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Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is about the opportunities and challenges involved in mainstreaming knowledge about children in international development policy and practice. It focuses on the ideas, networks and institutions that shape the development of evidence about child poverty and wellbeing, and the use of such evidence in development policy debates. It also pays particular attention to the importance of power relations in influencing the extent to which children’s voices are heard and acted upon by international development actors. The book weaves together theory, mixed method approaches and case studies spanning a number of policy sectors and diverse developing country contexts in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It therefore provides a useful introduction for students and development professionals who are new to debates on children, knowledge and development, whilst at the same time offering scholars in the field new methodological and empirical insights.
This book presents an academically rigorous yet practical guide to efforts to understand how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change.It offers a power analysis perspective on the knowledge-policy process, illustrated with rich empirical examples from the field of international development, combined with practical guidance on the implications of such an approach. It provides ways to identify and address problems that have hampered previous attempts to improve the space between knowledge and policy; such as difficulties in analysing political context, persistent asymmetric relationships between actors, ignorance of the contributions of different types of knowledge, and misconceptions of the roles played by intermediary organisations. Most importantly, the book gives readers the ability to develop strategies for negotiating the complexity of the knowledge-policy interface more effectively, so as to contribute to policy dialogues, influence policy change, and implement policies and programmes more effectively.The authors focus on the dynamics of the knowledge-policy interface in international development; offering novel theoretical insights and methodological approaches that are applicable to a broader array of policy arenas and their audiences, including academics, practitioners and students.
This article presents a framework for analysing the impacts of evidence-informed policy entrepreneurship, and applies it to a longitudinal policy research project on childhood poverty in the developing world. Drawing on insights from Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) work on transnational advocacy, the discussion highlights five key dimensions of possible policy impact: framing debates and policy agenda formulation; securing discursive commitments from key policy actors; bringing about procedural changes; policy reform; and behavioural change. The analysis pays particular attention to the interplay of culture, politics and values in the uptake of research evidence in the policy process, and the challenges of cross-institutional partnership approaches to knowledge translation initiatives.
This chapter discusses how child poverty differs from adult poverty, and presents a ‘human well-being’ or ‘three dimensional human well-being’ approach. It notes that although such an approach builds on much previous thinking regarding poverty and well-being, it is a relatively recent development, especially with regard to thinking about children, childhoods, and related policy interventions. The chapter also discusses the nature of child poverty and child well-being; introduces the ‘human well-being’ approach; and asks what this approach means for children.
This chapter extends 3D thinking on child poverty and well-being to consider knowledge and evidence generation. It explores the knowledge base that underpins dominant understandings of childhood poverty and well-being, given this book’s focus on the knowledge–policy interface around childhoods in the developing world. The chapter reviews trends in thinking about the generation of evidence in development studies, and then discusses how these broader debates have played out in the case of childhood poverty and well-being. It focuses particularly on emerging thinking about 3D approaches via combining research methods, and explores the particular challenges and opportunities of such approaches to child well-being.
This chapter extends the 3D perspective on child poverty and well-being to consider policy processes, the role of knowledge in policy processes, and policy advocacy with regard to children’s poverty and well-being. It sets out thinking on the dynamics of policy processes and discusses types of policy change. The chapter also focuses on policy advocacy and knowledge–policy interaction approaches, and applies the preceding debates to child well-being.
This chapter deals with children and the knowledge–policy interface in sub-Saharan Africa. It briefly outlines the extent and nature of child poverty and well-being across Africa using the 3D approach. The chapter reflects on the characteristics of the knowledge-generation process in Africa and discusses the knowledge–policy interface surrounding child well-being in Africa. It also focuses on a case study of evidence-informed policy change in the context of an expert-led initiative to promote a more child-sensitive PRSP during the revision process of Ethiopia’s second-generation PRSP.
This chapter addresses the issue of children and the knowledge–policy interface in Asia. It briefly outlines the extent and nature of child poverty and well-being across Asia using the 3D well-being approach and reflects on the characteristics of the knowledge-generation process in this region. The chapter discusses opportunities and challenges involved in the knowledge–policy interface surrounding child well-being in Asia, paying particular attention to the significant decentralization trend many countries in the region have undergone and the implications for evidence-informed policy-influencing initiatives. It also focuses on a case study of evidence-informed policy change in the context of a citizen-monitoring initiative of child educational and nutritional services in rural Andhra Pradesh, India.
This chapter deals with children and the knowledge–policy interface in Latin America. It briefly outlines the extent and nature of child poverty and well-being across Latin America using the 3D well-being approach and reflects on the characteristics of the knowledge-generation process in this region. The chapter discusses opportunities and challenges involved in the knowledge–policy interface surrounding child well-being in Latin America, paying particular attention to the role of the media in shaping policy debates in the region and the rise of civil society in demanding greater accountability and transparency over the last two decades. It presents a case study of evidence-informed policy change in the context of an NGO-led initiative aimed at mainstreaming children’s rights into macro-policy debates about trade liberalization, good governance, and service delivery in Peru.
This chapter concludes that childhood poverty and well-being are distinct from adult experiences of poverty and well-being, and that it is therefore critical that policy design, implementation, and evaluation processes are informed accordingly. It suggests that a ‘three-dimensional’ human well-being (3D WB) lens is useful to capture this distinctiveness in a holistic way as the approach builds on, but goes beyond minimum or ‘basic’ needs and their legal codification in rights conventions such as the UNCRC. The chapter suggests that in order to capture children’s 3D WB, evidence or knowledge-generation processes need to draw on a mixed-methods or 3D approach, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. It further concludes that case studies from developing-country contexts suggest that there is no single recipe for child-sensitive knowledge interaction and policy-influencing processes, but there are three clusters of factors which support such policy change: policy ideas and narratives, policy actors and networks, and policy contexts.
