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TRANSCRIPT
CHILD POVERTY
STRATEGIC
PLAN
2016-2018
This presentation lays out Save the Children’s Child
Poverty Strategic Plan. The Plan will work between 2016
and 2018 to build a cohesive approach for Save the
Children to help children escape from poverty.
It will enhance the economic dimension of
Save the Children’s work to:
PUTTING CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AT THE
HEART OF ACTION TO REDUCE POVERTY
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
• Empower deprived adolescents as
economic actors
• Foster evidence-based action to
break the links between low, insecure
incomes and the deprivations among
children who experience extreme
poverty and exclusion.
• Strengthen household incomes and
livelihoods through child-sensitive approaches,
gender equality principles, resilience and
rights-based programming
OUR AMBITION 4
1.Our ambition for children living in poverty 5
2.Our Child Poverty goals for 2030 7
THE CHALLENGE 8
3.What is Child Poverty? 9
4.Why do we need to act? 10
SAVE THE CHILDREN’S RESPONSE 12
5.Our Global Strategy 13
6.How our Child Poverty work supports our Global Strategy 14
a) Contributing to children surviving 15
b) Contributing to children learning 16
c) Contributing to children being protected
from violence 17
7.Putting children at the heart of everything 18
8.Prioritising the most vulnerable children 20
CONTENTS
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
OUR PLAN FOR 2016 – 2018 21
9.Our unique Child Poverty focus 22
10.What we expect to achieve 23
11.Four key areas to improve children’s lives 24
a) Child-Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) 24
b) Child-Sensitive Livelihoods (CSLH) 25
c) Adolescent Skills for Successful Transitions (ASST) 26
d) Policy Advocacy on Child Poverty 28
12.Maintaining our focus 29
13.Innovating for greater impact on Child Poverty 32
14.Incorporating gender equality, inclusion,
resilience and disability 35
15.Leading the way in research and learning 38
16.Steps we’ll need to take to deliver on our Plan 41
17.Sharing what we learn as we go 42
18.Endnotes 43
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OUR AMBITION
1. Our ambition for children living
in poverty
2. Our Child Poverty goals for 2030
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Save the Children is responding in a more explicit and focused way to the
challenges posed by child poverty worldwide, recognising both its direct
impacts on children and the ways in which child poverty additionally
undermines ambitions in other key areas for the rights and wellbeing of
children (survival, health and nutrition, education, protection).
Save the children will support the Sustainable Development Goals agenda
for 2016 – 2030 through contributions towards a world in which, by 2030,
no child lives in extreme poverty, and young people are empowered
to fulfil their potential.
This Ambition will enable us to lead and work with partners in addressing
the immediate and root causes of child poverty. We will use a combination
of high-impact programme delivery, advocacy for the replication of
successful interventions at scale, and campaigning with civil society
coalitions to ensure the rapid and progressive elimination of extreme
child poverty.
In doing so, we will build on Save the Children’s long-standing work in
addressing hunger, nutrition and livelihoods, and on our innovative
initiatives on child sensitive social protection and youth skills for
employment. Our domestic and international experience and learning will
underpin a more concerted thrust on child poverty in all regions. The
elimination of poverty among children – to ‘make child poverty history’ –
will become a signature issue for which Save the Children will be a globally-
recognised leader, advocate and campaigner.
1. OUR AMBITION
FOR CHILDREN
LIVING IN POVERTY
“We want the world to put
children and young people at the
heart of its action to reduce
poverty; to strengthen the low
and insecure incomes that
prevent children from surviving,
learning and being safe; and
thereby stop the transmission of
poverty to future generations.”
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Over the coming 15 years, we will be an innovator, thought-
leader and knowledge-generator, and will achieve equitable
impact for girls and boys in extreme poverty as well as
highly-deprived young people. Our efforts will reduce the
deprivations that children suffer as a result (in part or
whole) of low and insecure incomes; will build household
and individual resilience and promote income-smoothing and
security, including in times of shock and crisis; and will
expand skills and capabilities to improve the livelihood
opportunities and life-chances of the 2015-2030 generation.
Our Child Poverty work will enable us to lead in this widely-
neglected field, to build alliances and to work with partners
in addressing the causes and deprivation impacts of extreme
child poverty. We will pursue this across all country
contexts and settings. We will use high-impact and child-
and-gender-sensitive programme delivery, including through
shared common approaches, Signature Programmes and
humanitarian responses. We will deploy advocacy for the
replication of successful interventions at scale, build
synergistic approaches across Save the Children, and forge
coalitions with civil society and private sector champions to
achieve reductions in the number of children in extreme
poverty.
In the coming 15 years, we will work intensively with
governments, local groups, caregivers, young people and
children themselves to identify policies and interventions
that achieve secure pathways out of poverty for the most
deprived children and excluded groups.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
We’re working towards a world free
from Child Poverty
Delivering on our Child Poverty goals for 2030 will see millions
of children and adolescents around the world escape from
poverty and stop the cycle passing on to the next generation.
