Analysis of the European Child Guarantee monitoring frameworks
In 2022, 24.7 % of children in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, with the most affected group being children of the 12-17 age group (26.1%). The European Child Guarantee (ECG) was proposed by the European Commission as an initiative aimed at addressing child poverty and social exclusion in the European Union. The goal of the European Child Guarantee is to ensure that every child in the EU has access to essential services and support that are necessary for their wellbeing and development.
Following Council's recommendation, all Member States were obliged to prepare National action plans for the implementation of ECG, define the categories of children in need, measures to address the identified challenges and inequalities, indicators to monitor the progress of implementation and set targets to be achieved. As of March 2023, it was observed that only seventeen Member States had submitted national monitoring and evaluation frameworks for ECG implementation. It was noted that some of the monitoring frameworks were still not fully developed, some indicators were not directly linked to the planned actions, and some plans did not provide target and reference values.
To deliver the Analysis of the European Child Guarantee monitoring frameworks requested by Eurofound, PPMI brought together the best of knowledge and expertise in the policy areas of ECG and in developing and analysing monitoring indicators. When conducting the analysis of the ECG monitoring frameworks for Eurofound, PPMI team will focus on the following objectives:
1) First, we will summarise and analyse how Member States monitor, evaluate and set targets regarding all the measures featured in the national action plans – we will focus both on actual information (definitions of indicators and target values) and the process and arrangement for setting targets.
2) Second, we will draft recommendations regarding how to measure progress in the implementation of different policy measures and improve and/or complement the existing targets and monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
3) Third, we will develop a list of EU-wide indicators (including the dataset and supporting documentation) that are relevant for the monitoring of the European Child Guarantee, in order to provide an overview of the state of play across Europe and of changes over time; we will also access the feasibility of composite indicator to monitor the ECG at EU level.
PPMI team will conduct desk research and interviews to analyse the ECG monitoring frameworks at national level and use Structure-Process-Outcome (S-P-O) indicator model to propose additional indicators and draft recommendations. Our team will also develop a set of EU wide indicators that are relevant for the monitoring of the ECG, check its statistical quality and the feasibility of the creation of a composite indicator(s).
