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The lead author of the UNICEF report card, which ranked New Zealand as one of the worst places in the developed world for children, says the report is fair, accurate and transparent.
Unicef’s report card series used pre-Covid-19 data to rank EU and OECD countries in a league table according to children’s physical and mental health as well as academic abilities. and social. New Zealand was ranked 35th out of 41 countries surveyed.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that the data used in the report described a period of time under the previous National Government. He also pointed to parts of the report where data was missing.
But Gwyther Rees, who led the research team and was a co-author of the Unicef Worlds of Influence Report Card, said the report was rigorously reviewed by local and global experts. It gave an accurate reflection of today’s New Zealand.
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The report was compiled and peer-reviewed over a period of 18 months, Rees said.
The data was only part of the compilation of the report, as the researchers had also spoken with experts from the surveyed countries.
Rees said that the data collected on New Zealand comes from a variety of reliable sources, including the World Health Organization, the OECD and the World Bank.
Most of the data was compiled by government statistical agencies and then collected internationally.
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Unicef World’s of Influence Report Card co-author and principal investigator Gwyther Rees says New Zealand can trust the information provided in the report.
“We are very careful. If we don’t think a data source is adequate, we don’t use it, ”he said.
“We went through a very careful evaluation process. I mean, this report takes 18 months to produce. We have an external advisory board of experts in the field who evaluate what we are doing and provide external validation.
“We also contacted other experts, as we did in New Zealand, to collect some data. So it is a very thorough and very careful process. As I say, we want to make sure that we are fair to all countries, accurate and transparent. “
Rees acknowledged that the data collected on New Zealand’s suicide statistics, where the country was ranked second worst, was more than five years old. It was not necessarily the country that was to blame for that.
“I wouldn’t say there is a problem with New Zealand providing data,” he said.
“It is true that some of the data that we have used is older and that is just for the amount of time, I think, it takes international organizations to erase things. So, I don’t think it’s a problem or a problem at the country level, I think it’s more of a problem about how the international database is created.
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pointed to the age data used for UNICEF’s child welfare report.
Rees said Ardern’s comments were fair and that he was correct in pointing to the indicator on suicide statistics.
“I see they have cited some more up-to-date figures that seem encouraging and if that trend continues it would be very positive,” he said.
“But overall, I think the New Zealand government has been very positive about our reports, and I know that they cited one of our previous reports as influencing their child welfare strategy and the child and youth welfare strategy, which is a excellent strategy. It’s great to see that the government is interested in the report and is committed to the reports that we produce, and I see it as something very positive. “
However, New Zealand had not provided data on child satisfaction for the OECD triennial educational survey in Pisa.
“There is a gap in that. That question was not asked in New Zealand, ”he said.
“It would provide a child-centered perspective and I think there is an opportunity for countries to change that in the next round of Pisa in 2021 … I know the New Zealand government is interested in incorporating the perspectives of children into what They are doing. doing and this would be an opportunity to do it. “
The report was designed to provide a platform for countries to evaluate their performance.
“I think it’s very important that countries can see themselves that way, understand how they are progressing and how it compares to other countries around them,” he said.
“It also shows what is possible and can be a motivation for countries to aim higher … When you look at these reports, each country is doing much better in some areas than others. So I think every country has something to be proud of here and something to aim for improvement, and only by comparison can we do that. “
On Thursday, Ardern acknowledged that New Zealand still had a way to go in terms of tackling child poverty and said his government remained committed to its promise to cut child poverty rates in half by 2027.
The UNICEF report found that New Zealand’s youth suicide rate is the second worst at 14.9 deaths per 100,000 teens, more than double the average among the 41 OECD countries surveyed.
The children most at risk are Maori and children living in rural areas and in areas of low socioeconomic status.
New Zealand has the second highest obesity rate in the OECD. More than 1 in 3 children is obese or overweight. Meanwhile, only 64.6 percent of 15-year-olds in New Zealand have a basic proficiency in reading and math.
The report also ranks countries based on their policies that support child well-being and other factors, such as the economy, society, and the environment. New Zealand ranked 20th overall.