2. OUR CHILD
POVERTY GOALS
FOR 2030
Our Child Poverty Results for 2030
1. Both female and male caregivers have sufficient income at all times
to meet the essential needs of their children for survival, learning
and protection
2. In all societies, families who are poor are resilient against disasters
and shocks and continue to invest in their children's survival, learning
and protection
3. In all societies, adolescent girls and boys who are deprived have the
opportunity to build the skills, networks and self-esteem they need
to make the transition to safe and decent livelihoods
4. All countries will have adopted national and/or sub-national
monitoring and action plans for the reduction of Child Poverty and
its associated deprivations in survival, learning and protection.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
THE CHALLENGE
3. What is Child Poverty?
4. Why do we need to act?
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
In most countries, extreme income poverty is currently
calculated by the World Bank as less than the absolute
level of US$1.90 per person per day (adjusted for local
prices).
“Extremely poor” children live in households where
income per person (sometimes with adjustments for
household composition) falls below this very low level.
In most OECD countries, extreme poverty is a relative
measure, where households have income under 50% –
60% of the mean household income, and “extremely
poor” children live in these households.
Save the Children’s view
Our view of poverty and its effects involves
multiple dimensions of deprivation, including
poor health, learning, nutrition, low access to
services and failures of protection and
participation, as well as the very low incomes
that often contribute to these further
deprivations.
We also recognise that the income of very poor
households and people are not just limited, but also
irregular and unpredictable.
Put simply, we cannot be sure that girls and boys will
survive, thrive, learn and be safe, if their parents or
caregivers do not have the basic income at all times
to feed and clothe them, take them to the clinic
when sick, keep them in school, and keep their
immediate environment healthy and secure.
3. WHAT IS
CHILD POVERTY?
How can children live on less than
US$1.90 per person per day?
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Our work will help millions
of children, adolescents and
children yet-to-be-born to
grow up with lives free of the
suffering and limitations
caused by poverty.
The last three decades have seen unprecedented
advances in the reduction of extreme poverty, as
measured by income. However, most of the progress is
accounted for by China. High levels of extreme poverty
persist and will become increasingly concentrated in
Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, conflict-affected
countries and fragile states.
Half a billion children need our help
•Roughly one billion people living today in extreme
income-poverty
•About one-half are children
•In most rich countries, poverty rates are significantly
higher among children than adults.
Children are suffering every day
•Young children in the poorest 20% of families are up
to 50% more likely not to survive
•Young child stunting and under-nutrition are two to
three times more prevalent in the poorest families
•Impoverished parents, spending 50 – 70% of their
incomes on basic food, are unable to invest adequately
in their children’s health and learning
4. WHY DO WE
NEED TO ACT?
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Poverty is passed on through the generations
•Girls with poor nutrition are more likely to see their
own children suffer from it in the next generation
•Learning achievement among children from poor
families is systematically lower, compromising their life-
chances
•Child safety, child marriage, child labour and children
living without family care are all deprivations highly
associated with income-poverty, often most acutely
during humanitarian crises.
Adolescents need support
•In Africa, about 40% of the population is under 15
•Many of the poorest adolescents become parents while
still children themselves
•Death rates among the children of child mothers are
some 50% higher than children born to adults.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
SAVE THE CHILDREN’S
RESPONSE
5.Our Global Strategy
6.How our Child Poverty work supports our
Global Strategy
a. Contributing to children surviving
b. Contributing to children learning
c. Contributing to children being
protected from violence
7.Putting children at the heart of everything
8.Prioritising the most vulnerable children
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
All of our Child Poverty work supports the wider goals of Save the Children worldwide:
5. OUR GLOBAL STRATEGY
Only then will we transform
the lives and children and
make a real difference.
We won’t inspire
breakthroughs for
children on our own.
We will work hand-in-hand with
children and their communities,
our partners and our donors.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Our work will contribute to more
children surviving, learning and
being protected from violence.
• Our Child Poverty work will strengthen the
economic dimension of Save the Children’s work
across all of our Breakthroughs for children.
• It will apply child-sensitive approaches, gender
equality principles, resilience and rights-based
programming to the strengthening of household
incomes and livelihoods; and to the empowerment
as economic actors of adolescents who are
deprived.
• It will foster evidence-based action by Save the
Children to break the links between low, insecure
incomes and the perpetuation of survival, learning
and protection deprivations among children in all
societies who experience extreme poverty and
exclusion.
6. HOW OUR CHILD
POVERTY WORK
SUPPORTS OUR
GLOBAL STRATEGY
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
a) Contributing to children surviving
The Child Poverty Theme will influence adult decision-
makers across and within countries to put girls, boys
and young people at the heart of their actions to reduce
poverty.
• It will strengthen the low and insecure incomes
that prevent children from surviving
• In doing so it will reduce the transmission of
poverty and its associated survival, health and
nutrition deprivations to future generations
• We will support parents and other caregivers in
creating sufficient incomes for the survival of their
children, through food and other basic spending
and by using health and nutrition services, including
in times of shock and crisis
• We will promote economic empowerment among
adolescents and young people, which will equip
them with integrated life skills. These will include
sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as
nutrition, with an impact on (actual or soon-to-be)
young mothers and fathers; and on their own
children’s survival
• We will support the equitable empowerment and
agency of girls and boys, including adolescents,
young mothers and young people as economic
actors in their own right. This will include their
participation in markets, decision-making and
accessing basic services for child survival.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
b) Contributing to children learning
The Child Poverty Theme will influence adult decision-
makers across and within countries to put girls, boys
and young people at the heart of their actions to reduce
poverty by strengthening the low and insecure incomes
that prevent children from learning and thereby reduce
the transmission of poverty and associated learning
deprivations to future generations.
