Module 2: Child Rights in Programming and Sector Policies

2. Module 2: Child Rights in Programming and Sector Policies

3. Introduction • Key issue: • How to translate child rights commitments into programming realities • At country level • Mainstreaming child rights = applying a child rights focus • Programming • Cycle of operations • Key sectors

4. Legal & Policy & Global Context • European: • CRC, Lisbon Treaty, Agenda for Change, etc. • Regional & Country-specific: • CRC, African Charter for the Rights and Welfare of the Child, National Action Plans, etc. • Global: • e.g., Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness

5. Aid effectiveness principles from a child rights perspective • Ownership: • needs to extend beyond government & systematically involve children, parents, communities • Alignment: • local/national systems need to integrate/address child rights • Harmonisation: • donor coordination & shared focus on child rights (common approaches, assessments, analysis) • Results: • rights-based & child-specific results (disaggregated – minority, marginalized, invisible) • Mutual accountability • CRC & international, regional standards used as common reference point

6. Integrating child rights in development cooperation: WHY? • ‘Our future’: • 70,000 babies born today, 2 billion born by 2025 • ‘Our present’: • half the population in developing countries, one third of the world’s population • Legal commitments: • CRC - most universally ratified human rights treaty • Political commitments: • European & regional & national • Central to development: • High ‘returns’ on investments

7. WHY NOT? • Challenges of rights-based & child-focused programming • Political sensitivities • Prioritisation • Political trade-offs, workload • Social norms, traditions, culture • Complexity, interrelated & interdependent rights • Key principles • ‘Progressive realisation of all rights’ • No retrogression, no new deprivations • Prioritisation choices to be justified & transparent

8. Group Discussion

9. WHERE TO START? ENTRY POINTS PROGRAMMING PROCESS

12. Entry Points: Policy Dialogue: • What • Align donor and country cycles • Identify & build national consensus • How? Adopt a child-rights lens when assessing: • National policy, legal, institutional context • Resource mobilisation & allocation • Implementation at central & subnational levels Include: • Child rights indicators, benchmarks, child-focused questions for country/sector context analysis Tool 1.1: Child Rights Country Context Analysis Tool 2.1: Child Rights Screening Checklist

13. Entry points: budget & project/programme support • Budget support: • CR commitments assessed as pre-condition for budget support • Tool 1.1.: Child Rights Country Context Analysis • Tool 4.1: Child-sensitive Governance Assessment • Project/programme support • Identify stakeholders with commitment to child rights • Ensure primary target group/beneficiaries include children • Put into place coordination, management & financing arrangements that prioritize children • Set up an M&E system with child rights indicators for performance management. • Tool: 2.1 Child Rights Screening Checklist • Tool: 2.3.-2.13 Sector Checklists

14. Programming: Cycle of operations

15. Cycle of operations: Identification stage Preliminary screening of child rights issues • Tool 2.1: Child Rights Screening Checklist • Tool 2.2: Pre-feasibility study • Stakeholder Analysis • Problem Analysis • Analysis of Strategies • Analysis of Objectives • Child-focused sectors: child specific indicators & targets • Non-child focused sectors: childimpact assessment, maximise gains & mitigate risks

16. Cycle of operations: Formulation stage • What: • Systematically address all project-relevant child rights issues • Where: • Action Fiche: incl. risk assessment and mitigation • TAPs (Technical & Administrative Provisions): Basis for implementation, monitoring and evaluation • How: • Focus on marginalized/disadvantaged children • Statistics disaggregated by key variables of exclusion (sex, ethnicity, disability status, et al) • Use of qualitative information on issues affecting children • Objectives, results, indicators and assumptions based on child rights analysis • Sustainability of child rights actions addressed • All children prioritized in the project benefit equally from its results. • Tool 2.2ToRsfor addressing child rights issues in feasibility studies

17. Cycle of operations: Implementation/monitoring Implementation/ monitoring • Implementation: best case scenario • Child rights embedded in project design, structure & mechanism • Planned results, targets and goals delivered • Available resources managed efficiently • Monitoring: child-rights sensitive monitoring: • Child-focused: • How the situation of children evolved, who benefited – did all children benefit equally?) • Quality of the process (participatory, inclusive?) • Non-child focused: • Direct & indirect impact on children (update child impact assessment, if available, or sector checklists) • Tools 2.3 - 2.12 Sector Checklists - guidance for monitoring

18. Cycle of operations: Evaluation • Rights-based evaluation questions should include: • Outcomes: • Has the programme delivered the desired child rights outcomes? • Have the outcomes (intended or not) affected child rights? • What is the long-term impacton children? • Was the policy effectivein meeting child rights objectives on the ground? Could risks be mitigated (using a child impact assessment)? • Stakeholder satisfaction: survey . • “What works”?

19. OECD-DAC criteria from a child-rights perspective • Relevance: Alignment with CRC • Effectiveness: Child-focused results defined, monitored, achieved • Efficiency: Input/output chain, complex change process & cost/benefits analysis • Sustainability: Long-term realisation of rights • Impact: Positive/negative, intended/unintended, primary/secondary

20. Group Activity:Policy Dialogue, Aid Modalities, and the Cycle of Operations

21. Child rights in sector programs • There is no ‘child-neutral sector’ • Child rights considerations should be taken into account across all sectors • Need to ‘minimise’ child-specific risks and ‘maximise’ opportunities in sector policies, strategies and planning CHILD-SPECIFIC SCOPING .

22. Child-centred scoping: • A ‘must’ for any development initiative most likely to affect large numbers of children – or significantly affect specific groups – particularly those which: • Affect household incomes and livelihoods • Affect access to and quality of key services used by children and their families • Affect key forms of social capital that protect children and help them develop

23. Sector checklist methodology: • Examines risks and how to mitigate those: • Sector-specific risks to children • Potential countermeasures to be introduced through sector policies, strategies or projects • Examines how to enhance opportunities: • Sector-specific opportunities for children • Potential measures designed to enhance such opportunities through sector policies, strategies or projects

24. Sector checklists • Tools 2.3-2.12 - make potential impact of economic and development policies more explicit • Education, vocational training and culture • WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) • Social protection • Rural development • Urban development • Transportation (infrastructure and services) • Energy • Finance • Criminal justice • Nutrition

25. Group Activity

26. Case example 1: WASH sector In response to severe, prolonged drought, a water project is proposed near a refugee camp to install a well and a water kiosk in order to provide water to the community. Under the proposed project, a small fee will be charged for the water, and the revenue will be used to fuel the water pump’s generator and to contribute to the cost of other priority community needs.

27. Case example: WASH sector • Question 1: • Based on the description, what are the potential child-focused risks? • Question 2: • Based on the description, what are the potential child-focused opportunities?

28. Case example 2: Transport sector Although the region has the fewest motor vehicles, a 2013 World Bank report found Africa to have the highest number of road accidents. Roughly 24 per 100,000 people are killed in traffic accidents per year. • Poor communities are more likely to be found along the largest roads and high volume traffic routes and are less likely to have access to emergency medical services or effective mobile trauma care services. With growing urbanization in Africa, the report estimates that accidents are likely to become the major cause of deaths of children between the ages of 5 -15. • In 2007, African ministers of transportation and health pledged to reduce by half the number of road deaths by 2015. International development cooperation has a role to play in achieving this goal.

29. Transport sector: Traffic accidents • Question 1: • Based on the description, what are the potential child-focused risks? • Question 2: • Based on the description, what are the potential child-focused opportunities?