ENDING poverty - Save the Children

ENDING POVERTY IN OUR GENERATION
that can provide useful lessons for the post-2015
framework. These include the reporting procedures
related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and its associated Optional Protocols, the Committee
on the Rights of the Child, the child-centred UN
Special Procedures (such as Special Rapporteurs
and Working Groups), and regional child-rights
mechanisms (such as the African Committee on
the Rights and Welfare of the Child). Lessons can
also be learned from the safeguarding policies and
accountability mechanisms of the international
financial institutions, such as the World Bank, and
the innovative sectoral accountability bodies, such as
the Commission on Information and Accountability,
related to the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman,
Every Child initiative.
DATA AVAILABILITY
Reliable data on the state of human development –
especially separate data for different groups such as
women and men, or girls and boys – is shockingly
inconsistent and therefore unreliable. Moreover, the
data that exists may not be the most meaningful. For
example, most countries only provide data on school
enrolment and completion. One country that has
gone beyond this is Ghana – the disaggregated data
provided on learning outcomes cited earlier (see
page 8) reveals the crucial issue of failure to learn
once in school.
Disaggregated data is also important to reveal pockets
of poverty. For example, the Ugandan government
and its donors have been criticised for investing in
health and education only in the most stable areas,
thereby ignoring the people living in the north of
the country and suffering the effects of civil war, and
in turn exacerbating the sense of exclusion among
northerners, which has itself contributed to the war.
This issue was revealed by disaggregated data.
In terms of accountability the most effective way
forward will be if countries use similar data systems,
in order to generate data that is comparable.
Development data systems should be globally
managed. And countries should commit to annual or
bi-annual national level monitoring and data collection,
based on common indicators and international agreed
data collection standards.
It can be hard to generate enthusiasm for data, which
sounds so much less immediate than saving the life of
a child. However, to make equitable progress against
child mortality, better data is essential. Data collection
needs investment, and it is imperative that a global
fund for this purpose should be set up. This fund
would provide both grants and advisory services to
national governments.
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