•We will support parents and other caregivers to have
sufficient income to invest in their children’s learning,
including in times of shock and crisis
•We will promote economic strengthening and
adolescent skills through programmes that are sensitive
to children’s rights, gender and the achievement of
optimal learning impacts for girls and boys
•We will support the equitable empowerment and
agency of adolescent girls and boys and young people as
economic actors in their own right, including
participation in markets, decision-making and accessing
basic services for learning for themselves as well as
their siblings and children.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
c) Contributing to children being protected from violence:
The Child Poverty Theme will influence adult decision-makers across and within countries to put girls,
boys and young people at the heart of their actions to reduce poverty to strengthen the low and insecure
incomes that prevent girls and boys from being safe.
•This includes initiatives that address violence, early marriage, harmful labour, unsafe working conditions
and other forms of exploitation, including physical, humiliating and sexual abuse of young people in the
context of legal work
•It will thereby reduce the transmission of poverty and its associated child protection failures to future
generations
•We will support mothers, fathers and other caregivers to maintain and strengthen their practices for
keeping children safe from all forms of violence and protection failures, including in times of stress and
crisis and in places of work
•We will promote economic strengthening and adolescent skills through programmes that are sensitive to
children’s rights, gender and the reduction of all forms of violence against girls and boys
•We will support the equal empowerment and agency of girls and boys, including adolescents, and young
people as economic actors in their own right, including participation in markets, decision-making and
accessing basic services for protection from all forms of violence.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
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Why is “Child Sensitivity” important – and
what does it entail?
As indicated in the Sub-Themes above, child-sensitive approaches are
central to Save the Children’s thematic work on Child Poverty.
A growing body of research has highlighted the wide range of impacts
which child poverty interventions – including livelihood, humanitarian
response and social protection – may have on children.1 While many
efforts do show positive impacts for child survival, nutrition, learning and
protection across a range of situations, some interventions in some
contexts can have risky or clearly negative impacts, on girls and/or boys.
Some unintended consequences of programmes may include: increases in
child work, domestic violence or inequalities and/or the disruption of
schooling or child care arrangements. Careful planning and design based
on a good understanding of the specific context can ensure all
programmes are child-sensitive to ensure we have a positive impact on
both girls and boys.
Ultimately we want to know whether – and to what extent – all the
interventions we support are having an impact on our Breakthroughs for
children’s survival and growth, learning and safety. This applies across the
board, ranging from development programmes to humanitarian response
contexts, and includes our work to strengthen the economic situation of
households, the empowerment and voice of adolescents and women and
the resilience of families.
7. PUTTING
CHILDREN AT
THE HEART OF
EVERYTHING
Our child-sensitive
approach will make sure
we achieve maximum
impact for children and
avoid harms.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
“Child-sensitive” policies, programmes and interventions are
ones that explicitly aim to maximise the benefits for children and
minimise harm. They do so by monitoring and analysing both
the positive and negative impacts for children arising from
interventions, disaggregated by the age, gender and
vulnerabilities of the child. They also listen to and take account
of the diverse voices and views of all children and young
people in their design and implementation.
The Child Poverty Global Theme will help in the setting of
standards, criteria and practical guides for Save the Children
on child-sensitive approaches to economic interventions, and
will support Country Offices and Members in applying them in
programmes. This will build on initial guidance and messaging
which was disseminated in 2015. We will also help in
advocacy with governments for more child-sensitive national
and sub-national economic policies, together with the Child
Rights Governance Theme.
We also have a mandate and a role in advocating with
governments and other partners to build child sensitivity and
accountability into the design and monitoring components of
their own policies and national programmes.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
In terms of within-country geographies and populations, our Child
Poverty work will give priority to:
•poor rural households in village and community settings; remoter
areas; inner and peri-urban slum areas with very
low incomes or severe and multiple child deprivation
•populations whose basic incomes have collapsed and household
assets devastated by climate-related shocks, pandemics, conflict,
displacement/forced migration and
other crises
•pockets (which may be deep and wide) of severe child
deprivations in middle and upper income countries within
households living in extreme, relative or absolute poverty
•transitions for children from harmful institutions into adequate
family or alternative care; and for highly-deprived adolescents,
including these migrating to and living in urban slum locations, in
harmful and exploitative situations and without adequate family
care.
We will aim to expand our efforts in these areas, while working
through advocacy with governments and other partners to
intensify the child focus and impact of their anti-poverty policies,
plans, spending and service delivery.
8. PRIORITISING
THE MOST
VULNERABLE
CHILDREN
We will ensure that our
work reaches the children
who need it most.
