Document Library
With 2.1 billion people – mostly in rural areas – lacking safely managed drinking water and reported low rural water supply functionality rates, the Sustainable Development Goals pose a triple challenge: to reach unserved mostly rural population groups, to raise service levels, and to sustain existing and future services. This assessment uses a multi-country case… Read more
Child undernutrition is one of the most devastating realities in many parts of the world. Globally in 2015, 159 million children below the age of five years were too short for their age (stunted) and 50 million were too thin for their height (wasted). Inadequate nutrition in early childhood can have lifelong consequences, including poor… Read more
Brain architecture provides the foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health. It develops through the interaction of a child’s genes and early experiences, relationships, and environment. This working paper from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child explains key scientific advances in understanding why the early years matter for brain development, as well… Read more
An “environment of relationships” is crucial for the development of a child’s brain architecture, which lays the foundation for later outcomes such as academic performance, mental health, and interpersonal skills. However, there is a greater need for policies that consider the importance of adult-child relationships for child well-being. This working paper from the National Scientific… Read more
Remittances are an important strand in the relationship between migration and social change in migrants’ countries of origin and there is increasing interest in the role of remittances in conflict and post-conflict countries. Yet little is known about remittances from the diaspora perspective, and much less about refugees remitting. This paper makes three contributions, based… Read more
This article looks at what influences a child’s ability to be resilient and how supportive caregiver relationships are key to children’s positive development outcomes. Science shows that children who do well despite serious hardship have had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult. These relationships buffer children from developmental disruption and help… Read more
This working paper from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child defines the concept of “toxic stress”—what happens when children experience severe, prolonged adversity without adult support. It discusses how significant adversity early in life can alter a child’s capacity to learn and adapt to stressful situations, as well as how sensitive and responsive caregiving… Read more
This report provides a broad review of the field of education in fragile states and charts a new agenda for maximising education’s contribution to the development and well-being of people living in these contexts. The authors find compelling evidence showing that education can play an important role for accelerating progress in fragile states for four… Read more
This paper investigates young people’s and their caregivers’ experiences of food insecurity, diet and eating practices in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in India. It also provides original child-focused evidence on perceptions of government food programmes such as the Midday Meal Scheme and the Targeted Public Distribution System. The paper analyses three rounds of longitudinal qualitative… Read more
Policy discussion of social accountability initiatives has increasingly focused on questions about their tangible development impacts. The empirical evidence is mixed. This meta-analysis rethinks some of the most influential evaluations through a new lens: the distinction between tactical and strategic approaches to the promotion of citizen voice to contribute to improve public sector performance. Field… Read more
This paper reports on a meta-case study analysis of a 10 year research programme on citizenship, participation and accountability which analysed a nonrandomised sample of 100 research studies of four types of citizen engagement in 20 countries. By mapping the observable effects of citizen participation through a close reading of these studies, a typology of… Read more