Best of UNICEF research 2017

  • 28 agosto 2018

Mokoro’s work piloting a financial benchmark for child protection in Indonesia was included in the ‘Best of UNICEF research 2017‘ publication. This report showcases some of the best and most innovative pieces of research coming out of UNICEF.

Government funding for child protection programmes often lags behind and expenditure estimates are unreliable. In 2014, Mokoro worked with UNICEF to establish a financial benchmark methodology that aims to provide an accurate estimate of a country’s per-child expenditure on child protection and to compare that with its spending per person overall. The objective was not only to better measure national expenditure on child protection for analysis and advocacy purposes, but also to allow for a degree of comparability across and within countries over time. This research in Indonesia piloted the application of this methodology  for the first time. The assignment was led by Alta Fölscher. Mokoro has since applied the methodology in AfghanistanCôte d’Ivoire  and Nigeria.

The editors of ‘Best of UNICEF research 2017’ commended the  research approach to this piece of work, which was co-designed and jointly implemented by UNICEF staff and consultants. This provided an effective means of capacity-building for UNICEF staff, as well as allowing broader access to government counterparts, thus enabling contextual insights through engaging potential research users. The internal reviewers also highlighted its innovative attempt to better document the costs of child protection programmatic interventions and to develop a systematic methodology for further financial benchmarking and replicability – a difficult area given existing data limitations. The authors were also commended for honest documentation of some of the limitations of the data and research findings.