OUR PLAN
FOR 2016 – 2018
9.Our unique Child Poverty focus
10.What we expect to achieve
11.Four key areas to improve children’s lives
a. Child-Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP)
b. Child-Sensitive Livelihoods (CSLH)
c. Adolescent Skills for Successful Transitions
(ASST)
d. Policy Advocacy on Child Poverty
12.Maintaining our focus
13.Innovating for greater impact on Child Poverty
14.Incorporating gender equality, inclusion, resilience
and disability
15.Working around the world
16.Leading the way in research and learning
17.Steps we’ll need to take to deliver on our Plan
18.Sharing what we learn as we go
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Save the Children’s Child Poverty work between 2016
and 2018 will promote and observe three core Child
Poverty approaches:
1.Have a greater focus on child-and gender-sensitivity in
our programmes and on outcomes/impacts among
children
2.Have greater linkages across various economic
interventions (Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL), Child
Sensitive Social Protection, humanitarian response)
3.Engage further with macro-policy issues at the national
level on child poverty
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9. OUR UNIQUE
CHILD POVERTY
FOCUS
We will deploy the best
available knowledge and
evidence to benefit the
poorest children and reduce
the deprivations they suffer.
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As a first step, our targets for 2018 are as follows:
•New social protection and livelihoods programmes directly supported by
Save the Children will be child-and-gender-sensitive and include the
strengthening of accountability systems.
•numbers of highly deprived children will be positively impacted by Social
Protection and Livelihoods programmes directly supported or promoted by
Save the Children, including in times of stress, shocks and crisis. 2
•The majority of new adolescent skills for successful transitions (ASST)
programmes will have a cross-thematic approach with a focus on working at
scale with highly deprived and at-risk adolescent girls and boys.
•Adolescents and young people are verified as being positively impacted by
ASST programming two years after completion.
•Increased number of countries will address policy failures on child poverty,
with Save the Children involvement through sustained policy dialogue.
•Financial barriers to accessing basic services will be removed for several
million children (contribution to Save the Children’s Global Campaign goal).
10. WHAT WE
EXPECT TO
ACHIEVE
Targets will ensure that
we are on track to make
a difference for as many
children as possible.
All of our Child Poverty programmes will help us to make
significant progress in alleviating poverty through one or
more of four key programme areas.
a) Child Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP)
Young children in the poorest 20% of families are up to 50%
more likely not to survive. Young child stunting and under-
nutrition are two to three times more prevalent in the
poorest families.
We aim to ensure care-givers have sufficient income to meet
their children’s essential needs so they survive, learn and are
protected. We will work with governments to help provide a
safety net for the poorest families and caregivers such as cash,
vouchers, food, non-food and shelter items.
Interventions will include:
•Conditional and non-conditional transfers of cash,
e-cash, vouchers and/or goods-in-kind to meet households’,
caregivers’ and children’s priority basic needs, including as part of
humanitarian response and recovery
•Insurance mechanisms to help smooth and bolster basic incomes
among very poor families and increase their resilience in the face of
stress and shocks
•Behavioural change promotion and other approaches
for female economic empowerment and pro-child use
of household resources, including incomes from social protection
resource transfers
•Shelter, household, mixed contents kit and food aid distributions
for basic household support.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
11. FOUR KEY AREAS
TO IMPROVE
CHILDREN’S LIVES
Social protection, livelihoods,
adolescent skills and
advocacy form the main
pillars of our actions.
CSSP Reach: based on the available evidence, and Save the
Children’s experience the CSSP Approach will be extended
by 2018 through programme and advocacy work to at least
18 priority countries, including at least 8 in Asia, five in Sub-
Saharan Africa. Some will be included as part of humanitarian
response. Mixed methods evaluation approaches will be used
in each country and region to further assess and refine the
CSSP approach.
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b) Child-Sensitive Livelihoods (CSLH)
Poorer caregivers, who need to spend 50 – 70% of their incomes on basic
food, are therefore, unable to invest adequately in their children’s health and
learning. Child marriage, child labour and children living without family care are
more highly associated with income-poverty and during humanitarian crises.
We aim for the poorest families to be resilient against disasters and shocks by
helping to rebuild, strengthen and diversify their incomes and food security so
they continue to invest in their children's survival, learning and protection.
Interventions will include:
•Provision of productive assets, skills, credit and insurance for expanding
or recovery of poor-household production for basic livelihoods and for
strengthening household food security; and policy advocacy for
programmes in this area
•Post-disaster and crisis response support to poor families to rebuild
their livelihoods streams, diversify their incomes, and restock productive
assets such as livestock, seasonal inputs, family business stocks and basic
machinery
•Livelihoods-oriented training and wider measures such as strengthening
marketing, insurance and extension systems among poor families,
including a gender equality focus; and policy advocacy for programmes in
this area
•Behavioural change promotion activities that promote female economic
empowerment and pro-child investments and spending by caregivers and
households in poverty, with emphasis on investments from additional
earned income for child Breakthroughs and the reduction of harmful
child labour.
CSLH Reach: based on the available evidence
and Save the Children experience, our CSLH
work will be extended by 2018 through
programme and advocacy work to at least
15 priority countries, primarily in Asia and
Sub-Saharan Africa. It will also form part of
humanitarian response, using established
approaches and testing new ones that
support households in extreme poverty with
economic strengthening measures aimed at
income-smoothing, building of assets and
savings, risk pooling and livelihoods recovery.
Mixed methods evaluation approaches will be
used to further assess and refine our child-
sensitive livelihoods approach.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
c) Adolescent Skills for Successful
Transitions (ASST)
Adolescents from poor families are a growing cohort struggling
to transition to gainful employment. In Africa, about 40% of the
population is under 15 with many of the poorest adolescents
becoming parents while still children themselves. Death rates
among the children of child mothers are some 50% higher than
children born to adults with maternal mortality much higher
among younger mothers. We aim for deprived adolescent girls
and boys in all societies, to have the opportunity to build the
skills, networks and self-esteem through vocational training,
apprenticeships, financial literacy, and life skills training etc. they
need to make the transition to safe and decent livelihoods.
