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During the last two decades, UNICEF has led efforts to measure Child Poverty globally as well as in various regions and countries. These efforts have been explicitly grounded on a human rights perspective and guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this paper, some of the issues raised by these endeavours are analysed. The paper explicitly uses, and expands, Sally Engle Merry's framework of vernacularisation to assess these efforts. Thus, it is organised in three sections. First, a review of criticisms to the broader project of 'human rights measurement' is offered. This includes aspects of vernacularisation, paradoxes of measurement, and the tension between universal standards and particular specificities. Secondly, a brief description of Child Poverty measurement is provided, with a focus on developments and debates of the last 20 years. This is the case study on which Merry's framework is applied. This is done in the third section. Based on this analysis, practical recommendations for future research on Child Poverty measurement based on human rights are discussed in the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining general trends of child well-being in Tanzania from the early 1990s to the present, there are only a few areas in which there have been improvements for all groups within any indicator. In this paper we concentrate on under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) and education. We also explore some of the environmental (housing, water, and sanitation) and some poverty-related (malnutrition, immunization) elements which may help explain the U5MR trends. Education has enjoyed the most progress in terms of an increase in access and reduction of the gender gap. Progress in the area of nutrition, sanitation, and DTP3 immunization has been uneven, with certain sections of society advancing while others remain stagnant or advance at a much slower pace. This has resulted in growing inequalities in these indicators. Unless the benefits of better nutrition, access to water, and sanitation and immunization start to spread throughout the population, it is likely that disparities in U5MR will increase and advances in average U5MR will slow down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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