultural and political rights for all children
worldwide
• Societies based on social justice and human rights
• Fair distribution of power and resources for all children and their
families
• All children protected from harm and discrimination
Equity for Children:
Key partnership with CROP
February 2014: ‘Child Poverty, Democracy and Public Policy’ International
Seminar in DF, Mexico
Objective
To evaluate critically
the current
knowledge and
public policy that
impact
the prevention and
eradication of child
poverty and
inequality.
Equity for Children:
‘Approaches to Equity’ Project
• 24 month study from 2013 to 2015
• Interviews, key documents, analyses of leading practitioners about
views of equity, equality, and challenges faced
– Phase I International Organizations: World Bank, UNICEF, Save the
Children, MDGs Group, WHO, UN Women, Equity for Children and Oxfam
International.
• Key Goals:
1. Understand needs for realization of social justice and human rights
2. Indentify key actors’ concepts, research, evidence, policies about equity and
equality
3. Create debate platform to address those findings
Main Objective of Phase I
• To identify key equity approaches, best practices and
successful local policies
• Key Questions of Research Phase I:
1. What are the current equity concepts and approaches?
2. What are the major challenges and possible strategies to
push forward equity on the international development
agenda?
Overall Findings
• Equity concepts are well positioned on the agenda as an
approach to analyze social issues and to design and
implement interventions and policies
• References to theoretical concepts are rarely made
• Equity definitions vary from organization to
organization but embrace commonalities
Common Understandings of Equity:
1. Addressing the most marginalized and disadvantaged
populations first
2. Acting on unjust deprivations based on horizontal
inequalities
3. Providing equal opportunities for all
4. A question of fairness (fair treatment)
Different Understandings of
Equity:
•
Uneven emphasis on outcomes versus opportunities:
What should be measured?
•
Outcomes: Measuring impact on the lives of
disadvantaged populations, not only access
•
Equal Opportunities: Measuring improved access to
services
•
How to reduce the gap/debate about focalized policies vs
universal policies
Main Challenges
1. Lack of disaggregated data and equity analysis
2. Confusion on how to translate deprivation evidence into
policies with impact
3. Lack of political will and budgetary allocation
4. Donor priorities focus on short term impact resulting in
spending on small vertical projects
5. Lack of shared strong advocacy
The Way Forward:
9 Suggestions
1. Measure multidimensional child poverty and inequities
2. Measure outcomes and opportunities in disaggregated data
3. Develop a more holistic vision of society rather than
focusing on the most disadvantaged to generate social
change
4. Analyze the determinants of how society as a whole
produces and reproduces inequalities
The Way Forward:
9 Suggestions
5. Strengthen governance through local participatory planning and
social accountability
6. Promote local action and broad public policy
7. Promote and ensure children’s and adolescents’ participation and
agency
8. Develop transparent public budgets for social policies and fair
taxation
9. Focus on structural causes and inequity at a macroeconomic level