Interventions will include:
•Promoting opportunities for decent livelihoods and (self-)
employment for adolescents/young people who are deprived,
including girls, young parents and boys and girls with disabilities,
and covering protracted emergency and early recovery
situations as well as international and domestic contexts
•Promoting dialogue and systems change to ensure that
structural barriers and discriminations in the labour market are
removed and opportunities are more widely available to the
most deprived and vulnerable adolescents and youth
•Building of agency and integrated, applied skills (non-cognitive,
cognitive/life-skills and technical), competencies and social
networks among adolescents/young people who are deprived.
27 2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
ASST Reach: Our emphasis will be on
economically empowering highly deprived
adolescents and young people by providing
them with the skills and capabilities needed for
secure livelihoods and decent work, taking their
age, gender and (dis)abilities into account. 3 Save
the Children will work in at least 22 priority
countries in Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East,
Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Europe and
the Americas. Focus will also be placed on
promoting supporting systems for inclusive-and
gender-sensitive markets and communities for
this young population to prepare for accessing
economic opportunities. Tracer studies
combined with mixed method evaluations will
be used to test and identify the most cost-
effective approaches.
• Promoting the creation of social capital and self-
empowerment networks among both girls and boys for
preventing gender-based violence and accessing sexual and
reproductive health and nutrition services and knowledge,
as a part of life-skills strengthening for livelihood-oriented
programmes
• Expanding equitable access to support systems, markets,
economic products and financial services tailored to
adolescents/young people who are deprived
• Promoting youth voice and economic participation to
address barriers such as access to capital for business/self-
employment, opening public procurement to youth
business groups/associations and inclusion of youth in the
local business economy
• Promoting youth-led approaches that empower youth to
make their own labour market assessments, internalise
the data, understand the system, know their rights and
who their duty bearers are and cultivate their ability to
act on economic opportunity
• Developing gender-sensitive research and advocacy to
understand and address workplace and employment-
related physical, humiliating and sexual abuse that highly-
deprived adolescents and young people may face
• Promoting a rights-based approach empowering
adolescents/young people who are deprived to exercise
their rights to decent work conditions, including working
with businesses in implementing the Child Rights Business
Principles.
28 2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Policy Advocacy Reach: working at all
levels, and in partnership with members of
the Coalition to End Child Poverty, we will
aim to exert substantive influence on policy
decisions and the prioritisation of child
poverty – including its measurement and the
development of action plans to address it –
in 20 to 25 countries across all regions. We
will work through evidence-based policy
dialogue and stimulate the building of
national coalition platforms on the basis of
political and policy space opportunities as
they arise, linked to the first years of
implementation of the SDG Targets under
Goal One. The African Union and European
Union will be major strategic hubs for
amplifying our policy advocacy work in
favour of addressing child poverty at scale.
d) Policy Advocacy on Child Poverty
Very few countries measure child poverty and even less have plans to
reduce it. We aim for all countries to have adopted national and/or sub-
national monitoring and action plans for the reduction of Child Poverty
and its associated deprivations in survival, learning and protection.
Together with like-minded partners, such as in the Global Coalition
against Child Poverty, we will also advocate with national and local
governments that:
•monitoring of progress towards poverty targets are disaggregated by age, in
order to focus on child poverty specifically, as well as by gender, locality,
household wealth and where possible, ethnicity and disability;
•poverty monitoring metrics use multi-dimensional measures of child
deprivation related to our Breakthrough Ambitions together with income-
based indicators;
•national monitoring systems use participatory platforms for progress review
of data and qualitative information on child poverty, which include civil society
representatives and where possible, child and youth participants. We will also
partner with UNICEF and others for disaggregated data assessment at
national level on the rights of adolescents;
•national action plans are formulated and implemented to combat severe
relative and absolute child poverty, as an explicit part of national poverty
actions plans. This includes the extension of child sensitive social protection
to children in the poorest families, support for children without adequate
family care and programmes to equip highly deprived adolescent girls and
boys for economic success.
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While programmes deliver on the four key areas above, every intervention
for the 2016 - 2018 will respect our focus areas:
Achieve a greater focus on child-and gender-sensitivity in our
programmes and on outcomes/impacts among children.
Historically, many global poverty programmes have targeted economic
metrics without a specific focus on children. Our work will ensure
inclusiveness and optimum impact among highly deprived children in all of
our programmes. It will include:
• the enhancement of cash and other resources to families by promoting
participatory feedback, recourse and grievance mechanisms among
beneficiaries, including children, as a means of strengthening inclusion
and a right in itself
• behavioural change promotion that encourages investments in children
and efforts to empower women and girls as economic decision-makers
• programming and pilot testing in the areas of hunger and food security,
and post-disaster recovery to verify positive impacts on children
• economic strengthening, income-smoothing and risk reduction
programmes aimed at children and adolescents
• assessing unintended harms that may affect some children in specific
contexts, such as increases in harmful child labour
• impacts of improved and more resilient household livelihoods and food
security on major underlying factors such as young child nutrition, the
nutrition and health of adolescent girls and young mothers, and gender
relations.
