Abstract This chapter presents the evidence on the impact of incomplete financial and insurance markets on the supply of child labour. Shocks substantially alter household decisions. In particular, a negative shock increases the probability that a child will work. Coupled with evidence from other research that child labour shows a high degree of persistence as in the case of the Rwanda genocide, this finding highlights the importance of protection from shocks. Risk-reduction schemes also have a beneficial and substantial effect on child work as, confirmed by experimental evidence regarding increased access to health insurance. However, shocks might also alter the returns to child labour and lead households to increase child labour in the presence of a positive shock. Such changes in the incentives facing the household must be kept in mind when designing actual policies.
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare provision and access in sub-Saharan Africa. Lockdowns and travel restrictions, coupled with fear of contracting the virus, disrupted services, especially for women’s and children’s health, derailing progress on sustainable development goals. This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine child immunisation coverage in Ethiopia and Kenya at both national and subnational levels. Methods Health management information systems data were used to estimate changes in child immunisation. Mean differences in coverage between the pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 were tested at a 5% significance level. Geospatial maps for coverage and differences between the two periods were created using aggregated proportions. Interrupted time series analyses provided counterfactual coverage assessments, assuming no COVID-19 impact. Results At the national level, minor short-term disruptions in coverage were observed following pandemic peaks in Kenya and Ethiopia, which were considered statistically insignificant. In Ethiopia, a subnational assessment reveals that full vaccination coverage remained relatively stable, with significant changes observed in the southeast regions of Somali and Dire Dawa. Specific vaccines such as BCG, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus 3 and polio (OPV3) showed considerable coverage changes in most regions except Oromia, Gambela and Sidama. Measles vaccine coverage experienced major changes across almost all regions of Ethiopia. In Kenya, full vaccination coverage experienced significant changes in eight counties, including Kisii, Turkana and Marsabit, with most Kenyan counties experiencing significant changes in measles vaccine coverage. Conclusion In conclusion, while routine immunisation services were mostly sustained with short-term disruptions at the national level in Ethiopia and Kenya, subnational levels experienced notable changes. The resilience of child immunisation was due to the implementation of community-based healthcare, mobile vaccinations and collaboration and partnerships for mass vaccination campaigns. The temporary disruptions were likely due to pandemic-related fears and supply chain restrictions.
Chifuniro Somanje Mankhwala, Chimwemwe Chifungo, Themba Mzembe et al.
Abstract Contemporary theories of positive youth development (PYD) emphasize dynamic, mutually beneficial relationships between individuals and their contexts as a pathway to thriving and contribution. However, there remains a critical gap in longitudinal, theory‐driven research examining youth strengths (e.g., purpose) and contextual assets (e.g., program quality) in Majority World contexts, particularly within structured youth programming. The present study examined reciprocal relationships between perceived program quality (a higher‐order factor of the Big Three) and youth purpose using three waves of longitudinal data from a sample of 615 adolescents (50.3% female; ages 9–16, M age = 12.5, SD age = 2.3) participating in Compassion International youth development programs in Uganda. Results using cross‐lagged panel models revealed positive, reciprocal associations between perceived program quality and youth purpose, such that higher program quality predicted subsequent higher youth purpose, and stronger youth purpose predicted more positive later perceptions of program quality. Temporal precedence tests indicated that neither construct emerged as a dominant developmental driver, and therefore supported a pattern of mutual influence. These findings advance PYD theory by providing longitudinal evidence for dynamic person⇔context coactions between perceived program quality and youth purpose, consistent with dynamic, relational developmental systems perspectives.
Ruoying Zhang, Roya Abbasi‐Asl, Margaret Mackin et al.
