Global study on child poverty and disparities : the case of the Philippines

This country report has come up with very significant findings that can directly feed into the design of development interventions in the country. Among others, it has provided a profile of the poor Filipino child and discovered the fact that although income poverty among children in general has improved over the years, recent estimates show that there are more poor Filipino children at present than a few years back. It was able to establish that income indicators alone could not capture the actual conditions of well-being, and on the flipside, the details of deprivations of the Filipino child. Under the five pillars of well-being are various measures that could be useful in providing insights about the conditions and challenges faced by the Filipino child. The report also highlighted that beyond disparities surrounding income and gender characteristics, there are significant differences in the condition of children across the regions of the country. Based on data presented, it has become clear that the regions of ARMM, Bicol, Western Visayas, MIMAROPA, and SOCCSKSARGEN are the worse-off localities in the country in terms of the multiple indicators of child poverty. Armed with this information, location-specific policies, resource allocation, and programmatic priorities can be established. All these information-including the macroeconomic context by which the well-being of the Filipino child is being shaped, and the rights-based approach to attacking child poverty as framework-serve as building blocks toward laying down the pathways to promoting child well-being. All the mechanisms that were proposed and discussed make use of infrastructures already in place while calling for synergistic relationships among the duty-bearers.