Alberto Minujin: Putting Children into Poverty Statistics

This paper was presented at the Third Meeting of the Expert Group on Poverty Statistics in Lisbon, Portugal from 22 – 24 November, 1999. It discusses the relation between children and poverty and its measurement. It first considers the “1 Dollar a day”, the “Poverty Line” and the “Basic Needs” measurements. Then, it looks at the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the commitments and goals set up at World Summit for Children (WSC) are introduced. The thematic clusters adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child to follow up the implementation of the CRC and the general principles of the CRC are used to present a general analysis of information and sources. Finally, the document presents the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) developed by UNICEF at the mid-decade to assess progress in the achievement of the WSC goals, and recently updated for the “end-decade” review process.