Short visit to Seoul

 

This week I paid a very short but interesting visit to Seoul in South Korea. I was invited to present at the International Conference on Global and National Strategy for Poverty Reduction, organized by the Graduate School of Public Administration of SNU and UNRISD. The two-day programme focused on discussions related to social policy in Asia and how these can contribute to poverty reduction. Presentations focused on the specific experiences in Korea over the last decades and how they could be relevant for other countries in the South East and East Asia region. But there were also presentations on programmes in Africa, outlining their policy context, achievements and drawbacks. My presentation focused on the social welfare programmes in Vietnam and what their impact is in terms of child poverty. One the one hand, we considered the performance in terms of coverage and targeting and on the other hand, we used different methods to assess the actual impact on child poverty. The paper was a primarily empirical study of the programmes, using household survey data and taking a purely micro-perspective. Although relevant to the topic of social policy as poverty reducation strategies, it did not quite fit the other presentations as these focused more on the bigger picture, policy context of social programmes and the political economy. Conclusions during the closing session of the conference consequently focused on such macro and political aspects of social policies, highlighting the importance of employment opportunities amongst others. But probably the most passionate and important message from one participant was that whatever we do, we should always remember that we are talking about people. People that have to withstand unbearable situations and living conditions and that it is everybody’s responsibility to improve these people’s lives and not look away.

 

Seoul by night

“Mini-Maastricht” training in BiH

 

Last week, two colleagues and myself were in Sarajevo for a so-called “Mini-Maastricht” training for the UNICEF staff in the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) office. The training was referred to as mini-Maastricht because many UNICEF staff have taken the full Maastricht course that is especially designed for UNICEF. The third round of this full training took place last spring, which incorporates a preparatory e-learning phase and a two-week face-to-face training in Maastricht. Although we have trained about 600 UNICEF staff by means of this full programme during three rounds from 2006 to 2009, it is not option for all staff. To provide everybody in the UNICEF BiH office, UNICEF asked us to provide a shortened version of the full Maastricht training, which was then conveniently referred to as the “Mini-Maastricht” training…

The training was not held in Sarajevo but in the ski-resort of Jahorina. This was to make sure that the participants were not distracted by their email and other office occupations. During the three training days, we discussed a range of issues including poverty measurement, fiscal space and social budgeting, economic growth and development, targeting and child allowance and social inclusion in the EU. Lectures were combined with exercises and the whole training was concluded with a policy exercise. The participants were asked to advise on the introduction of a child benefit scheme in BiH using evidence. Especially this last exercise was also an interesting learning experience for us as neither of us had ever been to the country before. One thing that become obvious is that the administrative and bureaucratic structures in BiH are very complicated and it is everything but an easy task for the UNICEF staff to work on policies that improve the lives of children. Hopefully, the training contributed to some improvement!

Old town in Sarajevo

Article Child Indicators Research finally in print!

 

The article The Importance of Choice and Definition for the Measurement of Child Poverty -the case of Vietnam will finally be printed in Child Indicators Research. It was already published and available online on the website of the Springer webstie but will now also be available in a paginated issue, namely Volume 2, Issue 3 (2009), page 245.

Talking about poverty in Myanmar

 

Last week I returned from a trip to Myanmar where I was a resource person for two workshops organized by UNICEF. The first workshop was a two-day event for government officials, academic researchers and civil society delegates on social policy. This included topics such as the social budgeting, experiences of social policies in the Asian region and poverty, the topic about which I spoke. The second workshop was a smaller get-together of UNICEF and UNDP staff, going into the more technical details of monetary and multidimensional poverty measurement and what makes it different for children.

It was a very interesting week in Myanmar. The workshops encouraged active discussion and received positive feedback, which was in contrast to expectations. Of course, poverty is a sensitive topic to discuss and we (the resource persons as well as UNICEF) were a bit unsure about how to approach the discussion. But it appeared to be no problem to actually call poverty ” poverty”  and participants seemed comfortable enough to discuss issues around conceptualization and measurement. Also, without having much previous information about the country of Myanmar apart from the obvious, the country  positively surprised me. People are very friendly and open and the landscape is just beautiful. Just a shame that it was the middle of the monsoon period so everything had to be watched from behind a curtain of rain…

Social Assistance in Kosovo – does it make a difference?

 

I am now in a sunny and hot Prishtina for our final mission within the project for UNICEF Kosovo. Over the last 6 months, we have conducted a policy evaluation and impact analysis and impact analysis of social assistance cash transfers in Kosovo. As this project was commissioned by UNICEF, our main focus was on children. We used both quantitative and qualitative information as the basis for our analysis, providing a comprehensive and in-depth view into te social assistance scheme and how it relates to children.

