Work to be done: Ending violence against children

A recent report on the global prevalence of violence against children in the past year has shown that  more than half of the children in 96 countries across the world —1 billion children aged 2–17 years—experienced violence in the past year. Violence against children is a human rights violation. It makes people more likely to fall ill, and to  experience and perpetrate violence in their adult lives. In other words, violence is passed on through generations - even genetically, as it can alter a child's genes.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) call for an end to “abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children” (SDG 16.2) and to “eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation” (SDG 5.2). SDG 4 on education refers to the importance of promoting non-violence in several sub-goals, e.g. by calling for a non-violent environment for education (SDG 4.a).

With probably more than half of the world's children experiencing violence, major efforts are needed to attain the SDGs. For inspiration, have a look at UNICEF's Six Strategies for Action. If you know of any useful resources to share, please post a comment and share.

3500 evaluation reports for everyone - really everyone?

It is delightful to see that more and more agencies are publishing more and more evaluation reports on-line. Now, UNDP has announced, in a pretty infographic, its revamped Evaluation Resource Centre (ERC), which gives access to more than 3500 reports. A bounty for meta-evaluators!

But one thing that puzzles me: The video spot that explains the ERC, with its suave male speaker and friendly ambient music in the background, suggests that only men - or, say, short-haired trouser-wearing necktie-bearers - make decisions. Look at the visuals near minute 0.57 and 2.18. Little skirt-bearers are only acknowledged as members of "the public". What time and place do we live in? Dear UNDP! We know you can do much better on promoting gender equality, so why not flaunt it and show at least equal numbers of male and female decision-makers in your PR materials?