UNICEF Global Study of Child Poverty & Disparities Measuring Child Poverty for Policy Purposes Shailen Nandy School

1. UNICEF Global Study of Child Poverty & Disparities Measuring Child Poverty for Policy Purposes Shailen Nandy School for Policy Studies University of Bristol United Kingdom www.bristol.ac.uk/poverty CEE/CIS Regional Social Policy Workshop Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2nd– 4th April 2008

2. Role of Bristol in Global Study • Definitions of poverty • Results from 2003 study • Results for selected CIS/CEE states • Issues particular to CIS/CEE region

3. Role of University of Bristol in Global Study • Assist country offices with analysis of MICS/DHS data • Provision of certain tables in the statistical template in study guide • Contact points: • Professor David Gordon Dave.Gordon@bristol.ac.uk • Mr Shailen Nandy S.Nandy@bristol.ac.uk • Visit website of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research: www.bristol.ac.uk/poverty

4. Defining Child Poverty for Policy Purposes

5. Absolute Poverty After the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, 117 countries adopted a declaration and programme of action which included commitments to eradicate “absolute” and reduce “overall” poverty. Absolute poverty was defined as "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services." (UN, 1995)

6. Official Definition of Poverty of the World Bank, IMF, UNDP and all other UN Organisations “Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation” (UN 1998)

7. UN General Assembly Definition of Child Poverty, 10th January 2007 “Children living in poverty are deprived of nutrition, water and sanitation facilities, access to basic health care services, shelter, education, participation and protection, and that while a severe lack of goods and services hurts every human being, it is most threatening and harmful to children, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, to reach their full potential and to participate as full members of the society”

8. Measuring Absolute Child Poverty The Bristol Approach

9. Deprivation can be conceptualised as a continuum which ranges from no deprivation through mild, moderate and severe deprivation to extreme deprivation. Continuum of deprivation In order to measure absolute poverty amongst children, it is necessary to define the threshold measures of severe deprivation of basic human need for: • food • safe drinking water • sanitation facilities • health • shelter • education • information • access to services

10. Operational Definitions of Severe Deprivation of Basic Human Need for Children • Severe Food Deprivation– severely malnourished children whose highest and weights were more than 3 Standard Deviations below the median of the international reference population e.g. severe anthropometric failure. • Severe Water Deprivation - children who only had access to surface water (e.g. rivers) for drinking or who lived in households where the nearest source of water was more than 30 minutes round trip away (e.g. indicators of severe deprivation of water quality or quantity). • Severe Deprivation of Sanitation Facilities – children who had no access to a toilet of any kind in the vicinity of their dwelling, e.g. no private or communal toilets or latrines. • Severe Health Deprivation – children who had not been immunised against any diseases or young children who had a recent illness and had not received any medical advice or treatment. • Severe Shelter Deprivation – children in dwellings with five or more people per room (severe overcrowding) or with no flooring material (e.g. a mud floor). • Severe Education Deprivation – children aged between 7 and 18 who had never been to school and were not currently attending school (e.g. no professional education of any kind). • Severe Information Deprivation – children aged between 3 and 18 with no access to newspapers, radio or television or computers or phones at home. • Severe Deprivation of Access to Basic Services – children living 20 kilometres or more from any type of school or 50 kilometres or more from any medical facility with doctors. Unfortunately, this kind of information was only available for a few countries so it has not been possible to construct accurate regional estimates of severe deprivation of access to basic services.

11. Definitions for ‘less severe’ deprivation of basic needs 1. Shelter -less severe: Children living in dwellings with 4 or more people per room or living in a house with no flooring (i.e. a mud floor) or inadequate roofing. 2. Sanitation facilities - less severe: Children using unimproved sanitation facilities. Unimproved sanitation facilities are: pour flush latrines; covered pit latrines; open pit latrines; and buckets. 3. Safe drinking water - less severe: Children using water from an unimproved source such as open wells, open springs or surface water or who it takes 30 minutes or longer to collect water (walk to the water, collect it and return). 4. Information - less severe: Children (aged 3-17 years) and adults with no access to a radio or television (i.e. broadcast media). 5. Food - less severe: Children who are more than two standard deviations below the international reference population for stunting (height for age) or wasting (height for weight) or underweight (weight for age). 6. Education - less severe: Children (aged 7-17) of schooling age not currently attending school or who did not complete their primary education. 7. Health - less severe: Children who have not been immunised by 2 years of age. If the child has not received eight of the following vaccinations they are defined as deprived: bcg, dpt1, dpt2, dpt3, polio0, polio1, polio2, polio3, measles or did not receive treatment for a recent illness involving an acute respiratory infection or diarrhoea.

12. Peer validated, evidence based criteria for deprivation thresholds

13. Absolute poverty and Severe deprivation • Children experiencing TWO OR MORE severe deprivations of basic human need (i.e. multiple deprivation) are considered to be living in absolute poverty • Children experiencing ONE OR MORE severe deprivations are considered severely deprived • Headline figures from 2003 report: • 34% of children in the developing world (around 650 million)live in absolute poverty (i.e. experience two or more severe deprivations) • 56% of children in the developing world (over one billion) experience severe deprivation of at least one basic human need

14. Percent of the world’s children severely deprived of basic human needs (2003 report)

16. Press coverage, State of the World’s Children Report 2005

17. Survey status for CEE/CIS states participating in Global Study

20. Issues particular to CEE/CIS: • Going beyond minimum basic needs • Choice of thresholds – development of country specific thresholds? • Lack of coverage of certain groups of vulnerable children