Led by Ferran Casas of Spain and funded by ChildWatch International a new project is emerging in Latin America. Its first meeting took place on July 2002 in Costa-Rica and was hosted by the Paniamor Foundation (a Key Institution of CWI in Costa Rica).

The subject matter discussed in the meeting centered around the work of the Monitoring and Measuring Project. The following 10 experts from 8 countries attended the meeting:

In that meeting participants agreed to:

1. Promote the inclusion of indicators of child well-being beyond survival in the systems of official indicators of the 7 Latin American countries represented at the meeting
2. Work towards having such indicators developed from "neutral" stances, from the perspective of respect, guaranteeing the superior interest of the child.
3. Be alert to opportunities (e.g., starting from non-governmental alternative reports).
4. Work in greater depth on some key concepts (or bridge concepts) that may guide the concretion of the idea of beyond survival in the Latin American context. Among said concepts, although not exhaustively, support was given to: social networks, quality of life, resilience (primarily in its more social and community perspective), community participation, people's rights (and their respect), competencies, responsibility, social adult representations of childhood.
5. Continue working with the concept of useful indicators. Public opinion takes as indicators data that do not, strictly speaking, provide any concrete information (e.g., The percentage increase of arrestees for alleged criminal acts). There are many indicators that arouse curiosity in public opinion, but that no one knows whether they are "good or bad" nor what type of decisions they allow us to make (e.g., a drop in the birth rate). The big challenge is to be able to have indicators that can truly serve to improve the condition of our childhood populations at each level of society, beginning at the local level.
6. Promote the use of indicators that are meaningful at the local level. Indicators rate childhood circusmtances in context. The contexts vary at the national level and even more a the local level. Information about and understanding of local conditions can enable communities to pressure local government into improving children's well-being with concrete steps.
7. Facilitate at the same time the identification of universalizable elements of child well-being, particularly those relative to respect, and the promotion of the rights of the child to fairness and quality of life.
8. Consider the positive interaction between the child and his/her environment as the symbol of child well-being beyond survival. In that sense, it is useful to analyze the data from an ecosystemic paradigm among other approaches.
9. Promote the study of indicators leading toward the narrowing of the gap between the child's potential and his/her optimal development. With that goal it is necessary to define the social conditions that contribute to child well-being and also the presence of quality human relationships (for example, the existence of attachment, the participation in a cohesive human community for the care of its children).
10. Give priority to a higher availability of indicators of children participation in society (e.g., access for preschool age children to all types of educational programs, whether formal or informal, including those in which they participate together with their parents).
11. Take into consideration that certain variables (age, sex, social group) would cut across all indicators, that is , would be criteria for systematic disaggregation.
12. Long-term, work will need to be done with the aim of obtaining systems of national indicators of overall well-being, connecting at different social levels indicators of needs and indicators of well-being beyond survival.

Finally, the group rated as extremely positive the fact that work proceeded at this meeting not only at an international and cross-cultural level but also with an interdisciplinary perspective, enriching us all with the approach and experiences from different disciplines.

© 2007 Chapin Hall Center for Children.