The Understanding Children’s Work (UCW) programme is an inter-agency research cooperation initiative involving the International Labour Organisation (ILO), UNICEF and the World Bank. UCW is guided by the Roadmap adopted at The Hague Global Child Labour Conference 2010. The Roadmap calls for effective partnership across the UN system to address child labour, and for mainstreaming child labour into policy and development frameworks. The Roadmap also calls for improved knowledge sharing and for developing further methodologies and capacity to conduct research on child labour. UCW research activities are designed to inform policies that impact upon the lives of child labourers in countries where they are prominent. Research efforts help provide a common understanding of child labour, and a common basis for action against it. UCW research extends to a variety of policy issues associated with child labour, including education, youth employment and migration.
This website contains the range of information stemming from UCW activities, and drawing from the range of existing information in ILO, UNICEF and the World Bank. There are child labour data sets, country statistics for detailed information on indicators of child labour and status of children for over 100 countries. The project database provides information on the agency interventions designed to promote child protection and combat child labour. Reports and analysis stemming from these statistics and other research activities can also be found on this site, including a recently added ‘ Inventory of child labour impact evaluations’.