Christian parents in Eastern Africa find themselves at a paradoxical position. On one hand they are one of the most individually devout believers globally, yet most of them are unable to translate their devotion into deliberate faith formation within their respective homes. This article examines the gap between private religious practice and intentional parental discipleship among Christian parents across seven Eastern Africa countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. It draws on survey data from the OneHope Faith Foundations Eastern Africa Report (2025), which surveyed 758 Christian parents from the aforementioned Eastern Africa countries. The report reveals that while 69% of parents pray daily, and 75% attend church weekly, only 36% discuss the Bible with their children frequently, and fewer than 10% feel fully equipped to disciple their children at home. The study employs a quantitative survey design, supplemented by interviews with 31 church leaders, to assess the frequency of spiritual practices, perceived barriers and parental confidence in faith transmission. Findings reveal that the primary obstacles are not spiritual indifference but a deficit of practical knowledge and confidence, compounded by an over-reliance on institutional structures such as the church to carry out what is fundamentally a parental responsibility. This article concludes that the most strategic investment Eastern Africa churches and ministries can make in the next generation is the equipping of parents with simple, culturally relevant, and accessible tools for practising faith at home, beyond daily church attendance.
Research on meaning-making in development policy is scarce, yet essential for contextualizing development interventions. The study demonstrates that policy implementation in post-conflict situations is vulnerable to meaning displacement when locally constructed meanings and the social capital through which they are produced and circulated are overlooked, with consequential effects for programme legitimacy, participation and effectiveness. A phenomenological research design adopting focus group discussions with former beneficiaries of the Youth Livelihood Programme and in-depth interviews with key informants was conducted in Kitgum District. The study used a content thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology to analyse the data. The findings indicate that the youth constructed several meanings and perceptions of the Youth Livelihood Programme, including (i) perceived political meanings, (ii) free money perception, (iii) pocket money from the President meaning, (iv) drinking money narrative, (v) loot without fear perception, (vi) the mimic perception “money for the community poorest people”, and (vii) our tax money being returned perception. In conclusion, as community-directed interventions enter the community with an official, formal meaning, these meanings are not automatically reproduced at the community level. Instead, informal meanings are socially reconstructed through interactions building on existing community social capital, resulting in meaning displacement. Thus, development policy actors ought to pay attention to socially constructed meanings in order to align programme and make policy adjustments required for effective policy implementation.
There is growing interest in engaging not only mothers but also fathers in parenting programs to improve nurturing care, psychosocial support, and early childhood development. However, few studies have explored how mothers perceive and benefit from participating in parenting interventions alongside their partners. This study explored mothers’ experiences during the pilot implementation of Familia Bora , a couples-based parenting program delivered in six communities in Mwanza, Tanzania (July-November 2024). In-depth interviews were conducted with mothers at baseline, midline, and endline using both random and purposive sampling. A total of 22 mothers participated in endline interviews, of whom 15 (68%) were purposively re-interviewed from the baseline sample to enable longitudinal qualitative analysis of perceived changes over time. Interviews explored mothers’ perceptions of changes in parenting practices, gender roles and attitudes, couples’ relationships, maternal mental health, and complementary feeding practices. Mothers commonly reported improvements across all domains. They described increased use of responsive caregiving and early learning activities, reduced harsh discipline, and improved nutrition knowledge and child feeding practices. Mothers also highlighted greater father involvement in childcare and more supportive couples’ relationship dynamics, which they perceived as reducing their caregiving burden and supporting their mental health. Overall, engaging fathers through couples-based parenting interventions may catalyze shifts within households that benefit mothers through improved caregiving practices, stronger partner relationships, and more nurturing family environments. These findings highlight the potential of father-inclusive parenting programs to support maternal, child, and family well-being.
Valencia J. Lambert, Alina Bhojani, Gabriel Sangarara et al.
Child trafficking is increasingly mediated through social media, artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies, creating new opportunities for exploitation while strengthening digital prevention and protection. This study examines how digital platforms both facilitate and disrupt technology-enabled child trafficking in Kenya through a digital ethnography that combines social media observations, stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions and analysis of online anti-trafficking discourse. Guided by the Routine Activity and Situational Prevention (RASP) framework, the study investigates how digital opportunity structures shape offender behavior, target vulnerability and distributed digital guardianship. Findings show that traffickers exploit encrypted messaging, algorithmic recommendation systems, livestreaming, closed online communities and digital payment technologies to recruit, groom, coordinate and exploit children while reducing the perceived risk of detection. At the same time, government agencies, law enforcement, civil society organizations, technology companies and community actors employ artificial intelligence, digital evidence preservation, coordinated reporting systems, cross-sector partnerships and the Child Protection Information Management System (CPIMS) to strengthen detection, reporting, victim protection and institutional coordination. The study further demonstrates that anti-child trafficking communication is most effective when it transforms awareness into recognizable risk patterns, actionable reporting pathways, evidence preservation and coordinated institutional responses. The findings extend the RASP framework by conceptualizing the 5 P dimensions (Prevention, Protection, Policy, Prosecution and Partnership) as communication dimensions that operationalize digital guardianship within technology-enabled environments. The study contributes to digital criminology, communication, child protection, platform governance and technology-enabled crime prevention, particularly in the Global South.
