Interventions at country level

UNICEF Indonesia & the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

Mainstreaming children’s rights in the palm oil sector through multi-stakeholder action

As the world’s largest palm oil producer, up to 17 million people in Indonesia are estimated to be economically dependent on palm oil. This includes up to 5 million children impacted in communities and as dependents of palm oil workers. In 2016, UNICEF undertook a qualitative study to understand the sector’s full spectrum of child rights impacts. The findings revealed that children are adversely affected in many ways, often linked to the employment and living conditions of working parents, especially casual workers who fall outside the remit of labour protections. Addressing these negative consequences requires multifaceted, collective action to address activities in plantations and surrounding communities, including efforts by government, industry associations, plantations, processors, certification bodies, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and multinational corporations globally, with a focus on complex root causes.

UNICEF worked with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – a multi-stakeholder initiative that develops and implements global standards for sustainable palm oil production to strengthen the evidence base and promote sector-wide change. As part of a pilot programme, UNICEF supported engagement with several palm oil companies in Indonesia to identify key bottlenecks and develop practical solutions to strengthen respect for children’s rights. This provided learnings for evidence-based advocacy at national and international levels and the development of guidance to business. UNICEF was successful in embedding stronger children’s rights protections in RSPO’s revised global certification standard – estimated to cover around 500,000 workers in 21 countries. New revisions included requirements for certified companies to adopt a formal child protection policy, strengthen maternity protections, breastfeeding support, and safeguards to protect children, families, and communities from the harmful use of pesticides. UNICEF also supported national policy advocacy and engaged in UN-wide efforts by promoting children’s rights in UNDP-led efforts for the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil standard (ISPO) and the National Action Plan on Sustainable Palm Oil. UNICEF continues to strengthen the capacities of independent palm oil smallholders – who manage almost half of Indonesian palm oil areas and are often associated with particular supply chain risks and impacts.

UNICEF Ghana & International Cocoa Initiative (ICI)

Systematic approaches to address the nexus between child labour, poverty, education, and youth skilling/employability

In Ghana, 28% of children are engaged in child la-bour, according to recent data. This includes an es-timated 770,000 children working in cocoa growing communities. Less than 12% of children involved in child labour have foundational reading and numer-acy skills. 73% of children in Ghana experience multi-dimensional poverty, including in relation to health, education, nutrition, water, sanitation, and housing. Poverty is a key driver of child labour. Government budget allocation to social sectors has declined since 2022 and is expected to worsen when adjusted for inflation and population growth. This means that districts, including in cocoa growing areas, are not receiving timely and sufficient allocation of funding for social expendi-tures. The fragmented nature of child labour responses by the government, private sector and civil society is an-other concern. This includes parallel monitoring and data collection systems, and limited exchange of information. To address these challenges, and in support of Ghana’s new Accelerated Action Plan Against Child Labour (2023-2027), UNICEF is coordinating multi-stakeholder efforts to establish a public-private partnership (PPP) to pilot a mechanism for multisectoral interventions to address the root causes of child labour in target cocoa growing dis-tricts. Granted its initial seed funding from SWISSCO/SECO, and in collaboration with ICI, private sector and the World Bank, the PPP model aims to strengthen district systems and create a child-friendly ecosystem across edu-cation, child protection, health, social protection, public finance management, and youth engagement/employ-ment. The PPP implementation aims to set a solid proof of concept to establish a multi-donor trust fund in the long term facilitated by blended financing. Building on existing transformative approaches will be critical, such as Integrated Social Services, which have been implemented in over 60% of the country and supported the provision of services and individual case management to over 100,000 vulnerable children since 2020.

UNICEF Madagascar

Promoting a sustainable mica sector by strengthening social protection

Madagascar accounts for some 7% of global production of mica – which is an important mineral used globally in products such as electronics, automobiles, and cosmetics. It is estimated that more than 11,000 children are engaged in child labour alongside their families in the country’s southern mica producing regions (which means more than half of the 20,000 people estimated to be engaged in mica extraction are children). Risks to children are generally high in these areas due to extreme poverty levels, the lack of livelihood opportunities and absence of social services, and the predominantly informal and artisanal environment in which mica is mined. For example, the monthly household income for families engaged in mica production averages less than USD 15. Only one third of children in mica communities complete primary education, compared to 75% nationally. Health conditions are among the worst in the country, with only 25% of the population having access to clean and safe drinking water. Through child protection and education interventions, UNICEF focuses on improving the protection and educational conditions of children in vulnerable households. This is achieved through a variety of programmatic interventions that focus on investment in early childhood care and primary education, prevention of violence against children, specifically child labour and worst forms of child labour, improving children, parent and community capacities to identify and report concerns, and strengthening overall government capacity to prevent and respond to violence, including child labour. UNICEF is also engaging with multi-stakeholder industry platforms – such as the Responsible Mica Initiative (RMI) – to leverage the role of global actors along the supply chain to improve responsible business practices and address systemic inequities, with a specific focus on children. POLICY BRIEF MICA ANG_Investir dans la protection sociale pour réduire le travail des enfants_Pour partage.pdf (unicef.org)

UNICEF Türkiye

Combatting child labour through public-pri-vate collaboration

Despite progress over the past decades, 720,000 children remain engaged in child labour in Türkiye (4.4% of all children 5-7 years in the country). This number does not include refugee children who are at heightened risk of child labour due to poverty and overall vulnerability. The socio-economic consequences of COVID-19 and other crises exacerbated the situation for children and families at risk. UNICEF’s work in Türkiye is based on a multi-sectoral social policy strategy including capacity development, support to services for families at risk, evidence generation, and advocacy. This work is done in partnership with the government, UN agencies, civil society, academia, and private sector and employers organisations, including international companies sourcing from the country. For example, UNICEF generated extensive evidence on causes and forms of child labour in several economic sectors and contributed to programming capacity of the government and the private sector. Drawing on its research on agricultural families, UNICEF drafted child and family-sensitive occupational standards for agricultural employment agencies, which the government adopted as professional code of conduct. UNICEF also partners with small and medium enterprises to eliminate child labour where it is hardest to reach due to geography and informality. This work focuses on fostering public–private partnerships to mitigate risk of child labour by strengthening workplace monitoring and preventive systems building. This helped identify more than 3,000 children at risk of child labour who were referred to protection services.27 UNICEF also engaged with several Dutch brands and their Turkish suppliers to analyse child labour in the garment supply chain, promoting responsible business approaches that support local systems strengthening.