UNICEF, in collaboration with the Council for the Welfare of Children, the National Economic and Development Authority, and the Philippine Statistics Authority today launched a new generation of situation analysis on children to promote evidence-based decision making.
The Situation of Children of the Philippines (www.situationofchildren.org/ph) analyzes six main dimensions and 25 subdimensions of children’s rights, including health and nutrition, education, protection, safe and sustainable environment, child poverty and social protection, civil and participation rights.
“Every child counts. Understanding the situation of children is essential to prioritize, design and monitor policies and actions that effectively support the realization of children’s rights. When the right data and evidence are in the right hands at the right time, decisions can be better informed, more equitable, and more likely to protect children’s rights,” said UNICEF Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov.
UNICEF is the world’s leading source of data on children used by over three million people globally. In the Philippines, UNICEF works to ensure that every child is accounted for, and their needs are understood through strengthening key administrative data systems, census, and surveys; improving data governance; supporting better analysis, dissemination, and use of data on children; digitalization; and conducting research on children.
The Philippines has a wealth of data about children, relatively more expansive than many countries. However, there are still key gaps and issues in terms of granularity, periodicity and timeliness, accessibility, reliability, and consistency. UNICEF calls on the government to provide better strategic solutions and more investments for more sustained development of data for children.
For example, despite the Philippines being considered the global epicenter of online sexual abuse and exploitation and child exploitation materials, there is not enough data on this egregious child right’s violation. Other key data gaps exist in the areas of disaster risk preparedness, planning, and response monitoring; climate change impacts on children; social protection and public financing for children; children with disabilities; early childhood education; children’s civil rights and participation; and richer local-level data on children in the provincial, municipal/city, and barangay (village) levels.
By launching the platform, UNICEF hopes to engage stakeholders through the virtual platform in discussing evolving evidence needs and gaps, as well as advocate for strengthening evidence-based decision making. The data portal features over 80 key indicators and around 500 data visualizations based on data dating back to 1989 and up to 2023, with subnational breakdowns for certain indicator.
For each subdimension, the site offers a comprehensive analysis and visualization of data, including key progress, indicators, child rights, equity and risk, legislation, policy, bottlenecks, and relevant publications. A section covers cross-sectoral issues such as gender, disability, early childhood, and adolescents. It is periodically updated, allowing government agencies, development partners, and other child rights organizations to be responsive in their evidence-based policies and programming for children.
The platform also features ‘The Longitudinal Cohort Study of Filipino Children’, tracking the lives of a nationally representative sample of 5,000 children, along with their households and communities. Beginning in 2016 with the children at age 10, the study will continue until 2030, when they turn 24. This unique 15-year study is a partnership with the Philippine Government, the Australian Government, United Nations Population Fund or UNFPA and UNICEF.
Users are encouraged to explore the platform, share it with their networks, and use the insights provided to drive impactful change for the lives of children. The site will benefit from contributions from researchers and child rights actors that can help strengthen the understanding of the situation of children in the Philippines.