Each day, tens of thousands of girls worldwide are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Child marriage, defined as marriage or a union taking place before the age of 18, endangers the life trajectories of these girls in numerous ways. Child brides are at greater risk of experiencing a range of poor health outcomes, having children at younger ages, having more children over their lifetimes, dropping out of school, earning less over their lifetimes and living in poverty than their peers who marry at later ages. Child brides may also be more likely to experience intimate partner violence, have restricted physical mobility, and limited decision-making ability. Most fundamentally, thesegirls may be disempowered in ways that deprive them of their basic rights to health, education, equality, nondiscrimination, and to live free from violence and exploitation, which continue to affect them into adulthood. These dynamics affect not only the girls themselves, but their children, households, communities and societies, limiting their ability to reach their full social and economic potential. While child marriage is widely considered a human rights issue closely connected to gender inequality, the significance of the practice’s impacts at both the individual and societal levels suggests that ending child marriage may play an important role in alleviating poverty and in promoting economic development. Ending child marriage can improve health at the individual and population levels, increase productivity and enhance the opportunity to realize the gains in a country’s economic growth that can result from declining birth rates and a shifting population age structure, commonly referred to as the ‘demographic dividend.’ To date, however,there has been relatively little in the way of rigorous assessment of the economic impacts of child marriage or how much child marriage may “cost” countries and societies. To address this challenge, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the World Bank collaborated on an extensive and innovative research project to assess the impacts of child marriage on arange of development outcomes, and to understand the economic costs associated with these impacts across countries. By establishing the effects that child marriage has on economic outcomes, the research project aimed to catalyze more effective and evidence-based action to prevent it. This brief describes research undertaken for Ethiopia to better assess the impacts of child marriage on a range of development outcomes and the costs associated with these impacts. (World)
The international community is increasingly aware of the negative impacts of child marriage on a wide range of development outcomes. Ending child marriage is now part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet investments to end the practice remain limited across the globe. Ethiopia recently adopted a strategy to end child marriage, and some of the projects being implemented in the country should contribute to reduce the practice child marriage. Still, more could be done. In order to inspire greater commitments towards ending child marriage, this study demonstrates the negative impacts of the practice and their associated economic costs. The study looks at five domains of impacts: (i) fertility and population growth; (ii) health, nutrition, and violence; (iii) educational attainment and learning; (iv) labor force participation and earnings; and (v) participation, decision-making, and investments. Economic costs are estimated for several of theimpacts. Overall, the costs are high. They suggest that investing to end child marriage is not only the right thing to do, but also makes sense economically. (World)
This study qualitatively explores early stimulation practices in Katavi region, Tanzania. It also quantitatively investigates the links between these early stimulation practices and development of children 0-3 years of age in the Katavi region. A comparative qualitative case study was carried out in Zanzibar region and findings have been presented throughout discussion section of this report, in parallel to the case of Katavi. Through this work the research team has developed a robust package of early childhood development research tools that have been carefully adapted and tested for use in Tanzania. The study uses and validates the combined use of tools to measure children's development (the CREDI tool) and the home environment (the HOME tool) for the first time in Tanzania. This package includes a complete survey including culturally-adapted, Kiswahili versions of the CREDI and HOME tools plus a caregiver information form that have all been digitized for data collection using electronic tablets. There is an accompanying video that guides users through the digitized version of the tool. The package also includes a four-day training guide with power points that may be used to prepare enumerators to collect the survey data. The adapted versions of these tools are free to users and easily accessible for others who wish to explore early stimulation and child development in Tanzania. (Tanzania)
