Argentina has the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America. Even so, poverty in the country continues to persist, affecting in particular the well-being of the nation’s children.

According to Sebastian Waisgrais, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, UNICEF Argentina, “The most deprived regions of the country are the province of Buenos Aires and the Northeast and Northwest provinces. Even in metropolitan Buenos Aires, an estimated four million Argentines live in poverty.”

To address this, UNICEF Argentina is actively collaborating with the National University of General Sarmiento, to help train Argentine provincial public officers in developing and implementing evidence-based public policies to help ensure child rights – all relying upon DevInfo as the key tool.

According to Waisgrais, the University was already involved in training national and provincial public officers in evidence-based policy-making, and had previously participated in the collection and development of child protection indicators. UNICEF Argentina has extensive experience training national partners in the use of DevInfo as a tool for planning, monitoring and decision-making in the area of child protection. As a result, this partnership between UNICEF and the University represents a unique synergy of their combined expertise and experience.

The second stage of the project involves three regional workshops to train public officials, researchers and NGO stakeholders working in child-related sectors on how to use the DevInfo database – both to monitor the situation of at-risk children and develop child-friendly policies in their localities. These workshops will be conducted in the country’s most deprived regions: the provinces of Buenos Aires, the Northeast and the Northwest.

Explains Waisgrais, “Our goal is to make stakeholders aware of the situation of children in the country, using DevInfo to equip public servants and other stakeholders with the tools to advocate for and protect needy children.”