12. MAINTAINING
OUR FOCUS
Every intervention will
benefit from our focus
on impacts, sustainable
change and advocacy.
Create sustainable change by building agency, skills,
knowledge and behaviours for transitions to safe and
decent work.
Child Poverty is an underlying factor across many other
deprivations. By building agency and a foundation of skills,
knowledge and behaviours we can work across all areas for
sustainable change. Programmes will prioritise:
• the acquiring of foundational, technical and life skills and the
strengthening of support systems for these adolescents as
they prepare to transition to safe and decent work and
secure and dignified livelihoods
• strongly promoting the agency, capacities and resilience of
adolescents to take decisions for their own lives and to claim
their rights
• Promoting equitable access to, awareness and use of sexual
and reproductive health and nutritional services and
knowledge to mitigate risks such as early and forced
marriage, pregnancy and gender-based violence.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
31
Engage further with macro-policy issues at the national level on
child poverty.
There is clear evidence that children are the people who suffer most from being
in poverty, and who also have the highest poverty rates of any age group. Our
work will be addressing the policy gaps and failures that persist when highly
deprived children continue to be missing from national poverty reduction
strategies and data analysis. This will include:
•Advocating for administrative and policy changes to ensure the affordability of
basic services to highly deprived and vulnerable children
•Ensuring that no child in poverty is denied access to essential services due to
arbitrary, unregulated or unaccountable financial barriers
•Engagement with key international humanitarian and development partners and
governments to strengthen their use of child-sensitive and accountable
approaches in scaled-up social protection policies and programmes
•Presenting evidence on the economic benefits from adequately ‘investing in
children’ and cost-effective ways of doing so in different contexts
•Encouraging governments and key decision-makers to measure and report on
child poverty and to set explicit targets for reducing child poverty, together with
the adoption of child-focussed action plans
•Advocate for national, sub-national and international poverty analysis to build in
the disaggregation of income and multi-dimensional data by age as well as by
gender, geography, ethnicity/race and disability, as a platform for ensuring that no
children are left behind
•Promote the building of civil society platforms, including platforms led by
children and young people, to contribute to these efforts and to hold
governments to account for their efforts in reducing child poverty.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
32
Throughout 2016 – 2018, and working with external partners, we will evolve
best practice in order to reduce extreme Child Poverty and address poverty
and severe deprivations.
Testing and investing in new approaches
This will focus on strengthening resilience among very poor households with
children through adaptive Child Sensitive Social Protection (SP) shock and
disaster response, including:
•expanding national SP programmes to respond to humanitarian crises
•early action to mitigate shocks for the poorest households
•use of Household Economy Analysis and livelihood protection threshold
monitoring to assess changes in resilience among very poor households and
alert to potential coping responses to shocks and crises which are harmful to
children
•increasing the child sensitivity of national humanitarian response
programmes, including intensified monitoring of outcomes among children.
Further developing existing approaches
We will further develop group and savings and loans initiatives (village and
neighbourhood levels) to promote increased household investments in
children and child-friendly care and protection practices, linked with:
•behavioural change promotion
•empowerment of female decision-making
•monitoring of changes in child-friendly practices and intensified child
outcome monitoring (e.g. nutrition, schooling, harmful child
labour, early marriage)
13. INNOVATING
FOR GREATER
IMPACT ON CHILD
POVERTY
Testing, investing, developing
and scaling will help us to
reach more children in
desperate need.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
33
We will also widen access to banking, financial products and affordable
commercial or non-profit insurance mechanisms for income risk reduction
among very poor households and local groups.
We will also further develop our work in market-oriented integrated skills
and capabilities development curricula among highly-deprived adolescents,
linked with health, nutrition and protection knowledge for agency and self-
empowerment.
We will take a multi-thematic approach to economic strengthening among
the poorest households, combining economic interventions with:
• increased access to basic services at local community level
• behavioural change promotion among caregivers and at local group
level
• female empowerment for household economic decision-making; and d)
intensified monitoring of outcomes for children, especially in nutrition,
schooling and protection (harmful child labour, early marriage).
• In some cases, these approaches may include initial asset transfers and
repeated follow-up extension visits.4
Scaling proven Child Poverty initiatives
We will use proven, evidence-based approaches to help more children to
escape poverty around the world. This will include:
Adolescent and youth financial capability development through the
provision of:
• knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) conducive to sound personal
financial management (i.e. financial education)
• access to appropriate financial services, especially for saving, to practice
these positive KSA.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
34
Cash, e-cash and other resource transfers to
strengthen social protection for children in
humanitarian and development situations linked to
•mechanisms for inclusion among the poorest
households
•child-sensitive outcome measurement and child
participation in monitoring social accountability
mechanisms (based on, e.g., social audits, safe complaint
and grievance procedures and recourse systems)
Policy Advocacy country-based partnerships and
platforms to promote child-sensitivity and the
measurement and monitoring of extreme child poverty
and childhood deprivations in national and sub-national
economic policy and poverty reduction strategies,
including through promoting national CSSP
programmes and adolescent/youth-friendly and
gendered labour market policies.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Save the Children will support countries to address major exclusions
and inequalities faced by children by supporting the poorest families
and marginalised social groups. We will also advocate together with
coalition partners, against discriminations and inequalities that keep
children, young people and families trapped in poverty and
deprivations.
