Bridging the Gaps: Evidence and Action for Children’s Rights in the Philippines by UNICEF Philippines

Xavier Foulquier : As mentioned yesterday in my keynote speech you have seen all the data we have gathered and a lot of it was from secondary data but we are doing our own research also in UNICEF Philippines and we have been trying to bring some of this key research across sectors to you today. We thought of bringing cutting edge research so you will see very interesting methodology and findings that illustrate the challenges and opportunities in advancing child rights. 

We gathered our colleagues and internal members to know who wants to be in the selection panel because we could not bring everyone. We have over 20 research that is submitted internally to come to present and then we have selected the top 5. So I am happy that we have some colleagues and also some partner researchers that have conducted this research. We got much more than what we hope to bring you but all this research that we have mentioned yesterday is on the situationofchildren.org/ph website and then you can see the longitudinal cohort study that you learned and we have others that have presented yesterday and other research.

To start today, you will see that we have research focusing on nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, education and also child rights and business. So we got 5 papers so what we are going to do is we are going to take the first three research papers to present then take a break to have your questions and then we will go for the next batch.

To start today I would like to invite Dr. Mary Christine Castro, who is the executive director of the Nutrition Center of the Philippines.

Dr. Castro, as mentioned yesterday in my presentation, nutrition is a key issue in the Philippines and we have shown that the food environment is crucial to address the problem of nutrition. So Dr. Castro will be presenting on the Children’s live experience of the food environment and it is about understanding how the environment is crucial to better understand nutrition around. 

Dr. Castro : Thank you Xavier and good afternoon to everyone. I would like to thank the organizers of this event, the Philippine Social Science Council and UNICEF Philippines for the opportunity to present our study at this conference. 

As Xavier mentioned, the title of our study is Children’s live experience of the food environment in the Philippines, and I am presenting on behalf of our entire team – Ms. Fiona Watson and Dr. Corinna Hawkes, were consultants of UNICEF EAPRO, the regional office and UNICEF HQ in New York, respectively and the team from the Nutrition Center of the Philippines, consisted of Ms. Nikka Oliver, Cherry Maramag, and myself, and Ms. Alice Nkoroi and Ms. Maria Evelyn Carpio were part of the team from UNICEF Philippines, from the Nutrition section.

I will be presenting John, he is a 17 year old from Godod, Zamboanga del Norte. Is anyone here from the Zamboanga Peninsula? Godod is a fifth-class municipality in Zamboanga del Norte. So this is a qualitative study and we have 105 respondents. We conducted an individual in-depth interview of mothers of children 6 months to 10 years old, and also of some adolescents 11 to 18 years old. The focus group discussion included around 64 adolescents, 11 to 18 years old, and we also  did some direct observation of children 5 to 10 years old. So we watched them on two days throughout the day, one weekday and one weekend. Can you see the pictures? They are still wearing face shields. The data was collected in the first 6 months of 2021, during the time of the pandemic. 

So from the data that we collected, they were transcribed and then we identified themes, including the main themes we saw were high or frequent consumption of soft drink and instant foods, lack of a variant diet, low food consumption, So these are just examples of the themes. We identify what were the drivers of dietary intake. We included – was it knowledge, skills, income, assets, time or convenience or was it the food the product characteristics, such as physical access, price or promotion of the food products. And then we had an iterative process of drafting, discussing and reviewing until we came up with the final report.

So for the results and recommendations, I will be presenting them altogether. We are gong through one day in the life of John, in Godod, Zamboanga del Norte. So the profile is already a composite of adolescents in Godod kasi nga we had the focus group discussion, so there were several respondents but we came up with the composite profile. So John wakes up early in the morning to help his mother clean the house. Some of the adolescents also expressed that they had trouble sleeping during the pandemic because of their anxiety about their financial needs, whether they will be able to continue studying or not, so these thoughts were already affecting some of the children at that time. And then for breakfast after helping his mom clean the house John would have breakfast, as what you can see in the picture they usually eat fried fish, rice and vegetables, the usual staple in Mindanao including Zamboanga del Norte is corn, So he said that they only eat well-milled rice when they have enough money because corn is more affordable for their family. In Godod, there are around 68% of the families who live below the poverty line. So after breakfast, John goes to his grandma’s house. Since Godod is a small community, they have relatives who live nearby within the same purok. So on his way to his grandmother’s house, to help with her house, her house with some of his cousins– don sila mag me meet with his cousins, he passes by a sari sari store and sometimes buys biscuits, junk food, and soft drinks, if he has the money to buy them. 

