The concept of Other Vulnerable Children (OVC) generally refers to orphans and other groups of children who are more vulnerable to shocks that will cause a negative outcome relative to their peers. In an operational context we can say that they are the children who are most likely to fall through the cracks of regular programs.
To be protected from negative outcomes, OVC need to be given special attention and targeting, either through special efforts to remove the barriers that stand in the way of their equal participation in projects designed to benefit all children or through special project components tailored to their needs.
Vulnerable Child and Youth
By "vulnerable," we understand "a high probability of a negative outcome" or an expected welfare loss above a socially accepted norm that results from risky/uncertain events and the lack of appropriate risk management instruments. Vulnerability is shaped by risk and stress characteristics such as magnitude, frequency, duration and by a scope to which individuals, households, and communities are exposed. Therefore, the degree and type of vulnerability vary over time and between countries and are highly contextual.
Compared to adults, all children are vulnerable by nature, but some children are more critically vulnerable than others. Child vulnerability is a downward spiral where each shock leads to a new level of vulnerability, and each new level opens up for a host of new risks (Figure 1). At the bottom of this spiral we find children who live outside of family care or in situations of severe family abuse and neglect. OVC interventions can be made at all levels to prevent (a further) increased vulnerability or to mitigate the effect of likely shocks. The higher up in the spiral the intervention is made, the more cost-effective it is likely to be. OVC should preferably be assisted before they have reached the most critical stages of vulnerability, because interventions aimed to rescue and rehabilitate the most critically vulnerable children tend to be too expensive to be sustainable and, moreover, have low rates of success.
Figure 1. The Downward Spiral of Child Vulnerability
Key policy factors to ensure success of preventive policies are:
- Promoting the inclusion and full participation of children and youth in difficult family situations into regular programs, particularly in health and education.
- Improving and/or enforcing national and international framework charters and mechanisms for legal protection - children and youth involved in armed conflicts, trafficking, sexual exploitation, legal protection against property grabbing, and the most hazardous forms of child labor.
- Creating safety nets and social protection mechanisms, accompanied by improved knowledge and attitudes among civil servants and community leaders.
Prevention and mitigation of critical child vulnerability are far more cost-effective and realistic at the large scale to which the World Bank works, while support for coping interventions should be left to more specialized Agencies and NGOs with a mandate for direct interventions. The World Bank's Multi-country AIDS Programs (MAPs) do offer an opportunity to not only pilot assistance efforts, but also to extend these efforts to vulnerable children and youth. |
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