| dc.description.abstract | Quality information on vulnerable children is intrinsic for making evidence-based decisions at the macro, meso and micro level, impacting millions of children’s personal development. However, a contemporary lack of information is one factor causing lacking investments in children. Providing information for tracking the progress of relevant targets in the Sustainable Development Goals, global planning and policy-making, as well as ensuring quality care on the ground, relies heavily on a good knowledge-base. Socio-technical information systems including human and non-human actors are part of this foundation, and information flows between the actors in such systems should be productive in such a way that they enable evidence-based decision making. SOS Children’s Villages is one actor providing services to vulnerable children, youth and families and is an important non-governmental organization within the child welfare sector. A qualitative case study has been conducted, including two African countries where SOS Children’s Villages operates - Ethiopia and South Africa - in order to explore the SOS Children’s Villages’ ecosystem constituting internal and external actors and the factors affecting information flows within and between them. Evidence shows that the productivity of both research countries’ information flows is heavily impacted by infrastructural challenges, governmental turnovers, collaboration and trust, fragmentation, privacy issues, poor record-keeping and lack of data quality and use. Nevertheless, enabling conditions include efforts in infrastructural strengthening and governmental integration efforts, as well as the introduction of the SOS Children’s Villages management information system - the Programme Database 2 - and respective features. The authors recommend SOS to strengthen feedback mechanisms, capacity building, record-keeping and utilizing participatory methods in order to strengthen the utilization of digital systems like the Programme Database 2. Further research should be steered towards deeper cultural engagement, investigating data values in terms of quality and use, general integration of the child welfare system with a focus on actor alignment, and information flows regarding vulnerable children not in the direct reach of NGOs like SOS Children’s Villages. | eng |