The quantitative data used was two-fold. On the hand, we worked with administrative data that the ministries provided. On the other hand, we used the household budget survey to compose a poverty profile, consider coverage and leakage of the social assistance scheme and simulate alternative schemes. The qualitative data for the study  had to be collected especially for the purposes of this study. Together with a local consultancy team, we developed the research design and moderator guides. On the basis of the research design, focus group discussions with social assistance recipients and non-recipients were  conducted. In-depth interviews were also held with employees of the Centres for Social Welfare, which administer the social assistance scheme.

The collection of qualitative information by means of interviews and focus group discussions was conducted in April and below are some pictures.

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Draft results were presented today to representatives of the various ministries, statistical office and international  organizations. The main findings included the large exclusion error of the social assistance scheme, the good targetintg performance and feelings of frustration with recipients and non-recipients of social assistance concerning the rigid eligibility criteria. Comments from the audience will be processes in order to deliver the final draft of our study. And hopefully this provides meaningful input into the reconsideration of the social assistance scheme and possible amendments. After all, we’re not just conducting these studies for the mere sake of conducting studies…

UNICEF Learning Programme

 

I’ve been back in the office for the last two weeks and they were quite a hectic return to work after my leave. The day I returned in the beginning of June marked the start of the 2009 UNICEF Learning Programme. Over a period of 2 weeks, we welcomed about 80 UNICEF staff members to Maastricht for a face-to-face training on evidence-based policy making. The participants had already worked in a two-month E-Learning phase in which we (re-)introduced basic economic concepts and issues relating to poverty, economic growth and public finance. The face-to-face training in Maastricht built on the basic knowledge and dealt with topics such as poverty, child poverty, social policy and policy evaluation in detail.

This is the third time that MGSoG is running this programme and it still is an exciting task. The UNICEF staff from all over the world bring their own ideas and experiences from the field, making the training very interactive and lively. It’s not just theory that we’re discussing but we also relate to the “real-world” and what the UNICEF staff members have to deal with in the field.

We now have a week “break” and coming Sunday we will welcome a second group of about 100 participants for another two weeks. Another hectic but certainly interesting period.

Lecturing during the UNICEF Learning Programme

Lecturing during UNICEF Learning Programme

will be back soon!

 

It has been quite long since I last put an update on this blog, which is a shame as there are many things to report on. The last weeks have been hectic and busy with many different activities involving research, project work as well as teaching. In a few weeks I will be back with an update on the qualitative data collection and project work in Kosovo, the UNICEF Learning Programme starting in June and the PhD writing camp. The picture below should provide some indication of how occupied I am at the moment…

new Working Paper online

 

A new paper in the MGSoG Working Paper Series is now online. The title of the paper is “Child Poverty in Vietnam – providing insights using a country-specific and multidimensional model” and can be found at the following link:

http://www.governance.unimaas.nl/home/publications/2009WP001.pdf

Last-minute trip to Paris

 

Due to an unfortunate ski-accident of my colleague (which wasn’t too bad, fortunately), I had the chance to go to Paris last week and attend a conference on the Measurement of Poverty, Income Inequality and Social Exclusion. The conference was jointly organized by the OECD and University of Maryland and focused on the exchange of European and US experiences with respect to poverty measurement. It was fairly small-scale but with established experts from both sides of the ocean. Presentations were held by Martin Ravallion, Tim Smeeding, Stephen Jenkins, Eric Marlier and others. It was interesting to hear about the US stance on Europe’s relative and more multidimensional perspective of poverty and Europe’s opinion about the absolute measurement, still using Orshansky’s poverty line. Below is the link to the conference website, where presentations will be posted soon:

http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_33933_42139644_1_1_1_1,00.html

Teaching, training and research

 

After a hectic period in January with a lot time spent out of the office rather than in the office, I now have more time to focus on work in the School. That does not, however, imply that things have become less busy. Activities during the last month as well as the upcoming weeks include preparation of teaching and training, facilitating online learning communities and doing research. So there’s nothing quiet about this time spent in Maastricht!

Next week, the School will start its third round of the UNICEF Learning Programme for senior staff focused on evidence-based policy making for children. The programme consists of two phases, the first one of which is an E-Learning phase. In June, all 200 participants will come to Maastricht for a face-to-face training of two weeks. Together with my colleagues, I am responsible for the organization of the programme and will act as a facilitator during the E-Learning and face-to-face training. It will be exciting to meet and work with the new participants both online and in real-life!

I am also currently preparing and coordinating the upcoming Master’s course on Poverty and Inequality. Together with colleagues from the University of Antwerp, we are preparing a 6-week course on concepts and technicalities involved with the measurement and understanding of poverty and inequality. Within the broad range of topics, I will be teaching on multidimensional poverty measurement.

In addition to these teaching and training activities, there are also a lot of research and project activities. By the end of March or beginning of April, there will be a next mission to Kosovo for the collection of qualitative data. We are working on the quantitative household survey data to be able to put our results into context. The papers written for the conferences in Singapore and Egypt are also being finalized for post-conference publications. In other words, there is enough work to be done!