So you can see the white text on the black bar, that is already a policy recommendation, because the children and adolescents are exposed to advertising, they are aware that these food such as chips and soda are unhealthy but they are tasty, affordable, and very accessible to them– so one of the recommendations is to support youth led advocacy campaigns to improve food environments, so we have to design the advocacy campaigns from the point of the perspective of the youth,

And then after leaving the house, on the picture on the left, he is with his cousins, they already finished cleaning their grandmother’s house. They spend their time using gadgets, watching some short video clips, scrolling social media and of course they are also exposed to the advertisements of unhealthy foods. So they have an early lunch since he had an early breakfast, they have an early lunch, sometimes they would go to their auntie’s house which is also nearby and if the aunty is their she prepares fried fish that is bought from the mobile vendors with some vegetables from her farm, but the aunty is not always there, so if the adolescents and children are left on their own they usually just cook instant noodles and sardines, that is their usual fair because they are cheap and easy to prepare. So this is also similar to the profile that we came up with a younger adolescent in Valenzuela City, so when her parents are also out either she cooks sardines and instant noodles or she buys hotdogs from the vendor. 

One of the policy recommendations with regards to what is related to this is to introduce mandatory frontal pack nutrition labelling on packaged foods. So there are some work being done at the moment in congress and in the senate to come up with a front of pack labelling and to regulate the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. So after he has lunch that is the time that John would sit down to do his studies, so their mode of learning during the COVID pandemic was modular, so students would have to work on their assignments themselves. They expressed that they try their best but it is hard and they expressed that they tried their best but it is hard and they usually end up wanting to nap and give up especially if they have difficulty with the topic that they are supposed to study. So when they gave up after a couple of hours, John went with his friends to the local town plaza– because in their own village, in their purok they have no basketball court, so they have to walk at least 30 minutes to an hour to get to the town plaza to play basketball. It was very interesting because at this time we contrasted the situation of the adolescents in Valenzuela city, and that time they were not yet allowed, and in the NCR the adolescents were not yet allowed to go out of their houses and play at this time. So this was actually an advantage for children in the provinces because even during the pandemic they were able to see their friends and socialize and play. And after they play they usually take snacks around 3pm, their usual snacks that are available are pack juices and bread, so mga tinapay that is found in the sari sari stores. So the policy recommendation that we identified from this is to protect and develop safe areas where children can play and do sports. 

At home, they have dinner in the evening again– with dried fish, vegetables and corn rice, sometimes with instant noodles for dinner. If they were lucky they could have chicken adobo with the chickens from their farm. So they do not buy the chickens but they grow them and they eat them when they are already adults. If you can see, John is imagining some fruit, papaya, but it is too expensive and hard to find. So what we saw was the supply chain and the infrastructure really affected the availability of fresh foods in rural areas. So the policy recommendation is to improve roads in rural areas and establish supply chains for fresh food. Hopefully, the roads that are built, the farm to market roads that are built do not meet the same fate as the flood control projects. 

And then after dinner, his father lets him play games on his cellphone and watch TV. So while watching TV or playing with his gadgets, again he is exposed to some advertisements of unhealthy foods and because the advertisements are very attractive to children, they are actually designed to make children aspire to eat these foods. The adolescents that we interviewed also expressed that, If I had money I would like to buy fried chicken from Jollibee. So again a policy recommendation related to this is to introduce mandatory legislation to restrict the marketing of unhealthy food to children.

If we leverage John’s lived experience and translate it to policy solutions, ito yung main points. The complexity of the drivers of the food choice requires solutions in different systems. So we saw infrastructure, education, food environment, the food system itself, these are all outside the health system but they also need to be addressed to improve the food environments of children. Secondly, major improvements in the built infrastructure system and food supply chain are needed to improve access to availability of fresh produce even in rural areas, which is actually strange because you would expect to have the fresh produce in rural areas but it is not always present, and this one continued to play an important role in the food choice, nutrition and education should include parents and caregivers.

So thank you, from John and the whole team, and I will put the link where you can access the whole report. Magandang hapon po sa inyo. 

Xavier Foulquier :  Thank you very much, Dr. Castro. So this first research shows the importance of the food environment and I think there was a session at the end of yesterday that discussed a lot of similar topics. The other thing for researchers that we want to highlight is to make their research available to policymakers. We need to make it accessible and storytelling as demonstrated by Dr. Castro is a great way to do it and we want research that is about children, for children, with children. It is about telling the story of the child and their experience to enframing policy recommendations within that, it is always a challenge as researcher how we communicate our research and this is an example that we want to showcase on this really important topic so thank you very much, Dr. Castro.

The next presentation is another very interesting research that has been done. I would like to invite Mr. Steven Walker, senior manager, and Ms. Mia Jeong, Director of IDinsight, Manila office to present evidence that has been generated from a cluster of randomized trials on nudging hand washing among primary school students in the Philippines. This has been the work that has been going on for some time and is very interesting in terms of methodology and in terms of results as well. So, Mia, Steven, over to you.

Ms. Jeong: Thank you, Xavier. Today, we are very happy to present evidence with a study that we conducted with UNICEF on how easy, simple nudges can improve handwashing among Filipino students. This study shows how simple, low cost, innovative, behavioural insight can help protect children’s right to health and well-being. In IDINSIGHT, we help leaders to design better policies, vigorously test what works and scale what works well. And in this project, we had the privilege of working closely with UNICEF, who had shown strong commitment for translating evidence into policy and programs

Today, we will cover intervention, our evaluation design, and our findings around handwashing rates, availability of facilities, nudge implication, and finally, implications for policies and practice. 

