Planning, monitoring and data
We support countries in South Asia to develop, implement, monitor and report on evidence-based policy planning and programming for the advancement of children and adolescents in the region.
Challenge
One-third of the world’s children live in South Asia – approximately 621 million of the over 1.7 billion population. There are a staggering 340 million adolescents in South Asia – 19 per cent of the total population in the region and 30 per cent of the world’s adolescents. Nearly 130 million South Asians live in informal urban settlements. The region is highly prone to disasters including flooding, droughts, earthquakes, refugee flows and climate change. Almost all countries score high on the “Fragile States Index”.
In this context, there is an urgent need for evidence to inform programme design, implementation and to feed into the political dialogue for more investment in children and women; and to establish a baseline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, the capacity for programme planning, monitoring, and reporting of commitments of governments is yet to be improved. Results-based planning and budgeting need further improvement across countries and programmes. Overall, South Asia is a rapidly changing, volatile and complex region, and requires agile approaches and analysis to design and implement evidence-based programmes.
Solution
In line with the UN-reforms and UN-coherence-Delivering as One, UNICEF works with numerous partners such as the host governments, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to implement, monitor and report on equitable programmes to respond to the needs of children's rights in South Asia. This constitutes a unique opportunity to foster synergies and inter-agency collaboration to address the above-described challenges.
We are responsible for results-based planning and management and equity-focused programming in the region. This means timely, quality support and preparation of UNICEF key planning and programming events, quality assurance, maintaining effective knowledge of innovation and oversight of relevant documents in all eight countries in the region, including the Regional Office.
In the context of the UN-reform, UNICEF supports the strengthening of UN inter-agency collaboration through participation in the United Nations Development Group and the Delivering as One approach. We support the United National Sustainable Development Programme Framework and related processes through operationalization of quality and sustainable programmes yielding results for children and young people in the region.
As part of the Skills building and application of Management for Results, in coordination with other UN partners, we have trained 830 staff members and partners including governments and international non-government organizations in the past two years.
UNICEF works endlessly to generate evidence, foster the analysis and use of this evidence to feed in policy dialogue, advocacy, and programming in the region. We support knowledge management and dissemination to ensure access to up-to-date data on children and women in the region. We are responsible for quality assurance, support and overseeing of Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys, the principal source of data contributing to baselines and monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNICEF focuses on understanding the vulnerabilities facing children through conducting child deprivation analysis; including monitoring and reporting of the six regional headline results, strengthening of governments’ data systems across countries, such as civil registration system, administrative data, etc.
We build the capacity of national statistics offices and governments in coordination with SAARC and ESCAP to bridge data gaps at national, sub-national level and generate disaggregated data.
Resources
These resources represent just a small selection of materials produced by UNICEF and its partners in the region. The list is regularly updated to include the latest information.