– – Indicators for Children’s Rights
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
To ensure effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, so that children really benefit from the protection it gives, practical
indicators, based on reliable statistical or other data-gathering methods,
are required. These must be easy to collect, interpret and use, not only
for the Committee on the Rights of the Child, but also for UNICEF and specialized
agencies of the United Nations as well as national governments and the NGO
community.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for indicators related
to the various articles of the Convention, that could meet some basic requirements
such as validity, objectivity, sensitivity, comparability, accuracy and
disaggregation, and has appealed to the UN system, NGOs and the research
community for assistance.
Childwatch International has designed a project to meet the needs expressed
by the Committee that will analyze further specific needs for indicators
to monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and suggest how the status of the various rights could be expressed through
objective data. Through a series of country case studies, the project will
develop a strategy for identification and development of the appropriate
indicators.
Through the involvement of national research teams in the case studies as
well as in the overall development of it, the project will contribute to
capacity building within child research and child welfare in the participating
countries.
The results of the project will be presented in Country Case Reports, as
well as a Summary Report that combines the results and experiences of the
study as a whole, with recommendations for future actions and activities.
A Manual on how to use selected indicators based on easily available quantitative
and qualitative data in the monitoring of the Convention for use by governments,
communities, NGOs and child rights advocates will also be produced.
The project is designed to fit into the overall process within the field
of human rights to develop indicators for use in monitoring the various
international human rights treaties, particularly the Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural rights.
The project will also relate closely to relevant developments within the
field of child welfare and child directed development assistance. In particular,
experience from the process of monitoring progress towards the goals of
the Plan of Action of the 1990 World Summit for Children is expected to
contribute significantly to this project. Furthermore the project will draw
upon the experience of UNICEF to develop indicators relevant to its mandate,
as well as child related activities of other UN agencies, research institutes
and non-governmental organisations.
The project will be based at the Children’s Rights Centre at the University
of Gent, Belgium, and coordinated by Childwatch International in close consultation
with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF and other UN agencies,
the Inter-American Children’s Institute, and relevant international NGOs
in the field of child welfare and child directed development assistance.
Provided the necessary funding, the project could start early in 1994 and
extend over a two-to-three year period.
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