So, handwashing is one of the easiest, cheapest, most effective ways of preventing disease. Yet less than 10% of children reported washing their hands at critical times; before eating and after toilet use. When we asked children why, knowledge was not the key barrier. They knew why hand washing matters, but they simply forgot or were in a rush. So, we asked, what if we design the environment so that handwashing becomes easier to remember and also more appealing. Hence, here comes the concept of nudge; the choice architecture that changes people’s behaviour in a predictable way. So, it is simply making the good choice, the most obvious and easy choice.

So, we use two types of nudges; choice architecture, which changes the physical environment to make handwashing more obvious, harder to miss, and; the visible signage is a physical queue that works on motivation and the memory. 

So, these are the nudges that we installed at school. You can see that there are colourful footprints leading from the toilet to the sink, and there was also a poster showing the steps of hand washing. And then, there was an arrow directly pointing at the soap, and this is an interesting one–eye. We also installed a sticker of watchful eyes, creating a sense of being observed. And there was also a soap dish, giving soap a dedicated and visible place. 

We will look into the evaluation design. We asked maybe three questions; Do behaviour nudges increase the rate of handwashing with soap after toilet use at school? Do they also increase children’s access to handwashing facilities with soap? Were the nudges installed and working as intended? These three questions help us not only to measure impact but also to understand the practicality and sustainability of intervention. 

And to rigorously measure impact, we conducted a cluster randomised-controlled trial, often called RCT. And in Zamboanga Del Norte, 132 schools were randomly selected, 66 schools in the treatment group, meaning they received nudges, and another 66 schools in the control group who did not receive nudges. The nudges were installed in October 2019, and we collected data in February 2020, so, four months. And the enumerators directly observed those changes in all 132 schools. I will pass it on to Steven for findings. 

Mr. Walker: Great, so, we will present the findings and the order of the three research questions that we presented just a moment ago. So, first on the impact of the nudges on handwashing, we did find a positive impact in treatment schools. For handwashing with soap, presented on the left, you can see that there was a 17% point increase between treatment and control schools. It was even higher when we measured just whether or not they were washing their hands with water alone, 25.6 percentage points. We also broke  this down to look at differences across subgroups. So, first we looked across grade levels to see if older students or younger students had any differences in their rates of handwashing—we found no. So, on the left, we present younger students in grades 1-3 and on the right, older students in grades 4-6. And improvements in handwashing were the same for both of them, which is a good sign. It means that the experiences of older and younger students are relatively the same.

We also look at gender, but the same thing here. We looked at differences for boys and girls and the findings were the same. There was no statistically significant difference across boys and girls or the change in handwashing rates. 

Moving in to the second question on the availability of facilities, we—in some, we found that nudges increase students access to functional facilities near toilets, specifically on the right, we found that in the treatment schools, they did endline data collection, have higher access to functional handwashing facilities with soap, which I will explain.

The increase in facilities access was driven by higher stored water availability. So, what this means is that between controlled schools and treatment schools, for the schools that had stored water, so not like faucets but more manual containers that were refilled, those schools had higher access to handwashing facilities at the endline. The reason being is that in addition to increased behaviour change of handwashing through the nudges, it also encouraged teachers and other school staff to help ensure that materials were available for students to wash hands compared to schools that just had functional faucets. There are other infrastructure and other challenges there that led to no statistically significant differences across schools. 

Lastly, for nudge implementation, we looked at some process-related elements. So, at endline, we —this is four months after the nudges were installed, the posters, the eyes, etc., we also made sure to see whether or not those nudges were still in place. And we found that for most schools, they were still present, with exception of the poster, there were some that had degraded over time, but for the most part, all of the nudges were still in schools. And all of them remained in good condition, again, except in some schools for the footprints. These are some examples of the condition of the nudges at the 4-month period. We consider them in bad condition if they were no longer able to be fully used. So, you can see that for the footprints that are rated fair, you can still see that they somewhat degrade over time, and same thing with the posters. They begin to get dirty, they can fall off the wall, etc.

We followed up the data collection with a number of qualitative interviews as well to ask students and teachers what their experiences were of the nudges and overall the responses were quite positive. Both students and teachers approved of them and believed that they contributed towards school improvements that benefitted students. So, they were quite happy to have them in the school.

We also asked for some feedback as well if there are any improvements that they would recommend if these nudges were to be used in the future, and they did give us some helpful feedback. So, for a lot of them, they recommended using different paint or different colours for the printed materials, for example they recommended laminating them so that they are more durable and will last for a longer period of time. 

The last slide here is just to mention the cost. So, one of the largest benefits of this intervention is just how cost-effective it is to do. So, for all of the interventions compiled, the total cost was around 3,400 pesos. And we expect that these will need to be touched up or updated, maybe, every six months. But, still, for the increase in handwashing of roughly 17% points and how low cost these nudges are, we consider it to be a solid investment. 

