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improving child welfare see, for example, the marked educational improvements in Aceh, the improving approaches to protecting children on the streets in Central Java, and to
some extent the interventions on health and nutrition in NTT.
o Partnerships between CSOs and government can work to improve service delivery. CSO involvement in policymaking was key in terms of understanding child needs and
vulnerabilities and how to address these see, for example, HIV prevention and care initiatives in Papua. They were also filling the gaps provided in public service delivery
as the system strengthens under-decentralisation. However, in many cases partnerships between district government and CSOs needed to be strengthened.
o Coordination between provincial and districtmunicipal governments, and between offices agenciesbureaus working in child welfare.
• The situation of women and children in the decentralised context improved when the relevant regulations were enacted with supporting technical guidelines and advocacy to government
sectoral agencies and units, especially when these included ideas on how to protect child rights and manage cases particularly in situations involving children in conflict with the law.
• Partnership between government and donors and other local and international organisations with specific knowledge sets was required for technical skills building, knowledge building,
coordination, and programming to address some of the more dire situations in child welfare in each provincial case study.
• Children have important knowledge of how vulnerabilities develop, how to address these, and the kind of assistance they might need to complement their own coping strategies and
development. They can also disseminate new knowledge and practices to other children. • To reduce some inequities further material resources were required, but under
decentralisation these could be targeted very specifically at district and sectoral needs, which may not have been the case previously see, for example, the case of health and nutrition in
NTT.
To strengthen the capacity of local governments to create pro-child policies and to work with local partners to deliver services to reduce vulnerabilities for children, improve child welfare,
and protect child rights, this SITAN recommends the following strategies for donors and other agencies with technical skills and knowledge in sectors related to child welfare. Most supporting
initiatives and interventions should be targeted at districts, but for cross-sectoral issues, knowledge management and data collection, interventions should be targeted at both the district
and provincial levels. For particularly difficult situations where the province is in a far worse situation than other provinces in terms of child welfare for example, maternal and child mortality
rates in NTT, then both districts and provinces should be targeted sectorally in the initiatives to improve these situations. The recommendations include:
a Providing technical assistance and capacity to provincial and district governments to establish KCCs and to provide the relevant training. These KCCs should be coordinated by
the province, which should also feed data upwards to the national level, as well as translate national guidelinesregulations and policies to the district level.
b In collaboration with KCCs, support the establishment and the technicalknowledge capacity building of multi-stakeholder pro-child district task forces made up of government staff,
practitioners, CSOs, and children, which focus on improving the relevant inequities in each district relating to child welfare. These task forces should be sectoral or multi-sectoral, as
necessary, and should work to ensure that the district and sectoral office strategic plans and work-plans, budgets and programmes are pro-child and pro-women. They should also to
ensure minimum service standards are upheld in line with national regulations. c Providing direct capacity building assistance, particularly to district governments, BAPPEDA
and the multi-stakeholder task forces, to strengthen the bottom-up musrenbang processes to better include the voices of women, children and practitioners. Task force members
can assist childrencommunitiesfamilies to identify and articulate their needs and attend musrenbang meetings with community representatives to ensure that these needs are voiced
in musrenbang forums. They can also monitor resulting policies for impacts.
d Providing capacity building and technical assistance to district and provincial governments potentially through KCCs in translating musrenbang and other pro-child priorities into
development planning, particularly the formulation of district strategic plans Renstra, regulations Perda, policies, budgets, and sectoral and unit annual work-plans and guidelines
on service delivery.
e Work with local governments to plan the establishment of minimum service standards at the local level.
f Providing technical assistance to district and provincial governments to establish or strengthen the Bureau of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection and improve
monitoring systems, coordination and referrals of vulnerable children between agencies. g Promote partnerships among government agencies, the private sector and CSOs.
5.9 RECOMMENDATION 9: ADVOCATING THE SCALE UP OF SPECIFIC
SECTORAL INTERVENTIONS TO IMPROVE CHILD RIGHTS AND WELFARE AND REDUCE INEQUITY
Recommended for: National and sub-national GoI, with the support of UNICEF and other stakeholders
Aside from the efforts mentioned above to reduce disparities between groups and regions overall, there are some specific issues which require further targeted interventions, either sectorally or
multi-sectorally, based on the findings in this SITAN. These should be implemented together with Recommendation 7 on also targeting the worst performers and disadvantaged groups. These
should be integrated into the approach outlined above for working in the decentralised context in Recommendation 8.
5.9.1 GENERAL FOR ALL STAKEHOLDERS
In order to effectively advocate for and implement the recommendations outlined below, this SITAN recommends that all sectors conduct the following in the regions where the interventions
are targeted:
• Conduct district and provincial level SITAN to: o identify the cultural and family practices which:
• discourage childrenparents from prioritizing education • currently contribute to poor young child survival, growth and development
• currently contribute to poor knowledge of children’s and women’s rights including the
use of violence in the home and community and alternative non-violent practices of discipline
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o identify weaknesses in community knowledge of available child support services and how to access these
o identify disadvantaged groups and regions, with a focus on children with special needs • Use advocacy, communications for development strategies outlined in Recommendation
10 and working with customary leaderseldersreligious leaders to find innovative ways to reshape cultural, family and community care practices identified in the SITAN that are
undermining child welfare.
