Starting yesterday (I’m late on writing about this one!) people from across the African continent are meeting at the Conference on Child Protection Systems Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa in Dakar, Senegal, to discuss how child protection systems work effectively in the African context. Follow the conference at the #cps12 hashtag or via @CPSystemsS and check out a day one summary on Storify.
“Dozens of African countries are engaged in strengthening child protection systems and mobilizing new sectors for child protection. For example, education and health sectors are engaged in violence prevention work, and social protection is becoming an essential part of efforts to reduce child labour and child marriage. Child justice initiatives are being embedded in broader national justice and security reforms and the health sector is supporting birth registration. Mobile technologies are being used for the reporting of violence, family reunification and rapid assessments. Donors are also increasingly supporting child protection systems….
“’Just the way a health system deals with many diseases, a child protection system addresses a broad range of violations of children’s rights. Children cannot be protected effectively unless social workers, police officers, justice servants, teachers and health workers and communities work together to prevent and respond to abuse and violence…. Investment in national child protection systems leads to better outcomes for children because of children’s improved access to protection services, new investments in frontline workers to identify and respond to children in need; and improved partnerships to mobilize and use resources for children, families and communities,’ according to Joachim Theis, Regional Child Protection Advisor, UNICEF, West and Central Africa.”
Key conference themes include:
- Mapping and assessment of national child protection systems
- Strategies and approaches to strengthening national child protection systems
- Community based child protection mechanisms
- Children as actors and partners in child protection systems
- Social welfare workforce strengthening
- Services delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Aligning traditional child protection agendas with child protection systems
- Strengthening monitoring and evaluation for child protection
- Mobilizing resources for child protection systems
Resources and a discussion forum are available at wiki.childprotectionforum.org. Some relevant background papers include:
- Mapping and Assessing Child Protection Systems in West and Wentral Africa. A Five-country Analysis Paper
- Policy and Programming Resource Guide for Child Protection System Stengthening in Sub-Sahara Africa
- Child Protection System – Mapping and assessing Eastern and Southern Africa
- Working Paper for Child Protection System Strengthening
A few webinars are recorded here on the topics of systems strengthening, budgeting for national system and core competencies for better national child protection systems.
There’s also a good paper on community-based child protection systems that I summarized awhile back.
Coming up soon, a few of us from different organizations will be looking more closely at the role new ICTs can play in child protection systems. Some examples of ICTs and child protection systems are here.
(Thanks to Joachim Theis at UNICEF West Africa for sending over the info on this one.)
Wait... What? 