Gender equality and inclusion
Our work will promote the systematic application of our Gender
Principles in addressing the economic barriers that prevent children
and households from making progress. Particular focus will be
placed on assessing the ways in which household investments and
basic service access may differ between girls and boys and
understanding the gender and cultural aspects of household
economic decision-making. 5
How to promote (and not undermine) the agency and bargaining
power of women and girls in household and local decision-making
will be a major research topic and a key issue for the design of
behavioural change promotion as a complement to our economic
interventions.
For Adolescent Skills for Successful Transitions, we will test and
expand the inclusion of programme outreach and engagement with
those teenage girls and boys who, in each context, are more likely
to become child parents and who are more at risk of educational
deprivations and protection failures. Advocacy on child poverty
with policy makers will similarly emphasise the differential impacts
of income poverty on the human rights, wellbeing and life chances
of girls and boys and the need for disaggregated monitoring and
analysis of these as a basis for action planning.
14. INCORPORATING
GENDER EQUALITY,
INCLUSION, RESILIENCE
AND DISABILITY
Let’s address the major
exclusions and inequalities
faced by children in poverty.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Economic resilience
Our results framework emphasises household economic resilience in order to be able to
maintain adequate levels of investment and spending on children in all situations. This
will include guidance for interventions that support household economic resilience in
the wider community context and support that cushions the impact of stress, shocks
and humanitarian crises on basic household incomes.
Our work will particularly address the resilience of households in terms of their
capacity to keep children adequately fed, safe and in school. This will include promoting
risk management capacities among poor families through local group savings and
lending/mutual support mechanisms.
Increasing access to public or affordable commercial insurance will also be covered, as
will the accumulation of assets and savings, and other risk-reduction mechanisms.
Economic resilience and income smoothing will further be promoted as part of our
support to crisis recovery at household and local community levels.
Increased resilience among adolescent girls and boys will include their agency to make
informed decisions, identify and avoid risks to their wellbeing, and develop coping
strategies to deal with shocks, including preparation for decent work and securing their
future livelihoods.
Children with disabilities
During this plan period, we will also initiate measures to integrate a more systematic
focus on children with disabilities who grow up in poverty. This will include policy
advocacy for more specific coverage by national social protection programmes of
children with disabilities and through their inclusion in programmes for adolescent
skills development.
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2016-2018 EDUCATION STRATEGIC DIRECTION
Resilience among
adolescents at
high levels of
deprivation will
be promoted by
empowering
them with
opportunities
to acquire skills
and strengthen
capabilities.
This will include
the building of
self-esteem,
social networks,
vocational and
financial skills.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
The initial identification is of nine High Priority and
11 Priority countries for early engagement and
sustained focus on Child Poverty programmes and
advocacy work. West Africa as a region will also be
strongly prioritised in view of the scale and intensity
of its challenges around extreme child poverty and
childhood deprivations, including in the recovery from
the Ebola crisis and conflicts.
Additional countries may be identified through ongoing
monitoring and strategic discussion, especially in the
event of changes in ambition or scale of intervention
(including humanitarian and post-crisis).
Engagement will be sought with a number of key
domestic programmes implemented by Members, and
with child poverty work particularly in Mexico, India,
South Africa and Indonesia as emerging country
members.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Although there are many relevant programmes around the
world, important gaps in research and field-level
understanding continue to exist. We will help to fill those
gaps. Many arise from a historical lack of international
research attention on how interventions work for and affect
children in poverty. In particular, targeting children as distinct
from aggregate and household poverty in general, which has
been relatively widely researched through a range of
methodologies.
Knowledge development
General areas for knowledge development concerning
children in extreme poverty include:
•the identification of best practices in supporting families to
manage low incomes and economic risks and shocks while
continuing to be able to invest in their children.
•ascertaining which economic strengthening approaches can
enable poor families to translate additional incomes into
better outcomes for girls and boys at different ages, while
avoiding harms
•understanding how highly deprived children who have
missed out on critical investments in their growth and
development can be empowered to “catch up”
•looking at how agency and capacities can most effectively be
promoted among adolescent girls and boys to boost their
prospects for safe livelihoods and life-chances.
15. LEADING THE WAY
IN RESEARCH AND
LEARNING
Which combinations and sequencing
of programme and advocacy
approaches are likely to work best?
39
Our research and learning aim for 2016 – 2018: to advance
and synthesise knowledge with Save the Children field offices and
international partners, to inform practice and quality standards on
which combinations and sequencing of programme and advocacy
approaches for children in extreme poverty are likely to work best in
promoting progress towards child Breakthroughs, in different social
and economic contexts.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
In particular, we want to know which combinations and
sequencing of programme and advocacy approaches to child
poverty are likely to work best, looking at longer-term indicators
such as stunting, mortality and learning outcomes as well as
short-term changes – such as food intake, morbidity, weight
for age and school attendance.
