Inequalities and data disaggregation

Siraj Mahmudlu

UNICEF Regional Office, CEE/CIS

4 November 2016

#EVERYCHILD 2030

A focus on and investment in child rights

Equity: “leave no one behind”

Participation: Children as change agents

Child protection issues as vital to progress for children

Universally applicable to all countries

Use and disaggregation of data to track progress for all children

What did we aspire for children in the SDGs?

#EVERYCHILD 2030

Why disaggregation?

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Why disaggregation? cont.

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In a final analysis, of the 169 SDG targets

48 targets are deemed to be highly relevant to children

• In particular under Goals 1,2,3,4,5,6,8, 10 and 16

47 are flagged as somewhat relevant to children

74 are considered as less relevant

Child-related SDG targets

#EVERYCHILD 2030

UNICEF advocated for 34 “priority indicators for children” – 31 were included into the final list

50 child-related indicators

Strong emphasis on data disaggregation, including by age

Child-related SDG indicators

Indicator Tier Possible Custodian

Other Involved Agencies

Skilled birth attendance I UNICEF WHO, UNFPA

Coverage of tracer interventions III WHO UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Population Division

Sexual violence against women and girls, by intimate partner

II UNICEF UN Women UNFPA WHO

UNSD UNDP

Sexual violence against women and girls, by person other than intimate partner

II UNICEF, UN Women UNFPA, WHO

UNSD

Early marriage I UNICEF WHO, UNFPA, UNWomen UN Population Division

Birth registration I UNSD, UNICEF UNFPA, UN Population Division

Indicators requiring joint UNICEF-UNFPA work

Diagnosis of data for children in the SDGs

Data availability for over half of child-related SDG indicators is either limited or poor

Disaggregated data is poor for half the indicators #EVERYCHILD 2030

Diagnosis of data for children in the SDGs, cont.

Around 1 in 3 countries does not have comparable

measures on child poverty.

1 in 2 countries around the world lack recent data

on children who are overweight.

Critical data gaps about the quality of maternal care.

Data on migrant children is scarce.

Shortage of accurate and comparable data on the number of children with disabilities in almost all countries.

Stratifiers and data sources

Relatively easy and conventional: gender/sex, age, geographic location

More difficult: income

Most challenging:

- Unconventional: race, ethnicity, disability and migratory status

- Undefined: vulnerable, poor, children in vulnerable situations

- Double stratifiers: men and women, particularly poor…

- Invisible: eg. children in residential care

Support countries to develop and test new indicators and methods for enhanced SDG monitoring through household surveys, censuses and other sources;

Support countries to collect and analyse data from different sources to generate baseline estimates for SDG indicators;

Work in partnership with other actors to build synergies and ensure coherent approaches

Champion progressive data disaggregation to ensure no child is left behind.

UNICEF priorities re: data for children in SDG era

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MICS

Covers about ½ of the SDG indicators based on household surveys

Representative / Population or area-based

Updated listing operation

Age, sex, wealth, geographic location, disability and migratory status

Double stratifiers

MICS, double stratification

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MICS – trends at disaggregated level

Built on the principle of leaving no one behind, implicitly promoting the inclusion of persons with disabilities

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes eight targets and 12 indicators explicitly referencing persons with disabilities and their needs

Need a straightforward way to identify persons with disabilities

Need indicator/outcome data (education, employment, income, ‎health care access) from data collection that also include the above disability identifier

Washington Group/UNICEF survey module on Child Functioning

Primary purpose: to identify children with functional difficulties

Rationale: In an unaccommodating environment, children with functional difficulties are at risk of experiencing limited social participation

Module can be included in any data collection effort – promote harmonization of disability statistics

UNICEF/WG module on child functioning: objectives

Uses the ICF biopsychosocial model

Uses, when appropriate, questions already tested and adopted by the WG

Considers age specificity (2-4/5-17)

Response options reflect disability continuum

Construction of the module

Thank you

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