Publications

Esta investigación, el segundo de dos estudios de caso, explora la coordinación desde el punto de vista del registro civil y las estadísticas vitales, con especial referencia al registro de los nacimientos en el Perú. Se centra en el papel que puede desempeñar la coordinación para lograr que el registro del nacimiento funcione con eficacia. Aunque la cuestión principal de la que se ocupa este trabajo es la capacidad de las administraciones para prestar el servicio de registro del nacimiento, también se examina la importancia que reside en la comprensión de la coordinación para la mejora de los servicios públicos, especialmente los dirigidos a los niños.

Typically, in the discussions around the use of the Internet, children are acknowledged only in the context of child protection while their rights to provision and participation are overlooked. This paper specifically argues against an age-generic (or ‘age-blind’) approach to ‘users’, because children have specific needs and rights that are not met by governance regimes designed for ‘everyone’. Policy and governance should now ensure children’s rights to access and use digital media and consider how the deployment of the Internet by wider society can enhance children’s rights across the board. The paper ends with six conclusions and recommendations about how to embed recognition of children’s rights in the activities and policies of international Internet governance institutions.

The Paper explores coordination through the lens of civil registration and vital statistics, with particular reference to birth registration in Peru. It focuses on the role that coordination can play in making birth registration function effectively. While the capacity of governments to deliver the function of birth registration is central to this paper, the role that understanding coordination can play in improving public services is examined, especially services for children. The capacity to register the births of children is a long-standing function of governments, and can be seen as a test of government effectiveness. In Peru, backward mapping showed that the trails from local and district registrars to the government registration organization (RENIEC) stopped almost immediately. This seems to point towards the centralized structure and top-down approach of RENIEC; to sustain its achievements to date and to reach the final three per cent of unregistered births it should consider incentivizing and empowering local and community administrations.

UNICEF identifies coordination as a determinant of results for children, alongside other governance issues such as budgeting, management and legislation. As part of wider analysis of barriers and bottlenecks impeding results, UNICEF Country Offices are encouraged to identify where significant impediments to coordination exist, and to analyze what can be done to address them. But how does one identify and analyze coordination? What are it various components? How is it achieved? Enhancing and strengthening coordination can seem to be the answer, or at least an answer, to improving the translation of policy into practice, strengthening service delivery and, ultimately, getting results for money spent.

Las instituciones independientes aportan un enfoque claro hacia la infancia en unos sistemas de gobernanza que tradicionalmente se centran en los adultos. Suelen ofrecer mecanismos directos para mejorar la rendición de cuentas del Estado y otros garantes de la protección del menor, palian deficiencias en los mecanismos de control y equilibrio y trabajan para que se comprenda y se reconozca la relevancia de las políticas y prácticas en favor de los derechos de los niños. Cuando las cosas salen mal, o cuando los resultados son insuficientes, apoyan medidas para poner remedio a la situación y reformar el sistema.

This study, globally the first comprehensive review of independent human rights institutions for children, takes stock of more than 20 years of their experience.The report provides practitioners with an extensive discussion of the issues as well as a series of regional analyses from around the world. The aim is to help readers understand the purpose and potential of independent human rights institutions for children, what it is they do and how they operate. This review covers institutions created by law or decree that are independent at least in principle. It includes institutions performing activities related to children’s rights operating at the national or local level. The report is organized into two major parts: a series of thematic chapters, drawing out lessons from practice on the distinctive principles and features underlying the function of child rights institutions; and an overview of their international development, looking at the work of institutions by region.

Over the past decade, early childhood development and education (ECDE) has received increasing attention. This has led to an influx of scientific, macroeconomic, and rights-based evidence, supporting the importance of equitably implementing quality ECDE programmes and services. Despite the increase in evidence, young children in the developing world still bear the greatest burden of poverty, disease, violence, and risk factors. Recent research suggests that equitable access to quality early childhood services (ECS) can reduce the impact of risk factors and improve outcomes.

This paper links the concept and practice of accountability with child rights, by asking: (1) What accountability means when children are the rights holders, and whose role is it to exact that accountability? (2) What are the assumptions underpinning social accountability, and how can they be revised from the child-rights perspective? (3) How do social and political dynamics at community and national levels, often not linked to child rights issues, shape accountability outcomes? The paper is addressed to child rights practitioners, while drawing from political economy and political science as well as the women’s rights movement. In doing so, it seeks to link the various lessons learnt in order to lay the ground for thinking about child-responsive accountability.

Les institutions indépendantes placent explicitement les enfants au centre des systèmes de gouvernance traditionnellement axés sur les adultes. Fournissant souvent des mécanismes directs assurant une responsabilisation accrue de l’État et des autres protecteurs de l’enfance, elles comblent les lacunes entre les pouvoirs et les contrepouvoirs et veillent à ce que les répercussions des politiques et des pratiques sur les droits de l’enfant soient comprises et reconnues. Lorsque les choses vont mal ou que les résultats ne sont pas à la hauteur des attentes, elles soutiennent les voies de recours et les réformes qui s’imposent.

In response to persistent inequities, there is a global imperative to address the underlying causes of child wellbeing. While remarkable achievements have been made in the last decades in progress in health and survival of children, progress is still lagging in other key dimensions of child wellbeing, a number of which are now recognised as needing fresh attention in both rich and poor countries.

Ensuring the proper functioning of public institutions is integral to good governance, yet ensuring and monitoring the requirements of human rights instruments is difficult and measurement of children’s rights even more so. This paper explores some of the factors which impede and promote public sector responsibilities towards children. The purpose of this analysis is to seek methods of assessing the performance of governments in their roles as protectors of the rights of children according to their international commitments. The multiplicity of actors involved in the process is described and the related problems for cooperation and effective implementation considered.

Tous les Etats francophones de l’Afrique de l’Ouest sont parties à la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant (CDE) ainsi qu’à la Charte africaine des droits et du bien-être de l’enfant (CADBE) et ont donc l’obligation de les mettre en œuvre, en particulier en suivant les indications des organes chargés du contrôle de leur application. Le Comité des droits de l’enfant a identifié les mesures générales essentielles à la mise en œuvre de la CDE. Parmi elles, figure l’établissement d’institutions indépendantes de défense des droits de l’enfant. Ces institutions ont généralement pour mandat de contrôler les activités de divers acteurs – publics et privés – au regard des droits des enfants, de promouvoir les droits des enfants en émettant des recommandations et en éduquant le public, et d’examiner des plaintes individuelles concernant des violations de ces droits. Le présent document fait l’état des avancées pour l’établissement d’institutions indépendantes de défense des droits de l’enfant à la lumière des standards internationaux et africains, en particulier au Burkina Faso, Mali et Sénégal.