Ms. Jeong: So, to summarise, the nudges helped improve the school handwashing with soap rate by 17% point. And then they also increased access to functional facilities with soap by 20%, meaning, as Steven mentioned, they brought behaviour changes beyond the handwashing itself. And the effects lasted about over four months. The nudges were low cost, scalable, and also very well-received by educators and students. 

So, we have some recommendations. We also have different sets of recommendations, but it is important to note that the nudges do not replace infrastructure. They work best as compliments when the basic conditions are met. Those conditions include:  Reasonable ratio pupil to toilet ratio, availability to functioning handwashing stations as well.

So based on this research, we came up with three key recommendations. First one is that the logic interventions to be scaled as part of a holistic package that include other programs to improve wash knowledge infrastructures at schools, meaning do not isolate, but embed them, integrate them. Secondly, we recommend the nudges to be adapted to fit local context while retaining those tested designs. And the third, this was a recommendation that during the pandemic time, so, we recommended that nudges be included in the school improvement plans as well as a COVID response. 

Thank you very much for listening. 

Xavier Foulquier: Thank you Mia and Steven. A very interesting presentation here where we introduced an interesting intervention, which were the nudges and which  is the experience—understanding the experience of children’s life like their environment and like how we incentivise change of behaviour. But also, methodological claims in terms of research and randomised controlled trials, we know that these are very the gold standard when we can do it and like you know, how it just really demonstrates like the impact of an intervention.

So, moving on to the third presentation, which is different. UNICEF has been working more and more, and we know the importance of the private sector in the realization of child rights and UNICEF in our country’s program. We are also focusing on a country like the Philippines where there is a growing influential private sector and how do we work on child rights and business and that is the topic of the next presentation. So, my colleague, Ernesto “Nonoy” Castiple will be discussing “Why Children Matter in the Sustainability Reports of Publicly Listed Companies” His presentation underscores the role of the private sector in advancing child rights for sustainable development. 

Mr. Castiple: Thank you, Thank you Xavier. To those who have seen me in the concert last night, this is a very different Nonoy. Okay. So, yesterday, we had the privilege of listening to one panel session that talked about the link of social science research to industry development. If you remember the shoe industry yesterday, the flower farms and then the urban gardening in Baguio. And earlier this afternoon, there was a mention about the thought of labelling packaging for nutrition products and even wash facilities. These are all linked to efforts of the private sector. So, the question really is, where is social science in the social science research, in the spectrum of understanding private sector relationships?This afternoon, give me your time in terms of linking social science and then private sector initiative through the UN guiding principles for business and human rights, which was launched in 2012, and then the child and business principles. To know more about the challenges and business principles, you would see the 10 principles. Look at the QR code and there are tools there that are very relevant for the discussion this afternoon. 

Because we need to storify the child in the context of—picture this one: Nene is a young girl from Mindanao. She lives in the middle of a palm oil plantation industry where the very big private company owning palm oil is basically there. This is fictional, not real. She lives in a house located in the middle of this industry, bordering two different regions. Her parents are palm tree farmers working for a middle-man that delivers palm tree fruits to a nearby milling station. Her younger brother, 11, and older brother, 15, help her parents in harvesting palm tree fruits. Her school is a 4 km walk and the nearest barangay health centre is around 4kms. The river near them usually overflows with floods during the rainy season. They could not grow vegetables because of the pesticides and insecticides used for palm oil industries.

So, we then look at this one in the context of what are basically the child rights deprivations based on the story of Nene, and that is your 30 seconds to look at. Having said that, we did dive into, maybe let us look at one aspect of the whole spectrum of challenges in business and really look into the largest of the companies in the Philippines called publicly listed companies. There are almost three hundred of them. In late of 2024, we reviewed 86 of the PLC’s report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission into the Philippines tax exchange, and we develop a study called, “Investing the Future: Why do Children Matter in Public Listed Companies Sustainability Reports” 

The objective of the study is to look at established evidence on how children’s rights are reflected in the sustainability reports and of course the integration of children’s rights into business policies legislation and responsible business conduct. If you are familiar with ESG reports for companies, this is basically environment, social, and then governance reporting mechanisms. What it looks like is basically financial in nature, the dual materiality of the reports really looks into what we call the social aspect of the ESG mechanisms.

 I talked with some of our colleagues here yesterday. We talked about, maybe reflect about what we call social return of investment and social cost of investment. The definition of the UN guided principles for business and human rights and CRB says that the government is duty bound to protect children’s rights. The private sector is duty bound to respect children’s rights. But, both the government and private sector basically have the role to provide judicial and non-judicial remedies for children. 

This is to also look at, children are everywhere in business. So, children are either; (1) consumers of products and services, and; (2) they can also be workers because of the young work and mechanism—of course we do not want child labour in the space. They are also present in the workplaces through their guardians and parents, and they are also basically part of the community affected by the impact of businesses. 

