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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

2

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


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

3

OUR AMBITION

1. Our ambition for children living

in poverty

2. Our Child Poverty goals for 2030

4


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.”

5


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.

6


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.

7


THE CHALLENGE

3. What is Child Poverty?

4. Why do we need to act?

8


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?

9


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?

10


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.

11


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

12


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.

13


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

14


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.

15


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.

16


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.

17


18 2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN

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.

19


“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.

20


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

21


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


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.


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.

24


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.

25 2016-2018 EDUCATION STRATEGIC DIRECTION 2016-2018 CHILD POVERTY STRATEGIC PLAN

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.


•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.

26


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.


•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.


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.


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.


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.

30


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

35


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.

29

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.

36


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.

38


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.


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.

40


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.


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.


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.

43


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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