Integrating Children's Rights into Municipal Action: A Review of Progress and Lessons Learned

This 23-page paper explores a range of case studies and examples of activities undertaken by local municipalities and their partners worldwide to attend to the issue of children's rights by making the concerns of children and youth an integral part of routine local government procedures designed to improve their quality of life in various ways. Illustrations of specific practices/projects being implemented in each area - the majority of which are drawn from the UNICEF Child Friendly Cities Secretariat (CFCS) database - are presented, and categorised as follows:

1. legal and regulatory frameworks
2. institutional structures, processes and partnerships
3. plans of action
4. data collection and information management
5. budgets
6. training and capacity building
7. raising public awareness
8. participation of children and youth
9. implementation
10. monitoring and learning from experience

The review concludes that there has been significant innovation and commitment to making cities better places for children on the part of many local governments, especially in such areas as child and youth participation: "In reading over the interesting and often impressive innovations that have been made in various places, it is easy to begin to assume that attention to young people on the part of local governments is a flourishing phenomenon." However, author Sheridan Bartlett stresses that "these promising advances are more the exception than the rule. It is far more likely that children, if they are considered at all, are seen only as the recipients of particular targeted services in such areas as education, health and social protection - not as citizens with a range of requirements which need to be considered in all phases and sectors of local planning and action....It is also worth noting in advance how few of the documented accounts of municipal initiatives undertaken with children in mind include a truly reflective and self-critical component, or an effort to monitor success over time. Most often they are simply snapshots of systems or projects with little attempt to consider how well they have worked and what might be learned from them." In short, these examples suggest that "there is generally more interest in showcase projects than in broader changes in awareness and inclusion; more interest in the development of projects than in the nuts and bolts of sustaining them; and very little attention to monitoring and evaluation, or to child impact assessment."

The examples reviewed here yield a number of lessons - excerpted here from the document:

"The political context

• To be sustainable, efforts for children should not be associated with a particular political party, but should be legally institutionalized to insulate them from political swings. It also helps for child rights councils to establish their political independence.
• Greater permanence should be given to the posts of officials who are essential to the execution of critical programs that affect children.
• [Non-governmental organisations, or] NGOs are critical in working towards more active attention to children on the part of local government, and especially in providing continuity in the face of changes in administration. To play an effective role in influencing local government, though, local NGOs should ideally have a high level of collaboration and cohesion. Strong grassroots support can also help ensure that good initiatives will survive over time

Information

• The lack of a systematic information system can be a most significant obstacle to meeting children's needs. Still, even when such a system is lacking, compiling and coordinating any existing data can be a practical starting point.
• Coordinating the efforts of organizations already working in different settlements can be a productive way to get city-wide information.
• Local involvement in data collection and the resulting sense of local ownership can contribute to longer-term change.

Information gathering and situation assessment needs to be an ongoing process, not simply a one-time snapshot, in order to reflect the dynamic quality of the lives of children and youth.

• Attention should be given to the perceptions and experience of both boys and girls, and both younger and older children, in attempts to assess local realities and their impacts for young people.
• More attention should be given to documenting and analyzing processes in order to learn from their outcomes.

Budget allocations

• The experience with participatory budgeting in South America, with the higher allocation of resources that this ends up giving to a range of basic social services, suggests that transparency and accountability may be more effective in ensuring attention to children's basic needs than special funds devoted to children.
• Special funds for children, however, may have the advantage of mobilizing private sector resources.

Participation

• The rhetoric of participation is far more common than the genuine inclusion of the views of children in city development processes.
• Assumptions about what children are capable of often constrain even the most committed efforts to involve them.
• Although participatory projects are valuable in terms of their effects for children’s learning and development, it is also clear that young people's experience and their stage in life can make them genuinely valuable resources to any local authority.
• Although children's councils can have at times a token quality, with enough space to maneuver and enough respect for the capacities of young people, they can become a significant local force.
• In the context of participatory work, too little attention is given to the inclusion of the views of parents about the concerns of their young children.

A focus on the physical environment

• Although the most common responses to children's rights involve attention to specifically child-oriented services, when asked, young people will most frequently identify problems within their physical surroundings as concerns they would like to see addressed.
• The physical layout and image of the city can have important impacts on social development, and working together on improving the local environment results in stronger communities.

Keys to success for deeper change

• Specific projects and programs are not necessarily the most effective way to achieve results for children. Often they reach only a small proportion of the needy, or their impact is only short-term.
• Even the best ideas are seldom magic bullets. They require persistence, commitment, and the willingness to learn from experience - from mistakes as well as successes.
• Changing the mindset of everyone is what underlies sustainable change for children, and this depends on continuous sustained efforts.
• This different mindset is heavily dependent on efforts to raise social awareness, both of the issues confronting children, and of successes achieved in addressing problems. Publicity, documentation and communication may appear to be 'extras,' but in fact are fundamental in achieving real social change."