A little bit of disclaimer, when you see samples of companies being shown on the screen later, this does not necessarily mean that we endorse them. This is just, basically, recognising that they are doing something in the space of sustainability reporting in the country. This is basically our methodology that I already mentioned earlier. 30% of the entire PLCs in the country and also deep dive into all the 10 principles of child rights in business, and then we look at, basically, what we call the due diligence mechanism for child rights in the private sector. We rated them whether they literally, explicitly, mentioned children and children’s rights in their mechanisms for sustainability, whether it is implicit or there is no evidence at all that mentions that. 

This is basically qualitative and deep dive describing the process. A very very first in the country. That is why this is also an opportunity to look at social scientists and social researchers looking into the economic blend and the social blend of environment, social, and governance pillars in the sustainability mechanisms of the private sector. Just note, corporate social responsibility is, yes, linked to corporate sustainability, but it does not mean that they are basically corporate sustainability. 

Industry profile, we looked at 60% of what we call EVGD, or economic value generated of the companies and also looking into this profile now it is a little bit biased, looking into what is basically the government priority industry mechanisms for the years. That is your tech, transport construction, etc., around 8 of them, and also looking into what is basically, what we call the high risk for children in terms of business relationships. 

Here are the main five results of the study. First is children’s rights are rarely explicitly addressed in corporate sustainability reports. The reason being is because oftentimes when we talk to businesses, they will say there is no financial materiality of children in the company, and they would say, you know, children are not our direct consumer for this product and services. So, that is basically one. 

The other one would be, there is a positive effort that exists, especially that is linked to the UN SDGs, and oftentimes linked to CSRs, but again CSRs are, yes, linked to corporate sustainability, but that does not necessarily mean they are sustainability as a whole. 

The third one is basically the most common thinking about child business and every adult child labour, but CRPP is beyond child labour. Yes, principle number 2 of  CRPP is child labour, but you look at markets, security, environmental protection, climate impact, marketing, labelling, etc., and work places mechanisms. 

Fourth, is that companies are more likely to see their children’s rights when they are basically directly impacted based on their sustainability mechanisms. 

Having said that, these are basically the summary of what we call in terms of the foundations of principle number one. If you see greens there, there is basically no evidence at all showing that space. There one was also looking into child rights that are really showing up in company commitments, like is there a stakeholders mechanism to engage children for development. For example, development of gaming now for children, basically the children are rarely consulted in the process. The other one was also basically about—we lack focus on childless risk and materiality assessments because companies would say this is immaterial for us, but in the context of global materiality, then that does have, in terms of social return of investments. A few weeks ago, I was part of the team that produced department order 149, which looks at the hazardous work for children in the workplaces. These are basically examples of that. 

Positive efforts are basically in the context of child labour compliance, but within the large company, yes, but within the supply and demand chain, no. For example, one of the biggest pineapple industry in the country is zero child labour at the main company, but the farming mechanism is a different story, same with coffee and other products. 

This is basically the favourite of everyone on SDG reporting. Everybody reports on SDG in a way, but basically still around 12% with no direct evidence that connects SDGs and children’s rights. The CSR program is the most favorite, but sometimes there are disconnects in CSR programs, like your company is working on electricity and then the CSR program is giving school supplies. Corporate sustainability would mean the link of your products and services to your sustainability. I mean, nothing is wrong with that, but the link should have to be seen. 

Again, a little bit of disclaimer, these are good examples that we have seen on the ground now. And then basically, this is also the context of child labour the we already talked about. And then, there is basically limited disclosure for security arrangements for children. Security does not only mean security in the context of “security” in the layman’s term, but this is basically safety and welfare of children for exposure to products, risks, and services and approaches. 

And then, there is the role mentioned about looking into where children are in the context of land acquisition. This is basically displacement to health, displacement to education because of a big company being created or established in the area. 

This one really focused on what we call children as direct or indirect consumers of products and services. And my favourite is, obviously, technology where children would now have cellphones, etc. There’s a battle between legal, in terms of compliance and product manufacturing  in terms of design. So, that is what we see now in terms of this exposure to children being direct or indirect consumers of products and services. 

This one is safety that I already mentioned a lot earlier and this is basically regulatory standards. Our concerns with regulatory standards is when you bring it to financing. For example, we have a battle between when the financing for children that fits to a site or when basically buying online products and services does not—like there is a long broad line in terms of this one.

Having said that, I would like to give back to the recommendation I have for the social scientist because this is your space this afternoon. So, there are a lot of tools that have challenges in business. We would like to look into—deep dive into economics, social dividends, social impact, and ESG. We look into certain examples. So, one would be, there is a tool that we call a child’s impact assessment. You can look at whether that would be your industry in your LGUs,, but that would be an individual company. We also look at reviews of policies and programs that link to social return of investment and research and emerging innovative industries like ICT digital and creative industry in general. And, of course, to look at the, what we call the mandatory human rights due diligence in the context of the implementation of the UN guiding principles for business and human rights.

