Children who may benefit from PA programmes could also face a variety of risks, such as: 

• Increased time spent on work/chores within the HH 
• Increased participation in economic activities within and outside the HH (paid/unpaid) 
• Reduced childcare 
• Reduced school attendance 
• Increased violence within the HH 
• Negative psychological effects. 

These unintended negative effects could also be the result of assumptions made in regard to programme implementation which do not hold true, (e.g. if caregivers are offered skills training opportunities, their children will not be left unattended during the training session). Consequently, project teams should question all assumptions that may affect children directly and frequently monitor them to identify potential risks.  

PROJECT-RELATED ASSUMPTION: 

A condition that needs to be met for the successful achievement of project activities and overall objectives.  

Child-sensitive risk assessments help project teams to identify potential risks to children from PA programmes and to prepare relevant mitigation strategies*.

To maximize the potential benefit of conducting child sensitive risk assessments related to PA programming, project teams should consider risks that may be unique to particular groups of children, such as children living with disabilities, children living with health conditions, children from minority groups, children with different social statuses (e.g. orphans, child headed HHs) and extremely marginalised children (e.g. domestic servants). Those conducting child-sensitive risk assessments should also consider unique risks due to age and gender. Project teams should also identify and explicitly document key (at times tacit) assumptions around how PA activities may benefit/potentially harm children. 

This effort helps project teams ensure that their PA interventions are child-sensitive (reference). However, identifying child-sensitive risk and assumptions should not replace standard situation, context and needs analyses for the HH, cultural and societal levels. Rather, project teams should undertake these assessments in conjunction with one another.  

* Modalities are defined as: cash grants, microfinance, savings groups, loan etc.