Two planning processes, one problem
Every EU Member State submitted a National Action Plan, covering the same five policy areas and referencing the same children. They are not producing the same results. This activity places two real planning approaches side by side and lets you find the difference that actually matters.
"Plans grounded in a rigorous analysis of who is deprived, where, and why are better plans. The investment in quality evidence generation is not a preliminary administrative step; it is the foundation on which the entire planning logic rests."
Two plans. The same five policy areas. The same children.
Below are two planning approaches, Plan A and Plan B. On the surface both look complete: both cover all five policy areas and reference relevant data. You will open four layers of each, in turn. Watch what happens to the logic as you go deeper.
Four layers. One chain that holds, one that breaks.
Open each layer. It opens in both plans at once, so you can compare directly.
Why one plan can answer the question and the other cannot
- Evidence
- Target group
- Measure
- Indicator
- Evidence
- Target group
- Measure
- Indicator
Plan B covers every policy area and looks complete on paper. What it cannot do is answer the one question that matters: is it reaching the right children? Plan A can be traced in both directions, back from each measure to a specific finding about a specific group, and forward to an indicator that will show whether it worked. Plan B breaks that chain at every link.
A plan that cannot be traced cannot be held accountable for results, and gives the next planning cycle little to build on.
Your plan starts here
You are coordinating your country's National Action Plan. Time before the drafting deadline is limited. Existing measures are already scattered across sectoral strategies. The strongest plans triangulate several sources, collected at different levels, so each corrects the others' limitations.
How do you build your evidence? Combine the sources you would use.
What your mix makes visible
The five sources sit at three levels of evidence. Triangulation means reaching across them.
Combining two sources at the same level (for example, administrative data and a synthesis of existing studies) adds rigour but not depth.
In every case
Multi-source evidence captures dimensions that single sources cannot. The strongest plans layer these sources.
What the evidence can show that you cannot see
"Sometimes as a policy maker, you think that you know of the problems and that you know all the reasons of the problems... but you lose a little bit of the objectivity. When you know the situation too well, sometimes you are not able to see some important details."
"We thought children at risk were not attending preschool because their parents lacked social skills or the will to make the effort. But the deep dive showed parents sometimes lack even the few euros to put the child on the bus to bring it to the preschool. It showed us the reasons were different from what we thought."
Three things the evidence shows
A plan is only as strong as its traceable chain.
Traceability from analysis to target group to measure to indicator should be a structural requirement of the planning process, not a documentation afterthought.
Evidence is the foundation, not a preliminary step.
Countries that invested in a purpose-built situation analysis produced more coherent, better-targeted plans than those that compiled existing data.
A complete-looking plan can still miss its children.
Covering all five policy areas is not the same as reaching the specific children the Child Guarantee exists to serve.
Apply this to your context
Think about your own most recent plan, or the one you are about to develop.
- Can you trace one measure back to a specific finding about a specific group of children, and forward to an indicator that would tell you if it worked?
- Where would the chain break first?
- What would it take to close that gap before drafting begins?
Take this to your team
Every EU country submitted a National Action Plan, covering the same five policy areas and referencing the same children. They are not producing the same results. The difference is rarely resources or political will, but whether the plan was built on a real evidence chain: from who is being left out, to why, to what will actually change that.
Questions to use with your team
- Can we trace one measure in our draft plan back to a specific finding about a specific group of children, and forward to an indicator that would tell us if it worked?
- Before we draft a single measure, have we commissioned or synthesised a purpose-built situation analysis of who is being missed and why? Or are we compiling data we already had?
- Can our analysis break child poverty down by region, age and gender? If not, which vulnerable children are we structurally unable to see?
- What mix of sources will our evidence base triangulate: a dedicated analysis, existing administrative data, and direct input from children and families? Which of these is currently missing?
The point of this card is to open a cross-sectoral conversation. Bring it to a working-group or ministerial meeting and start with the first question.