Setting priorities for Angola’s youth

Genesis Analytics was contracted by UNICEF Angola to conduct a Situation Analysis (SitAn) of Children and Adolescents in Angola.

The SitAn of children’s rights and well-being is a UNICEF flagship product designed to inform policy dialogue, partnerships and interventions to improve the lives of children. It is an assessment and analysis of a country’s situation with respect to children’s rights and critical issues affecting their realisation.

Angola and UNICEF are developing the priorities of the new Country Programme (2024-2027), and this assignment was necessary to provide new and robust evidence about the situation of children and adolescents in Angola, to inform programme decisions, guide policy advocacy and partnership efforts, and track progress of child rights implementation.

UNICEF can also use the SitAn as an advocacy tool to urge all levels of government and key stakeholders to use the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a guiding mechanism in policy making.

The results of the SitAn are expected to inform and influence crucial national matters and lead to a child-sensitive national agenda, the introduction of child impact assessments, improvement of the evidence base on the situation of children, and to ensure the adequacy of resources and technical and allocative efficiency of public funds allocated to children in Angola.

This assignment was guided by three main elements outlined in the figure below:

This project adopted the overarching framework set out by the UNICEF New Generation Situation Analysis guidance, while highlighting specific components most relevant to Angola. The analysis therefore commenced with a country overview involving a further look into Angola’s demographics, political economy and governance, public finance, humanitarian and climate risk, gender, public finance, as well as poverty and inequality. Child rights were analysed by sectors. The analysis looked at how institutions are contributing to the realisation of child rights, what progress has been made, what challenges remain, and paid special attention to any inequities that exist.

The rights-based approach aimed at securing the rights of all children, regardless of their protected characteristics. This perspective shaped the approach for achieving child and adolescent rights, recognising the importance of conducting a detailed examination to understand which individuals’ rights are being upheld and the underlying reasons for this fulfilment (or lack thereof).

The life-cycle approach acknowledged the varying needs of children and adolescents based on their age, thus necessitating separate analysis. The developmental stages covered in this study started with expectant mothers during the prenatal period, progressing to infancy and early childhood (ages 0-4), followed by childhood (ages 5-10) and concluding with adolescence (ages 11-19).

In short, the SitAn is intended to become the principal reference document for understanding child and adolescent rights in Angola. Findings from the SitAn are expected to inform and influence priorities identified for the Government of Angola-UNICEF Programme of Cooperation between 2024 and 2027. This report emphasised the role that demographic change will play in Angola in the coming years, and the importance of addressing this in an explicit and realistic way that considers Angola’s economic position, in particular the reliance on oil and the high levels of debt.