This document is the seventh, and final, chapter of Doing Better for Children: The Way Forward, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the policy debate on child well-being, synthesising the previous chapters and drawing on the existing research and policy literature. It examines the wide range of policy choices confronting governments as they seek to improve child well-being and offers a policy synthesis of broad recommendations to enhance child well-being across the OECD.
The policy recommendations for improving child wellbeing in this chapter include: invest early in children’s lives; concentrate on improving the lot of vulnerable children; design interventions for children that reinforce positive development across their life cycle and across a range of well-being outcomes; create clear, achievable targets for child well-being outcomes and regularly collect high-quality information on children’s well-being that is nationally and internationally comparable. Finally, governments should continuously experiment with policies and programmes for children, rigorously evaluate them to see whether they enhance child well-being, and reallocate money from programmes that don’t work to those that do. This approach ensures resources allocated to children progressively enhance child wellbeing.