To know about the basic, specific methodologies and tools that link social sciences and private sector mechanisms, this is the QR code for this one. Maraming maraming salamat po and magandang hapon sa ating lahat. 

——————————————- Q&A Portion —————————————————-

Xavier Foulquier : Thank you, so a big round of applause for our three presenters and interesting research. Thank you Dr. Castro, Nonoy, Mia and Steven. So how are we doing? We have two more presenters for this session.

So we have two more very interesting research and two of my colleagues are here today. SO in this second batch, for our first presentation we have Mr. Nicholas “Nicki” Tenazas, our education colleague who is going to come to share a very interesting research about the impact of COVID 19 on learning across different sub populations in the Philippines. We know that COVID had a huge impact on all of us and especially children, and on children’s money. So one of the things that we are looking at as UNICEF is, what is the learning loss? How many children have loss of learning in the category? So that has been the subject of that analysis and I will hand it over to Nicki to share.

Mr. Nicholas “Nicki” Tenazas : Thank you, Xavier. Good afternoon. Let me destroy your afternoon kasi the results are not so good but the study we conducted we did it with a very credible or a very famous research firm, the Australian council for Education Research based in Australia and it was an offshoot of the previous study that we did before the pandemic. So let me give you the background. 

These are the research questions. We all went through the pandemic, everybody at that time was calling it the new normal but I think we are back to the real normal. We are not doing the same protocol anymore, we are not as cautious as that was not the real new normal so we are back to the real normal. But these are the survey questions. These are our research questions. We wanted to find out how much was lost during the pandemic. You can imagine if you had relatives or kids or grandkids at that time, they were having trouble with their educational experiences. So let me give you the rundown of the results at that period.

So methodology first, we conducted UNICEF– the early childhood, kindergarten to grade four longitudinal study. So in that study we collected data from over 3000 kids and we followed them over a series of years. So you would see here, since the start of kindergarten we followed them until the end of Grade four. This is the first main message. This one was done before the pandemic and it already showed a learning crisis even without the pandemic, so that is the first message that I want to give. But, we realized that when the pandemic struck we could use that data set with the series of statistical flexibility and mind bending to give you a picture of what happened during COVID as well.

So methodology, from that data we wanted to make sure–essentially we are having a different perspective on the data because the first collection of the data has a different purpose and this time we are using it for the pandemic, so we want to make sure that we are doing something right and when we release the results then it is really comparable and representative of the thing. Later if you want some details on the methodology we can discuss, but I feel that the results would be more interesting. Just one last thing before we go is that it is very important for all researchers. I see a lot of young people here. When you present your research, make sure you present the limitations. At the beginning you may say that this is limited by so and so, but at the end when you give your recommendations to many people they generalize for everyone. So the problem is they forget what your sampling and methodology was for, so you need to make sure that it is really for that specific purpose when you claim and recommend something. 

Let me help you understand the graph. The green line shows you the results before the pandemic, even without COVID, what do you see? Grade 4 students are graduating Grade 4 with only grade 3 competencies before the pandemic, again before the pandemic. And it is even worst in BARMM, the orange line is in BARMM. You need to understand that BARMM has a special place for UNICEF. We even have a dedicated office for that one because a lot of the deprivations in the child rights are really in BARMM also, we have dedicated personnel in BARMM. But for the orange line, compare the orange line with the green line, even without the pandemic BARMM is faring a lot worse. They are graduating with grade 1 or beginning of grade 2 competencies by the end of grade 4. Now, COVID happened, if the child started education when COVID started, so kinder when it was the pandemic we can expect that–look at the violet one, you can expect them to not even reach grade 3 competencies by the end of grade 4 because of the pandemic. So status quo, we are already losing one whole school year without the pandemic and then the pandemic happened another year school year has lost learning to someone who started schooling during the pandemic. Can you imagine being kinder at that time when you have to socialize, to learn the letters and to start your fine motor skills, you hold the pencil and whatever, you are doing it online or you are not doing it or you are just at home? So that is the situation. And lastly for BARMM, of course they are staying at kindergarten level by the end of Grade 4. So summary of that is this one, that is the second message, The pandemic really set us back at least one more academic year. You can just imagine if we extend that graph to grade 5, 6, 7. How it will dip and how far away we are from learning Grade 12 competencies by the time you graduate, maybe just reach grade 7 competencies. We do not know, that is a different study altogether.

Similarly for math, the results are the same. So that is the main finding for mathematics. In the past we were reaching up to grade 3 when there was no Covid yet, but with COVID the purple line we are just one academic year below but it means two academic years below standard when you should be learning grade 4 competencies you are still at grade 2 competencies. So this led us to really sound the alarm bells in terms of the learning crisis and things like this. So this is the summary for mathematics. I think you will get a copy of this one. 

Just to highlight the importance of kindergarten. Key point number three is sound bike levels, even if the kindergarten is so bad quality it is still better to go than to not go. Even if you say that kindergarten, the daycare center–daycare and child development center even if it looks really bad, the teacher is not so good, it is still better to bring them there than to keep them at home. That is the sound bike that you can take away from this one. So the idea is to really improve the early childhood education because you can see a lot of significant differences in the performance during COVID.

