Policy integration and child well-being

This Policy Insights paper reviews recent efforts by OECD countries to join up policies that affect child well-being. It describes challenges countries face in advancing this agenda and suggests ways to be more effective. It finds that integrated policy plans can guide the child policy agenda but are hard to develop beyond a general framework. It also finds that child-specific policy tools are not yet fully effective at mainstreaming child well-being across government.

Key points

• Integrated policy plans offer opportunities to steer the child policy agenda.
• Such plans can be tricky to grow beyond a guiding framework.
• Countries should consider narrowing down the scope of their plans and incentivising joint work.
• Child-specific policy tools are not yet fully effective in mainstreaming the child well-being agenda across government.
• Countries should be strategic about investing in these tools and extending their use.

Limitations

Only a short abstract is available, so it gives no detail on the methods, the specific countries reviewed, or the evidence behind the conclusions. It does not measure effects on children's outcomes.