Morocco has a rich history and culture, however, children of the country still face obstacles to their well-being. Despite the country’s engagement to promote the realization of children’s rights and its recently reasserted commitment to poverty alleviation there are too often instances where the neediest are left behind.

“Child poverty is about so much more than family income – it’s about access to quality education, healthcare, a home and safe water. When children are deprived of the basics, they are at risk of getting trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty” – Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for MENA

To start with, the concepts of child poverty and its measurement was introduced. The participants to the training got hold of child poverty analysis basics and got well acquainted with the implications of parameter selection. This proved to be essential for the betterment of future child poverty measurement and analysis exercises in Morocco. As the ONDH designs and collects data for a nationally representative panel survey, their now deepened knowledge of child indicators will allow the adaptation of future data collection instruments to the requirements of the MODA method.

ONDH Training, Rabat, March 2017

The second round of training saw the application of the MODA method using a hands-on approach. The training was held on 5 days and participants have been introduced to the basics of the Stata software. Afterwards, we applied the MODA to a real case: the Moroccan one! Participants were given the choice to work in groups or alone, catering for the differing abilities and needs of each of them.

Together we organised and tested variables used as analysis parameters. The calculations were then carried out firstly using an Excel simulation exercise, which allowed the consequences of each manipulation to be easily seen, and secondly, on the actual dataset. By the end of the training session, participants had calculated the percentage of poor children for each dimension of child well-being, the percentage of children suffering from simultaneous deprivations, and other indices including the Multidimensional Child Poverty Rate often measured for the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goal 1.2.

This mission also provided the occasion for the presentation of preliminary results and discussion of their implications with UNICEF and ONDH.