And then lastly, in terms of social economic factors, this is no surprise. The ones who are a bit well resourced perform better because they have resources at home, they have a support structure–they perform better. The ones with low economic status, even before they get to kindergarten they have to experience multiple disadvantages and multiple problems in their life. Maybe when they get there, they are already stunted, when they get there, they have already been abused. So, it comes with the concept of being in a lower economic status. The point really is, what can the education system do so that these disadvantaged kids can catch up? Because currently the system just gives you the information, gives you the education at the same pace. If you came in at disadvantage baka at the end you will still be at a disadvantage, if you came in with an advantage you will graduate with an advantage, it is the same. But the disadvantages will never catch up to the ones who started out with advantages. So the question is what do we do inside these 12-13 years, what can we do so that the disadvantage can catch up? 

And lastly, in terms of recommendation. Number 1 recommendation is that we need catch up programs. In  the past couple of years we have been advocating for catch up programs and then concepts of teaching at the right level and one the results of that advocacy was that aral law which now institutionalizes learning recovery concepts in different modalities. Number 2, what do we do? In our own fundraising activities, our own project proposals to different funders we prioritize the ones in grade 4-6, so that those kids who started their learning during the pandemic we can still catch them before they graduate grade 6. For many of them grade 6 is the last level they will have in education. Our projects model interventions that really try to catch them before they leave the system and lastly it is very important to have continuous assessment so that we know the progress and one thing that we always follow is that if you want to measure change do not change the measure. So what we are doing is we are using the international standards. If you see the levels at the left, that one is coded or equivalent to PISA and CPM levels so that we know where we are even in an international scale. Happy to answer questions later on those key findings, thank you.

Xavier Foulquier : Thank you very much, Nicki. A very interesting research and this is taking advantage of research that was already conducted. Remember yesterday when I presented data on education and the importance of launching college study that we have done to indicate the importance of early childhood and its impact on children on grade five performance. That is a study that was used and the findings were used to come up with this study. So repurposing some of the research and expanding it to understand the impact of COVID and very worrying results and how do we catch up, so thank you very much Nicki. 

The last presentation is another one on nutrition and a very interesting one, this is one of the biggest research we are doing at the moment for UNICEF, the government has Philippine multisector nutrition project, which is projects that some work has done in the past and it is 117 million dollars project in 255 municipalities, we would like to know more about this but we are working with DOH to join impact evaluation of this program. 2375 municipalities scale, imagine data collection we are not doing–we are doing sampling of this. But this we are in the middle, we are about to contact the midline assessment and they will present us the research from the baseline, midline and endline research. Dr. Castro and NCP was involved in the landscape analysis and another–if you want to know more to take advantage of Dr. Castro, a lot of research we collaborated on that one as well. So I will hand it over to Vilma Aquino.

Vilma Aquino : Thank you, Xavier. Magandang hapon sa ating lahat. So as mentioned by Xavier, I will be sharing this afternoon the findings from the baseline evaluation of the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project. So this evaluation is actually more of an impact evaluation, was commissioned by the Department of Health and is being conducted by UNICEF and its contractor is the American Institute for Research. Just to provide a brief background, we know that malnutrition ng children in the Philippines is still high. This survey 2023 NMS showed that stunting, short for age; “bansot” or kulang sa tangkad. Stunting continues to affect 2 in every 10 Filipino children under five years old, 23.6%.  For WHO standard this is considered high prevalence and in fact, the Philippines is one of the 10 countries in the world with the highest stunting rate. To address this concern, the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project, I will call it PMNP from Daon, is implemented and was launched in 2022, this is a government-led initiative to respond to the issue of childhood stunting through nutrition specific, nutrition sensitive and social behavioral change intervention passage. This is a four year project and this is a full leadership by the Department of Health for the Nutrition specific interventions and with the Department of Social Welfare and Development for the nutrition sensitive intervention and as mentioned by Xavier this was supported by World Bank Financing. This is being implemented in 275 municipalities across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The municipalities were selected based on their level of stunting, syempre po yung highest stunting rate in the country sila po yung napili with high poverty rate as well and this includes BARMM municipalities.

Going back to the evaluation, as I mentioned we were commissioned by DOH to conduct evaluation of this big project. The aim of the evaluation is basically to establish quantitatively the impact of the PMNP to the nutrition and health outcomes which are known as the determinants in stunting. These nutrition outcomes include these 5 major indicators. These are the minimum acceptable diet of children 6-23 months old, iron folic acid supplementation, prenatal care services for pregnant women, convergence of those priority nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions in the household level and access to improved toilets for eligible households. All of these five leader indicators are being looked into just to see whether the project as big as this PMNP has really had an impact on the nutrition outcomes. The second aim of the evaluation is to provide evidence based recommendations to inform the improvement of this project and at the same time inform the scalability of the project in the next years 

