UCW: Understanding Children's Work

UCW: Understanding Children's Work is a programme to combat child labour. The 1997 Amsterdam Conference on Combating the Most Intolerable Forms of Child Labour and the 1997 Oslo International Conference on Child Labour both drew attention to the urgent need for concerted global action to end child labour, and called for an expansion of information gathering, statistics and empirical research to help inform this action. The inter-agency programme, Understanding Children’s Work (UCW), was initiated by the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF and the World Bank as one of the responses to the recommendations of the Amsterdam and Oslo conferences. Through a variety of research activities, the UCW Programme supports the partner agencies in improving statistical information on child labour in its various dimensions – its nature, extent, causes and consequences – as well as on what policy approaches are most effective in addressing it.

The Programme’s inter-agency configuration and technical orientation leave it uniquely placed to act as a platform for research cooperation, policy dialogue, partnership building and knowledge exchange in child labour and related policy areas. As partner agency efforts accelerate towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (by 2015) and the elimination of worst forms (by 2016), these Programme functions will likely only grow in importance. A Steering Committee composed of senior management representatives from each of the three partner agencies is responsible for the establishment and oversight of the Programme’s overall strategic direction and goals.

The Programme has five core components as depicted in the figure.

Statistics And Measurement: monitoring progress against child labour.

The Statistics and Measurement component supports partner agency and government efforts to strengthen quantitative information on child labour needed for effective monitoring. The Programme’s unique access to a wide range of child labour datasets, from ILO, UNICEF and World Bank as well as from direct partnerships with national statistical offices, has enabled it to assemble perhaps the largest child labour database. The UCW survey database currently contains over 200 datasets for almost 100 countries; in two-thirds of these countries, data are available for more than one point in time. The database permits the generation of indicators regarding not only child labour and schooling, but also related issues such as youth employment and migration. This Programme component serves the partner agencies as a platform for developing common statistical concepts and terminology relating to child labour, in turn critical for clarity and consistency in child labour monitoring. In this context, UCW provided technical input to the development of the resolution on child labour statistics adopted by the 18th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS), and is promoting take-up of the new statistical standards contained in the resolution. In a related effort, support is extended through this component to developing and testing new research tools needed by the agencies to fill key information gaps in the child labour field. New research tools for extending information on children in worst forms of child labour other than hazardous are particularly important in this context.

Policy Oriented Research.

The Policy-Oriented Research component focuses on research in policy areas where important knowledge gaps persist, and on using this research for promoting informed responses to child labour. The research contributes to broader partner agency efforts towards the MDGs by examining in detail how child labour affects, and is affected by, the various economic and social issues that the MDGs target. Research is organised around five broad themes: The Policy-Oriented Research component focuses on research in policy areas where important knowledge gaps persist, and on using this research for promoting informed responses to child labour. The research contributes to broader partner agency efforts towards the MDGs by examining in detail how child labour affects, and is affected by, the various economic and social issues that the MDGs target. Research is organised around five broad themes:

Education. The interplay between child labour and school, and links between the goals of Education for All (EFA) and child labour elimination.
Social protection. Vulnerability as a cause of child labour, and the potential of social protection as a response to it.
Youth employment. The close two-way link between child labour and youth employment outcomes, and its implications for policy.
Migration. The unique sets of challenges and threats faced by different groups of children affected by migration.
Worst forms of child labour. The extent and nature of different worst forms of child labour and policy approaches for addressing them.

Impact Evaluation: learning about what works in efforts against child labour.

The Impact Evaluation component forms part of broader partner agency efforts to improve understanding of the relative effectiveness of different policy approaches to child labour elimination. It provides evidence concerning not only whether specific child labour programme interventions work, but also how they work and their relevance for broader replication. Supported by a special Technical Advisory Group made up of partner agency and external experts in the evaluation field, the component focuses on three main areas.

It supports consolidating and systematising existing information on child labour-related impact evaluation, and making this information available through a web-based knowledge centre.
It supports impact evaluations of specific child labour interventions.
It supports the integration of child labour considerations into impact evaluations in policy areas with a bearing on child labour.

The knowledge generated is used by a variety of actors (e.g., governments, international organizations, NGOs, multilateral and bilateral agencies) to help improve child labour programme design and effectiveness, and to guide the expansion of programme interventions.

Country-Level Cooperation: linking research to national policy development.

The Country-Level Cooperation component involves applying the tools, methods, guidelines developed as part of the other components of the Programme to specific country contexts. In this way, it represents the link between the global-level research activities, on one hand, and the national policies and programmes directly influencing child labour, on the other. Implementation of this component is guided by national governments and entails direct collaboration with a variety of local counterparts inside and outside government. The component also involves close collaboration with the ILO, UNICEF and World Bank country teams, and, as such, provides a common platform for supporting governments in developing effective strategies against child labour. The inter-agency reports emerging from country-level cooperation provide a common, credible information base on child labour and a set of possible policies and interventions for addressing it. The reports also provide evidence of the close linkages between child labour and broader development concerns, including education and youth employment, and highlight the consequent need to address child labour as an important element of national development strategies. The reports are tailored to directly feed into national time-bound programmes and other national programmatic efforts targeting child labour. Widely disseminated among policymakers and key local stakeholders, the reports also help raise awareness of child labour as a development priority and help stimulate policy dialogue on how to combat it. Countries participating in the Programme to date include Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cameroon, El Salvador, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Mali, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Paraguay, Rwanda, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Uruguay, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia.

Dissemination and Capacity Building: increasing access to and take-up of child labour knowledge.

The Dissemination component is directed towards providing access to UCW research outputs to as wide an audience as possible, both inside and outside the UCW partner agencies. It fits within broader efforts to promote the take-up and operationalisation of Programme outputs. A variety of vehicles are utilised to serve dissemination efforts, including the Programme website, a UCW working paper series, a UCW seminar series and a regular UCW newsletter. UCW also partners with relevant web-based information portals to circulate research outputs. Specialised workshops and roundtables, press reports and peer-reviewed journal articles are other means of research dissemination. Since 2006, statistics relating to a core set of child labour indicators have been disseminated through the World Bank’s annual World Development Indicators (WDI) publication and software. Alongside dissemination efforts, this component supports improving national capacity in the analysis of child labour data and its use in policy design. Training focuses on child labour concepts and terminology, as well as on the processing and analysing of child labour survey data to identify policy strategies. The courses are designed to leave participants with the understanding and technical skills needed for the regular monitoring of progress against child labour in their respective countries.

References

"Understanding Children’s Work Programme" (PDF).

External Links.

Statistics and measurement: A wide array of indicators on child labour, schooling and related indicators, organised by country, topic and year.
Policy Oriented Research: All downloadable reports and studies produced by the UCW Programme organised by country, topic and year.
Country-level Cooperation: UCW Country Reports, designed to provide an overview of child labour and related issues in specific national contexts.

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