Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women
The key to the effective promotion and protection of the rights of children and women is a thorough understanding of their current situation. Regular monitoring of the health, nutrition, development, education and protection of children helps identify where government services and programmes are successfully reaching their objectives, as well as highlighting gaps and shortfalls. UNICEF works with partners to help ensure that national monitoring systems use the most up to date techniques and meet international standards. In 2005-2006, UNICEF supported the National Statistical Office of Thailand to carry out a comprehensive national Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) of 60,000 households, examining all aspects of children’s wellbeing. The data from the survey illustrated the significant achievements Thailand has made in advancing children’s rights, but at the same time it also highlighted that many poor and marginalized children have not benefited from this progress. Over the last five years, detailed analysis of the MICS data by policy makers and researchers has identified areas where greater effort is needed to reduce disparities in children’s health, nutrition and education. In addition to national surveys such as the MICS, UNICEF also supports research projects to explore in more depth particular aspects of children’s wellbeing and increase understanding of the root causes leading to the violation of their rights. In recent years, UNICEF recently supported innovative studies to examine violence against children; the impact of large scale internal migration on children left behind in rural areas; and the impact on children of living amid the unrest in the Southern border provinces. Increasingly, UNICEF’s cooperation involves support to evaluation and review of the national systems for monitoring children’s rights. High quality evaluations highlight where these systems need to be strengthened to provide regular and reliable information on the status of children’s health, education and protection. In 2009-2010, UNICEF supported an evaluation of the Ministry of Interior’s Basic Minimum Needs survey which led to a review of the national indicators that measure children’s wellbeing.
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