Situation Analysis of Children in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Abstract

This Situation Analysis of Children in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is designed to help government shape national policies and action plans in line with the new Sustainable Development Goals agreed by the international community. It describes the current situation of children, identifies barriers and bottlenecks in advancing children’s rights in health, education and child protection and sets forth recommendations. The main research methods were: desk review of over 40 national and global resource documents, studies, reports and news articles; data analysis of national and international surveys; interviews with 115 informants from government and civil society; and focus groups with stakeholders. The children involved were aged 8–18 years and from varied backgrounds and experiences. There were more girls (58 per cent) than boys (42 per cent). It was not possible to meet with children detained by the authorities. Sources of quantitative data needed to understand trends and changes in children’s status were often out of date or 9 Situation analysis of children in St. Vincent and the Grenadines inaccessible due to a lack of infrastructure and human resources required for consistent collection, collation and presentation. The absence of detailed and current data was most notably acute in relation to indicators for inequality, gender, unemployment and social determinants of poverty.