RIATT-ESA and all its members welcome the Global Alliance because it is widely recognized that the global HIV response is failing to meet the needs of children
Beyond the ratifications of international and regional child rights instruments, as well as promulgation of impeccable laws, realization of children’s rights will not be actualized until adequate public resources are availed.
This report by UNICEF presents data and outlines best practices and policies that can put governments on the path to providing every child with the best start in life. It outlines the neuroscience of early childhood development (ECD), including the importance of nutrition, protection and stimulation in the early years. And it makes the case for scaling up investment, evaluation and monitoring in ECD programmes. The report concludes with a six-point call to action for governments and their partners to help maximize the potential of the children who will build the future – by making the most of the unparalleled opportunities offered by the early moments in life.
Click here to download the report
Source: UNICEF
Childhood vulnerability cuts across all development programming and planning, including the sectors of HIV and AIDS, health, child protection and social protection. Understanding indicators of childhood vulnerability in general and to HIV in particular, could help practitioners identify vulnerable children more accurately and spend money accordingly.
This policy brief by UNICEF looks at the factors indicate vulnerability for children and adolescents to HIV.
Click here to download the Policy Brief
February 2017 Dr Marc Aguirre from HOPE worldwide presented the Latest Developments on ECD Research and Programme Experiences at the Regional Learning and Linking Forum for Accelerating Delivery of Comprehensive Services for Orphans and Vulnerable Children & Youth, 9th – 10th February 2017 Johannesburg, South Africa
The presentation describe how access to good-quality care and education programmes outside the home are important in providing children with the basic cognitive, language and social skills they need to flourish in school and later life. The impact not only affects the current generation but also risks trapping families and children in poverty for generations. The presentation highlighted sub-Saharan Africa as disproportionately affected due to poverty, stunting and only 25% of eligible children attending preschool.
Click here to download the full presentation
Click here to download the Lancet series on Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale
The Population Council is implementing and evaluating a program for vulnerable adolescent girls in Zambia to help them avoid early marriage; sexually transmitted infections, including HIV; and unintended pregnancy.
The Adolescent Girls Empowerment Program (AGEP) is a four-year effort to support more than 11,000 of the most vulnerable adolescent girls in Zambia. The program was designed to find the best way to improve girls’ social, health, and economic resources so that they can stay in school longer; avoid early marriage; delay sexual activity; and prevent unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other STIs.
This mid-term analyses looks at a range of short and long-term indicators and provides insights for future program design for adolescent girls in Zambia.
Click here to download the report and policy brief
For more information go to: http://www.popcouncil.org/research/adolescent-girls-empowerment-program
Sexual violence against women and girls is widespread globally. In their lifetime, one in three women will experience intimate partner physical or sexual violence and 7 per cent will experience forced sex by someone other than an intimate partner.
This study finds protective effects of educational attainment against lifetime experience of sexual violence among women in Uganda, but not in Malawi. In the pathway analyses this research also found large impact on delaying marriage in both countries. These results suggest that policies aimed at increasing educational attainment among girls may have broad-ranging long-term benefits.
Click here to download the full report.
Source: UNICEF Office of Research- Innocenti
This report by Family for Every Child suggests that a lack of access to quality education is a key cause of inadequate care. Some groups of children are more vulnerable than others to inadequate care caused by a lack of access to education. These groups include children with disabilities, girls, children living in poverty and displaced, refugee, migrant and minority groups.
The report presents the key findings of a scoping study on the links between education and children’s care. The study involved a literature review in English, French and Spanish; key informant interviews; and consultations with 170 children, carers, teachers and other stakeholders in Guyana, India, Russia and Rwanda
Click here to download the full report
Of the 1.6 MILLION adolescents living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 1.2 million are located in Eastern and Southern Africa (UNICEF, 2015d). Adolescents is a period of physical, intellectual and social developmental changes that may put an adolescent at a higher risk of vulnerability. Especially for adolescents living in poor resource settings and those living with or affected by HIV.
New HIV infection rate in adolescents is the only age-group in which there has been little progress, as such there has been a recent focus on to call for programmes and policies that are sensitive the specific needs of adolescents wellbeing. Despite this comprehensive data collection systems and research for effective interventions were lacking.
With the aim of improving efforts to collect rigorous evidence for programmes and policies on adolescent health and well-being. UNICEF Innocenti in partnership with Columbia University and experts from the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Well-being recently released a series of briefs. These briefs provide a review of contemporary research methodologies for adolescent well-being in low- and middle-income countries and will assist a wide range of professionals and stakeholders who conduct, commission or interpret research findings to make decisions about programming, policy and advocacy.
This initiative was funded by the UK Department for International Development. The Editors of the series were John Santelli, MD, MPH, Columbia University and Nikola Balvin, PsyD, UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti.
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Indigenous knowledge of parenting.pdf
The publication by PAN presents snapshots of indigenous parenting practices of different communities in Africa.
Africa is blessed with diverse cultures and tribes, these rich traditions play a critical part in shaping the lives of communities and the family unit.
Indigenous positive parenting practices in Africa are under threat because of modernisation. People are moving to the cities, and the close community, and family ties of the past, is under pressure. In this Brochure, you see highlight, how the pastoralist community of the Gabra and the Maasai people in Kenya, East and the horn of Africa region; Bozo community in Mali, West Africa; Ndebele of South Africa, and the Swahili of the coastal strip of Africa parented.
RIATT ESA feedback on UNAIDS virtual consultation final.pdf
RIATT-ESA's input into global consultation for the developing of the UNAIDS HIV strategy 2016-2021.