Research focus
For the 2016 – 2018 period, we will look at the following key
research questions:
•how social protection and livelihood programmes can be
designed in ways that help very poor households become
more resilient in managing the economic effects of risks,
stresses and shocks, to continue investing in and protecting
their children, and to achieve pathways out of extreme
poverty;
•how social protection and livelihood programmes can be
delivered in ways that reach, benefit and are more accountable
to the most deprived children and poorest households, and
increase the agency of women and girls in decision-making
for themselves and their children;
•how adolescents and young people, particularly girls, can be
empowered with vocational, financial and life skills that
prepare them for decent work and livelihoods and
participation in economic decision-making processes, while
protecting them from abuse and exploitation in work
situations.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
5 41
Particular research topics to feed into Save the Children Quality
Standards are likely to include:
good practice for impact and do-no-harms monitoring to strengthen child sensitivity for girls and boys
of different ages
R&D approaches to behavioural change promotion for greater equity in gender relationships and
decision-making in families and communities
R&D innovations around virtual/e-cash delivery, savings associations and insurance products accessible
to very poor families
how economic interventions can support the empowerment and transitions to safe environments of
children, including adolescents without family care
the impact of different patterns of remittances on children and how remittances may be mobilised for
stronger household investments in children
innovations in providing livelihood opportunities to migrant families and young people on the move.
Several of these topics will be investigated jointly
with other Save the Children Global Themes and with
established Save the Children international research
partners such as the SEEP Network, FHI360, BRAC,
the Overseas Development Institute, IDS Sussex, Young
Lives (Oxford University) and the Population Council.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
Save the Children, including its Country Offices working in
situations of extensive child poverty and protracted crises,
will need enhanced capacities for poverty-related planning
and analysis.
Our Child Poverty approach will strengthen these capacities,
working with other Global Themes and Coalition partners
to:
Continuously identify and engage key staff members through a
dynamic and effective network sharing good practice,
providing peer support, guidance development and
knowledge generation.
Establishing and developing effective Child Poverty knowledge
management platforms and systems including:
•A knowledge hub tool with a library of resources,
information and programme documentation on Child Poverty
Sub-Theme areas, communities of practice, and collaboration
sites.
•Global and regional networks of child poverty focal points,
an up-to-date global staff directory and contact lists of staff
•Regular child poverty learning events, both face-to-face and
online, to facilitate knowledge sharing and generation.
16. STEPS WE’LL NEED TO
TAKE TO DELIVER ON
OUR PLAN
We will need to share knowledge,
skills and enthusiasm across
Save the Children and with
our partners.
42
Strategic Aim for Save the Children Capacity Building in
2016 – 2018: to improve and disseminate child poverty knowledge
on key topics throughout Save the Children and to strengthen and
adapt capacity over time towards ensuring continuous improvement
and impact for children reached by our Child Poverty work.
2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
The following key outputs will be produced during the
2016 – 2018 period:
•Three major global research studies
•Nine programme and advocacy performance reviews
•Five thematic research studies based on literature search, good
practice reviews and qualitative research
•Three Save the Children policy position papers accompanied by
detailed good practice guidelines, based on portfolio reviews and
experience
•Two to three multi-component toolkits and learning packages
for the scaling-up of common approaches
•Five learning and experience-sharing events around common
approaches and challenging issues over several months each, involving
Members and field office knowledge networks
•Four cross-thematic evaluations and performance
reviews together with the Health & Nutrition, Education,
Child Protection and CRG teams
•Four joint policy position papers on key areas of cross-thematic
work
•One Child Poverty Advocacy and Communication
strategy and advocacy tool kit, in conjunction with the Global
Coalition to End Child Poverty
•Five issue papers to influence national policy on
Child Poverty monitoring and action, produced as part of the
Global Coalition to End Child Poverty.
17. SHARING WHAT
WE LEARN AS WE GO
By sharing our learnings and
knowledge we’ll be able to make
a positive impact for more
children who currently live lives
blighted by poverty.
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN
1 See Josh Chaffin & Cali Mortenson Ellis /Save the Children, Outcomes for Children from Household
Economic Strengthening Interventions: A Research Synthesis, (Forthcoming July 2015); ODI Economic
Strengthening Activities in Child Protection Interventions: An Adapted Systematic Review; EU/UNHCR/DRC
Protection Outcomes in Cash Based Interventions: A Literature Review; World Bank
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2622220;
JPAL https://www.povertyactionlab.org/about-j-pal/events/academic-papers; JPAL
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/1260799; USAID/STRIVE The Impact of Microcredit
Loans on Child Outcomes: A Review of the Literature, May 2015; USAID/STRIVE Do Cash Transfers
Increase the Wellbeing of Children? A Review of the Literature, May 2015; USAID/STRIVE Savings
Groups and their Role in Child Wellbeing: A Primer for Donors
2 This will pilot-test the estimation of numbers of children who are positively impacted by programmes
which enable households’ incomes to stay above a local livelihoods protection threshold for essential
expenditures, below which they would be forced to pursue coping strategies which are damaging to
children.
3 The Sub-Theme will also aim to achieve a clear strategic balance – based on country context –
between continuing efforts with marginalised young people in rural areas and expansion in poorly-
served urban areas where rapidly-growing numbers of children and young people will live.
4 This will draw upon the BRAC “Targeting Ultra Poor” programme from Bangladesh and several other
countries, while building in a more systematic child focus and child impact monitoring.
5 The evidence base in this area is reviewed in Yoong, J, Rabinovich, L and Diepeveen, S (2012), the
impact of economic resource transfers to women versus men: a systematic review. EPPI –Centre,
University of London.
ENDNOTES
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2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN