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A companion to the Child Friendly Schools Manual, this module provides guidance to policymakers, educators, programme professionals and practitioners on how to promote holistic early learning and development. It can be used in several ways, including: as a resource document for early childhood programmes, preparing children and families for primary school entry; and as an advocacy document for promoting school readiness practices in the transition to the early grades of primary school. It is intended as general guidance adaptable to particular contexts and settings.

"WASH in Schools aims to support the provision of safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities, and promotes lifelong health for children and their families...This guidebook is a resource for those involved in teaching and working with children in emergency preparedness, during an emergency and throughout the recovery period. It provides simple strategies for use and adaptation with all children and families to ensure a smooth and healthy transition to a healthy and accessible learning environment...The guidebook provides the information needed to ensure that every child knows about water, sanitation and hygiene. It is not a technical book about installing taps and building toilets. Instead it provides guidance on safe WASH behaviours that help children, families and teachers stay healthy and avoid life threatening diseases. Every emergency and child-friendly space or school is different, so the suggestions and ideas provided should be adapted to suit the local situation"
Note: a book of flashcards is available as a companion to the guidebook. Although this guidebook’s pictures were created for the Africa region, flashcard sets for Asia and Latin America are also available from the website

This report highlights the state of the world from a young perspective by reflecting on adolescents’ experiences and providing insights into their lives. The report contains essays and messages written by adolescents highlighting the impact of racial and other discriminations. This resource is useful for people interested in adolescents’ perspectives of the world

This toolkit "provides a broadly accepted definition of advocacy and underscores UNICEF’s unique position and experience in advocacy. The heart of the Toolkit provides detailed steps, guidance and tools for developing and implementing an advocacy strategy. The Toolkit also outlines eight foundational areas that can help strengthen an office’s capacity for advocacy, and covers several crosscutting aspects of advocacy including monitoring and evaluating advocacy, managing knowledge in advocacy, managing risks in advocacy, building relationships and securing partnerships for advocacy and working with children and young people in advocacy. Special focuses examine a variety of specific topics, including human rights and equity approaches to advocacy, theories of change, and conducting advocacy in humanitarian situations"

This report analyses findings on child discipline from 35 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in low and middle-income countries in 2005 and 2006. Questions on child discipline were addressed to the mother (or primary caregiver) of one randomly selected child aged 2-14 years in each household. The questionnaire asked whether any member of the household had used various disciplinary practices with that child during the past month. The survey covered eight violent disciplinary practices, some of which were psychological (such as shouting and name calling) while others were physical (such as shaking and hitting). The surveys also collected information on three nonviolent forms of discipline, such as explaining why a behaviour is wrong. Finally, interviewers asked the mother (or primary caregiver) about her or his personal beliefs regarding the need for physical punishment in child rearing"

This briefing document reviews examples of the progress that Africa has made in reaching the Accelerated Action Towards Africa Fit for Children 2008 - 2012 as adopted by the African Union and Member States in the agreed actions related to Enhancing Life Chances and Child Survival and looks at what more needs to be done. The commitment, "Enhancing Life Chances", entails strengthening health systems to provide quality maternal and child health services; scaling up essential interventions to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality and reduce neonatal mortality; scaling up a minimum package of proven child health interventions; and supporting family and community based actions that enhance children’s health, nutrition and well-being including potable water, improved sanitation and hygiene, appropriate young child feeding practices and food security measures

Data in this report show major signs of progress across Africa toward the UN goal for all endemic countries to achieve universal coverage with essential malaria control interventions by 31 December 2010, and indicate where further progress needs to be made

This report describes global and regional progress in reducing maternal mortality and provides the latest statistics on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 indicators for 192 countries and territories. Globally, the maternal mortality ratio declined from 430 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 400 in 2005, with significant regional disparities. The report examines differences in progress between regions and within regions and describes lifetime risk by region and country. Reductions in maternal mortality have come far too slowly, particularly in those regions where the problem is most acute (such as sub-Saharan Africa). Current progress is not sufficient to achieve the MDG target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. This lack of progress has an enormous impact on children