Deputy governors to develop plans to tackle child poverty

Deputy governors from the 18 provinces met in Vientiane on Monday to reflect on the progress of the commitments made last year under the Lao Generation 2030 initiative, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The meeting discussed the deputy governors’ commitment to putting the convention into practice, specifically the development of context-specific commitments focused on reducing multi-dimensional child poverty at the subnational level through action plans and budgets.

Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office and Vice President of the National Commission for the Advancement of Women, Mothers and Children, Mr Alounkeo Kittikhoun, said “When assessing the overall situation in Laos, we can see that the country has made great strides in reducing poverty in the last decade. Recent data shows that monetary poverty is currently at 18 percent and the number of children living in these households is about 17 percent.”
“However, there are still many more things we need to do to address child poverty so this meeting is important, as are the action plans to be implemented at the provincial level.”
According to the 2018 Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis, 88 percent of children under 18 years of age are multi-dimensionally deprived, meaning they suffer from more than one form of poverty.
Seventy percent of children suffer from at least two deprivations and 50 percent suffer from three or more deprivations in nutrition, health, education, early childhood development, child protection, water, sanitation, housing, or access to information.
During the meeting, a representative of the participants said the data indicates that the most vulnerable children are those living in rural areas with limited road access, children of mothers with little or no education, children from non-Lao-Tai ethno-linguistic groups, and children from households in the poorest groups.
With this in mind it is necessary to develop specific plans for each province and allocate resources to make them a reality and this has to be done involving children.
At the provincial level, the highest rates and intensity of multidimensional deprivation is found in the provinces of Phongsaly, Savannakhet, Saravan, Xekong and Xaysomboun. Vientiane has the lowest rates and intensity of multidimensional deprivation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected children disproportionally. In Laos, during the lockdown, far too many children were deprived of education, health and immunisation services were affected, and the livelihoods of many families have been jeopardised due to the economic impact of the pandemic.
UNICEF Representative to Laos Dr Pia Rebello Britto said “Our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their multispectral nature begs for a multidisciplinary approach to ensure that we can reduce poverty in all its dimensions by half by the year 2030.”
“Furthermore, SDGs on early childhood development and addressing violence against children will enable us to meet our commitments to children while achieving these goals. By investing in children’s future, we are also investing in human capital and subsequently the prosperity of Laos,” she added.

ByTimes Reporters
(Latest Update November 24, 2020)