So we will do baseline u to endline and later I will discuss this more. In terms of evaluation design, the evaluation is applying a mixed method approach which is a quasi-experimental design, we also have a treatment and control group in PMNP and non PMNP sites. Comparing those sites from baseline to endline and see the difference between two parts. Basically we are using different approaches. For the baseline data, the findings of that baseline is what I am going to present today. This was conducted in October last year and it covered 3000 households to generate the quantitative data across the 75 batch municipal pairs from PMNP and non PMNP municipalities. We sample 75 municipalities among the 275 project areas and another set of 75 municipalities in non PMNP areas to ensure that those match have the same profiles so that we can compare the results later. With this quantitative data collection from these 3000 households, we complemented it with quantitative insights across 6 municipalities and we conducted 40 FGDs–focused group discussions–and 30 KIIs. The baseline findings, in terms of relevance and coherence of this PMNP project, this review, shows that PMNP is indeed a highly relevant project and it is perceived as a highly relevant project by stakeholders. Basically the DOH, the Department of Social Welfare and Development and region province municipality and barangay so it is highly relevant because of its focus in improving the early care and development, and water and sanitation hygiene infrastructure and by providing mechanisms for the implementation of local nutrition and action plans at the municipal levels. So, the project was also highly appreciated because it is applying multisectoral approach paired with capacity building among all the duty bearers with financial resources as well to strengthen service delivery at the local level and also it was based on the desk review, the PMNP is also aligned with existing national government policies such as the first 1000 days law, the Philippine action plan for nutrition and DSWD’s strategy map which is  helping the protocols of outline in the policy.

However, despite these positive findings there are key findings as well on some concerns about how to properly harmonize all the PMNP components as it is very important that the local levels because it is where convergence happens and of course, there are also demonstrations of service providers demonstrating prejudice or unfamiliarity in working with the most marginalized groups such as the IP population and people with disability. 

In terms of the characteristics of findings from the households, the average household has about six members, mainly catholic, 3% of the members are within the IP community and 16% of the household are considered part of the 4Ps beneficiaries. So this households, majority of them own a cellphone, 91% of them owned a cellphone but then only 47% of them own the television and 24% of them own the radio, which suggests that basically the samples are of higher level of poverty compared to that national average and most households as well reported experiencing some level of food insecurity in the past 4 weeks and 30% of them were categorized as stress moderately food insecurity. In terms of the water sanitation and findings, 94% of them have access to an improved sanitation facility but still 60% of them practice open defecation. In terms of maternal outcomes, this is from the mother’s repondents, almost all the mothers receive at least some prenatal care with 70% attending the first visit in the first semester. However only 37% of them received the WHO recommended antenatal care. 90% as well of mothers reported receiving Iron Folic Acid supplementation but then qualitative findings suggest that women did not consistently utilize the deworming tablets, so because of no information or lack of information on the benefits of deworming and less than one third of our women attended post natal services. So high antenatal care, but post natal care is really very low. 

In terms of the knowledge of breast feeding it is also high knowledge on breastfeeding for children but then 90% of mothers also understood the health benefits consuming fruits, vegetables and iron rich foods. But despite this food nutrition language, only half of mothers in the sample satisfied the minimum diet diversity requirement. So mahina po yung quality of diet. For the children, we have 3000 children in the sample, children showed moderate use of health services and most children followed vaccinations schedules although they are considerable for improvements. 62% of them are exclusively breastfeed, this is higher than the national average of 50%. In terms of the quality of the intake the survey baseline shows that although the minimum frequency and energy intake is high, the quality of diet intake is very poor. So only 41% satisfied the minimum dietary diversity threshold and 31% consumed the minimum acceptable diet. 

In terms of anthropometrics, these are the measurements on looking into not the status of kids but these are looking at the weights and heights of children, the findings showed 25% of our sample children are stunted so halos pareho sya sa national average.  

Now the recommendations. These are basically the recommendations for DOH and DSWD levels at all levels and hopefully they were looking to this point when (inaudible) implemented. First PMNP could explore alternative ways to provide iron supplementation to pregnant women to address the issue of bad smell and unappealing to many women. So sana po maayos yun and also to strengthen the supply of key inputs like vitamins and vaccinations in health centers particularly in rural health areas, and madami pong stockouts in the rural areas. And also prioritize provision of post natal support, masyadong mababa ang post natal support and also strengthen the capacity building activities for service providers to be able to provide appropriate and culturally sensitive services to marginalized groups such as the IPs and people with disability. Lastly is to to reinforce practice of deworming during pregnancy and also explore coordination of convergence with existing health services such as family planning which are known as a great vehicle for improving reproductive health outcome. And also continue to emphasize additional efforts towards achieving zero defecation, open defecation kagaya ng kanina, 60% pa po ng households are practicing open defecation and also support activities that bring pregnant women and mothers together to share knowledge and experiences related to pregnancy, ICF and childrearing. And lastly considering that 91% of households own cellphones, prioritize program related messaging through the cellphones. So I think that’s it for my presentation. Thank you so much.