• Provide continued support to relevant government agencies and partners in emergency and pandemic preparednessresponse.
• Strengthen partnerships among government agencies, donors, CSOs and the private sector to improve access to education, standards of health and nutrition and water and sanitation, HIV
and AIDS prevention, treatment and protection services, and child special protection. • Improve the planning, training and deployment of skilled health, education and social welfare
professionals, particularly to remote and disadvantaged regions. • Ensure that interventions promote outreach and quality of services and adhere to the
minimum service standards outlined in the national regulations. • Conduct deeper analysis into budgetary needs, cost-beneit analyses, and test costing
strategies, especially for districtmunicipal initiatives.
5.9.2 HEALTH AND NUTRITION AND WATER AND SANITATION
For GoI: • To improve health and nutrition standards among children, focus on the window of
opportunity that is pregnancy and the first two years of life. • To increase the number and quality of staff providing health services and reduce the gap in
service provision, focus on improving pre-service training availability, coverage and outreach. This is particularly important for ensuring adequate numbers and quality of health workers
that receive training who are from poorer provincesdistricts, geographically large and disparate provincesdistricts, and provincesdistricts where particular health and nutrition
problems are most acute. This involves working with district governments and health providers, as well as with provinces, to identify gaps.
• Aside from focussing on technical skills, pre-service training programmes and other government policies and programmes, attention should also be given to understanding the
behavioural and cultural aspects of health and nutrition, and developing the communication skills of health workers so that they are sensitive to varied local environments, particularly
if they do not originate from the areas where they work. This is because many of the case studies demonstrate that there are problems in service delivery that relate to the way health
and nutrition and reproductive health and HIV and AIDS information is conveyed, which is not always sensitive to different local customs and practices. Miscommunication and
communication problems may be preventing strategies from having full effect on behavioural change.
• Support planning mechanisms and strategies to improve nutrition overall, as well as micronutrient intake vitamin A, iron folate, iodine among vulnerable groups.
• Mainstream nutrition initiatives, such as exclusive breastfeeding, appropriate complementary feeding and continued breastfeeding from six months and upward, treatment of children with
acute malnutrition, maternal nutrition hygiene best practices, and reproductive health. • Strengthen access to clean water and sanitation in disadvantaged areas through water supply
projects and improving sanitation. • Prepare strategies to offset the impacts of growing urban poverty, climate change, growth in
the number of slums and pressure on resources. For GoI with the support of UNICEF and other agencies:
• Support the government to improve coordination as well as planning and budgeting for effective health, nutrition and water and sanitation interventions.
• Support CSOs working in educating families and communities in nutrition, hygiene best practice, breastfeeding and complementary feeding, maternal nutrition, reproductive health
and other practices which have been identified as improving health and nutrition standards. • Continue to design initiatives and public awareness campaigns focused on the importance of
breastfeeding, complementary feeding, maternal nutrition, assisted deliveries, giving birth in healthcare facilities, nutrition, essential newborn care, care-seeking behaviour for diarrhoea
and pneumonia treatment.
• Provide training and knowledge-building workshops through government or through government-CSO partnerships to develop capacity in health sector human resources and
knowledge of epidemiological transition and the continuum of care. • Identify unimmunised children, and groupsregions prone to maternal and neonatal tetanus in
provincesdistricts, and scale up routine immunisation. • Scale up pilots in health information systems, monitoring and evaluation, while also
documenting lessons learnt to improve governance, services and resource allocation. • Use focus group discussions and other participatory learning mechanisms that can encourage
the dissemination of information amongst children themselves on health and nutrition. • Facilitate the development of training and the formulationsocialisation of community action
plans on waste management, cleaning drains and water bodies. For UNICEF and other agencies:
• Continue to design, and to work with the government to implement, innovative models that have high impact on maternal and child health and nutrition, including the formulation of
health policies at the national and sub-national levels and the translation of these into service delivery and practice at the local level.
• Assist the government with providing continued interventions and education programmes to the poor to increase understanding and awareness of the causes of malnutrition.
• Promote and support the government to provide education in schools on nutrition, hygiene best practices, exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding, maternal nutrition,
reproductive health, to improve health and nutrition standards among children. • Support and assist with the development of thematic guidelines, training manuals and design
standards, which replicate best practices in water and sanitation interventions.
5.9.3 EDUCATION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
For GoI: • Strengthened legislation and increased budget allocations aimed at achieving school
readiness for children under age seven years. • Improve access to play centres and pre-schools, particularly in rural areas.
• Provide targeted support for poor families to help them keep their children in school. • Support the development of training programmes for early school leavers in practical skills
and provide guidance counselling on options for employment and skills building. • Remove structuraladministrative barriers between primary and junior secondary schools to
improve transition and retention of students and mitigate early leaving.
