Development Management Policy Seminar on Child Poverty and Social Protection: Cases of Africa and Latin America

The above seminar was held on July 7, 2016 in the Main Conference Room of the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS) building at Kobe University. The guest presenter was Ms. Mariana Coolican, who is a Social Policy Specialist, UNICEF Equatorial Guinea Country Office.

Ms. Coolican commenced her presentation by deliberating potentials issues about child poverty and social protection. She highlighted why we must think it as significant issues like the total poverty and adult poverty. Money cannot always purchase what children need as children needs are different than others. She discussed about the chronicle of child poverty measurement and how to demarcate a poor child facing with the challenges like nutrition, education, water and sanitation, health, housing and information, which are dimensions to measure multi-dimensional poverty. She also explained how to combine the poverty at different ages and showed the different but critical findings among the Latin American countries.

Ms. Mariana shared with the seminar attendants another important global concern of social protection in the lower, minimum, and the higher income countries experiences. By 2030, extending social protection is indispensable to accomplish the objective of sustainable development. Some under developed countries are experimenting with innovative programs aim at expanding the scope and cover social protection. Low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa facing challenges with inadequate budgets and excessive levels of poverty, there are tensions between target transfer approach and universal approach. She also illuminated detailed about the child and social protection issues about Argentina, Paraguay and Japan. Ms. Coolican recommended some possibilities to mitigate the poverty cannot be eradicated without evaluating child poverty.

The seminar was exceedingly illustrative and expedient, as it conveyed thought provoking discussion on child poverty and social protection issues about the cases of Africa and Latin America. Students, researchers and academicians have gained very valuable information, ideas and recommendations, how to do further research in this field. During the question and answer session, the students asked a number of questions for further clarifications about her research and asked her to share her practical experiences working with UNICEF and different international organizations.

(Authored by Md. Jahangir Alam, Research Student)