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This webinar is part of the CWKN 2023 Festival of Wellbeing Conversations.ÌýÌý

A growing number of governments worldwide, and in Canada, are taking a new approach to public policy, one that puts the wellbeing and quality-of-life of citizens at the centre of policy decisions and budgeting. Through the Spring and Fall of 2023, the Canadian Wellbeing Knowledges Network (CWKN) is hosting a series of webinars discussing key issues, challenges, and opportunities of the wellbeing approach to policy and sharing examples of wellbeing policy initiatives across Canada and globally. For more information on wellbeing policy, the CWKN, and future events you can contact jennifer.proudfoot [at] mcgill.ca (Jennifer Proudfoot).

Abstract:

A global pandemic has increased public understanding of what really matters for wellbeing and how it can be more equitable, and there is a call for governments to make wellbeing or quality-of-life a central policy objective and source of accountability for current and future generations. Within this momentum are challenges to develop inclusive wellbeing concepts and measurement frameworks and to link these meaningfully to how policies, programs and budgets are decided. Children are often invisible or only partially visible in measurement frameworks intended to guide budget allocation. The rights of children to maximum investment of public budgets and to budget transparency and accountability are not well known. However, the wellbeing policy movement opens up an opportunity to embed better practices in public financing for children: how and when money is spent on children in public systems to achieve better outcomes for children.

This webinar will share information about child-sensitive budgeting to:

• Share concrete practices and approaches
• Describe the universal obligations of States Parties pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Convey the benefits to children and to governments
• Provide a platform for discussion with participants to deepen understanding about child-sensitive budgeting and how it can support wellbeing policy and budgets

Moderator:

Lisa Wolff
Director of Policy and Research
UNICEF Canada

Lisa Wolff is the Director of Policy and Research at UNICEF Canada, with a mission to advance the rights of Canada’s children to develop to their fullest potential, consistent with international human rights standards. Collaborating with government, institutions, civil society, researchers and private sector partners, Lisa works across issues and sectors to advocate for and with children and youth. Lisa is an advisor to many initiatives including the Making the Shift Networks of Centres of Excellence Implementation Management Committee (addressing youth homelessness). Lisa received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal from the Governor-General of Canada in 2012.

Speakers:

Natalia Winder-Rossi
Director of Social Policy and Social Protection
UNICEF Headquarters

Natalia Winder-Rossi became the Director of Social Policy and Social Protection at UNICEF Headquarters in New York in May 2020. Here she leads UNICEF’s social policy programming at the global level and oversees the organization’s work on child poverty, social protection, public finance management for children and local governance. As of 1 July 2020, the team also anchors UNICEF’s Global Lead on Urban.

Ms. Winder-Rossi brings more than 15 years of social policy and social protection experience in global and regional roles.

From 2015 to 2020, she led FAO’s Global Social Protection team in FAO, Rome, while acting as Senior Advisor for the Rural Poverty and Resilience and Humanitarian Action Strategic Programmes.

Prior to joining FAO, Ms. Winder-Rossi was the Senior Social Protection Specialist at UNICEF’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, leading the positioning of social protection as a priority for the region, providing technical guidance to 24 countries, and enhancing the work on HIV-sensitive social protection and resilience. She was also a Social Protection Officer in UNICEF Headquarters in New York, where she co-led the development of UNICEF’s first Social Protection Framework.

Before starting her career at the UN, she worked for the Inter-American Development Bank in education, indigenous peoples’ development and social protection, the Organization of American States, and other national development agencies.

Ms. Winder-Rossi is a national of Peru. She has a Master’s in Science in Foreign Service (International Development) from Georgetown University and a Master’s in Science in Social Policy (Research and Evaluation) from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dragan Nastic
Strategic Lead
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
UNICEF United Kingdom

Dragan Nastic is a UNICEF UK’s Strategic Lead on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNICEF UK is an integral part of the United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF). Dragan joined UNICEF UK in January 2007.

Before joining UNICEF UK, Dragan’s career and background was in the area of international relations and diplomacy. He had held several diplomatic posts in Asia and Africa.

Dragan is a lawyer by training. His area of expertise is international public law and he is a member of the International Law Association

Dragan’s role at UNICEF UK is to monitor overall implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other UN human rights treaties by the UK Government and devolved administrations. UNICEF is mandated by the UN General Assembly to work together with national governments and support them in realisation of children’s rights. Article 45 of the Convention entitles UNICEF to be represented at the consideration of the implementation of the Convention.

Dragan also leads UNICEF UK’s work in relation to child trafficking and refugee children.

Dominic Richardson
Chief
Social and Economic Policy Analysis
UNICEF Innocenti-Global Office of Research and Foresight

Dominic Richardson leads Social Policy and Economic Analysis at UNICEF, Office of Research – Innocenti, where he oversees work on cash transfers and cash plus programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, multiple overlapping deprivation analysis, the Innocenti Report Card Series, and research on family policies and child well-being. Dominic previously worked with OECD Social Policy Division on a broad range of studies covering child well-being, evaluating family policies, integrating human services, and social impact investment. Dominic has led or co-authored multiple reports on comparative child well-being in high-income countries, and in 2014, was the lead researcher on a joint EC OECD project evaluating the content and quality of international surveys of school children in high and middle- income countries. In 2018, Dominic was awarded the Jan Trost Award for Outstanding Contributions in International Family Studies by the National Council for Family Relations in the United States.

This event is hosted by the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy, the Canadian Wellbeing Knowledges Network and UNICEF Canada.