The topic of poverty is always present in the development plan of whatever government in the world. In the last few months, with the formulation of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), poverty reduction has brought back at the centre of news and public debates inside and outside the development community. Globally, during the last quarter of 2015, a series of high-level and expert meetings have been held to start monitoring and measuring the SDGs. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, including Bolivia, have been working in this direction. Nevertheless, one issue deserves particular attention. Even if the Bolivian Ministry of Panning has carried seven MDG reports, there is a lack of data relating to child poverty, with the exception of a 2009 UDAPE-UNICEF report.

 

In order to measure the progress of SDG at the end of 2030 effectively, robust monitoring and evaluation activities must be held at global, regional, national and subnational levels. In the SDGs, there are specific proposed targets that involves children (aged 0-17) (UNICEF, 2015). Specifically, the proposed indicator states: “Children (aged 0-17) living in multidimensional poverty” (UNICEFa, 2015). During the last decade, in the LAC region, the following countries have made available Global Studies on Child Poverty and Disparities reports: Bolivia, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico and Nicaragua. The main features of these reports rely at the linkages between child deprivations in eight dimensions namely: education, health, nutrition, water, sanitation, shelter, information and income; based on an approach developed by University of Bristol and UNICEF. The following chart shows the rank of Bolivia with respect to children experiencing two or more deprivations (moderate and severe) and population living below USD1.25/day.

Even though, in 2006, severe deprivations reached 33% in Bolivia, when analyzing data by ethnicity, the percentage raises to 42%. In addition, in 2005 the highest, household deprivations (shelter and sanitation) reached almost 50% and 37% respectively.

Moreover, in Bolivia, 84% of children belonging to the poorest wealth quintile experienced at least two severe deprivations and 100% of them experienced at least one severe deprivation. For instance, one severe deprivation related to shelter is the proportion of children living overcrowded in households or proportion of households with inadequate floor materials in their construction (e.g. cement, brink). Indeed this kind of information at national level is totally useful for policy making. At the subnational level, data are something missing. They are an imperative and must be developed prospectively in order to measure the progress of the SDG.

The last Bolivian Census (2012) shed light on levels of poverty at subnational level for households. The results are a major worry for the Government: there are 107 municipalities (red in the map) with levels between 83 and 98 percent of people living in poverty. In other words, in 2012, 9 out of 10 people lived in the selected Bolivian municipalities. In 2015, municipalities with the highest levels of poverty represent almost 32% of the total of municipalities in Bolivia. With this context in mind, it may be interesting to research the evolution of child poverty levels in those municipalities with the highest levels of poverty. Efforts from the Government must take place to monitor progress for one of the most important groups in any society: children. Monitor progress for children will enhance the knowledge and prioritize actions that increase the equality of opportunities especially for children under 6 years. In addition, monitoring children and having corrective actions will have a more productive society in the sense that children will no represent a “social charge” to any government. This efforts become more relevant for developing countries which have almost 50% of their population represented by children such as Bolivia. What is more, equity will be reachable if and only if, as a society, we start planning and allocating resources in favour of children. For instance, acoording to a recent report (IADB, 2015), an ideal start for reducing equity requires extra efforts to invest in children under 6 years.

 

Globally, very interesting data and analysis have been produced over the last decade with respect to child poverty. Unfortunately, this evidence is far to be enough for Bolivia. Available evidence relies on past and non updated data. And, it is only avalable at the national level. Now, in order to start tracking the progress against the 2030 commitments, child poverty measurement is a must for any government. It is imperative that Bolivian Government starts collecting relibale data about children living in poverty, especially at the subnational levels.