The purpose of this toolkit is to present practical guidance to help project teams ensure that Poverty Alleviation (PA) programmes are child-sensitive - i.e. maximize benefits for children and eliminate harm to children. This involves using child-sensitive approaches in the design, implementation, monitoring and/or evaluation phases of PA projects whenever possible.  

The intended audience for this toolkit are child poverty technical advisors/specialists (including those working on food security and livelihoods and social protection). It also includes programme managers, monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) staff and field-level practitioners involved in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of child sensitive PA programmes.  

The toolkit presents three primary building blocks for integrating child-sensitivity into PA programmes: 

• Building Block A: Analysis
• Building Block B: Design
• Building Block C: MEAL

These building blocks correspond to the typical phases of the project cycle and therefore build on each other. This sequential structure is intended to help project teams clearly relate which building blocks are most relevant for their projects at any given point in the project cycle and to ensure that the suggested actions add value throughout the life of PA projects.  

Actions and Tools

Each Building Block consists of several action steps and corresponding technical tool(s). The technical tools are available in two formats:

• Interactive web tool - the interactive web tools can be filled on this website and saved under your user account. You can make as many versions of each tool as you want and access them from your Dashboard.
• Google Doc - the tools are available as Google Docs. You can download them as a PDF or as a Microsoft Word document, or you can make a copy of the Google Doc to edit or adapt.