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Young Lives international conference 2009
Focus on Children: Breaking the Poverty Cycle. St Anne’s College, Oxford, 25 to 27 March 2009
The Young Lives international conference gathered together 150 participants from over 25 countries for 3 days of vibrant discussion and debate on the causes and consequences of childhood poverty, food for thought and new insights.
The conference offered a unique opportunity to explore the ways in which poverty affects children’s lives and what governments and donors can do to address it. Participants included researchers from Young Lives and other longitudinal poverty studies, policymakers from the Young Lives study countries and international organisations, as well as practitioners from a range of child-focused development organisations.
Speakers at the conference included: Patrice Engle (California Polytechnic State University), Frank Hagemann (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour), David Mepham (Save the Children UK), Lant Pritchett (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University), Robert Serpell (University of Zambia), Jan Vandemoortele (former Chief of Policy Analysis, UNICEF) and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (The Independent).
Themes
The conference explored the importance of a longitudinal perspective for highlighting how the many dimensions of childhood poverty interact, showing how children and families on the margins move in and out of poverty. Themes included:
1) Dimensions and dynamics of childhood poverty
2) Breaking the cycle of poverty
3) Innovations in methodology for research and policy influence.
Conference programme: click here to download [PDF file 100 KB]
Conference participants list: click here to download [PDF file 64 KB]
Conference report: click here to download [large PDF file 2651 KB]
Conference video: A 10 minute video of participants reflecting on the key challenges in tackling childhood poverty. click here to view [QuickTime video]
Conference papers: many of the papers from the parallel sessions will be published as Young Lives working papers and a series of background papers [page under construction]
Focus On Children: View selected profiles of Young Lives children and pictures from our photos exhibition on-line at The Guardian (link) http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2009/mar/30/young-lives-project-child-poverty?picture=345143728