What is child-friendly governance?
Child rights and why they matter
Healthy development is crucial for children, and for the current and future well-being of any society. This has been acknowledged by states across the world by their adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally ratified human rights treaty in history.
Simply put, child rights are human rights adapted to children. Child rights take into account children’s age-appropriate needs and the development process they go through before reaching adulthood.
While states are the primary duty-bearers under the Convention (they are the primary parties responsible for implementing the rights enshrined therein), governments alone cannot guarantee child rights. A wide range of other stakeholders directly or indirectly influence the lives of children. Solutions impacting the lives of children must therefore reach beyond state actors and include civil society organisations, community groups, academia, business, civil society, and most importantly children themselves in order to ensure an effective and meaningful implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Child participation
One of the differences between human rights and child rights is that children do not have the right to vote and take part in political processes. Policies, services, and budget allocations for children are therefore often developed without consulting them, which can render them ineffective and not fit-for-purpose.
Consequently, children and young people may not receive the support and services they need to reach their full potential, a problem compounded by the ever-shrinking budgets available for children.
By ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child, states not only acknowledged that children are capable of participating in decisions affecting their lives: they also recognised their responsibility to facilitate and support children’s participation in such processes. As such, Article 12 affirms that every child capable of forming a view
must be assured the right to express that view and
have it given due weight in accordance with age and maturity.
The latter part of Article 12 is of particular importance as it stresses that it is not enough to give children a voice: the views expressed must be given due weight in the decision-making processes in order for the right to be effective. This right is commonly conceptualized as ‘child participation’.
There are broadly speaking three different modes of child participation, ranging from no participation or tokenistic participation to consultative, collaborative, and child- and youth-led participation, reflecting the varying levels of ownership by children and young people. In reality, these different modes overlap at times, and are used for different purposes.
Regardless of the mode, it is critical that child participation be understood as a process and not an individual one-off event, as stressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment no. 12.
The same general comment also advises against tokenistic approaches, which limit children’s expression of views, or which allow children to be heard, but fail to give their views due weight.
Child-friendly governance
By applying the concept of ‘child-friendly governance’, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘child participation’, our intent is to emphasise the dual nature of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in particular the second element stressing that the views of the child must be given ‘due weight’ in decision-making processes and systems. In other words, it is not enough for children to have the platform and the opportunity to express their view and to have adult decision-makers merely listening to them, but those views must also be acted upon.
Child-friendly governance refers to systems and processes that give children and young people an effective voice in the decision-making which impacts their lives and thereby ensuring that policies, programs, services, and budgets are fit-for-purpose by reflecting the rights and best interests of children.
Child-friendly governance can be exercised by any government entity, city or community, organisation, corporate entity, or society that directly or indirectly impacts the lives of children.
Child-friendly governance involves creating systems and processes that strengthen children’s participation in decision-making related to the rights and needs of children. It means giving children a voice and prioritizing their best interests when formulating laws, developing policies and action plans, defining services for children, and allocating budgets and other processes that support children’s rights. It has proven to be an effective way to ensure a positive impact on children’s development and lives, resulting in structural and sustainable change at scale.
Effective child participation and child-friendly governance
To make child participation and related child-friendly governance systems and processes effective, ethical, and meaningful there must be a genuine commitment to letting children influence the decision-making process. This is well visualized by Professor Laura Lundy in her model on meaningful child participation, which is equally relevant to child-friendly governance more broadly.
*Model developed based on the work of Laura Lundy.
Child-friendly governance and democracy
In the world today, our economic system is primed to creating young consumers. Our democratic system, however, is not keeping pace in creating young citizens.
Meanwhile, democracies around the world are facing enormous challenges. According to Freedom House, democracy has been in decline for the past 16 years. Young people are particularly sceptical of the power of democracy: less than half of young people under the age of 25 vote.
Despite these challenges, democracies are not prioritizing providing children with opportunities to learn about and value democracy through direct experience. By the time they reach voting age, many young people have lost confidence that their voice can influence democratic decision-making. By neglecting our youth, we are not providing fuel for a sustainable democracy.
We believe that an investment in child-friendly governance is an investment in democracy. We seek to strengthen both democracy and child rights by breaking down inter-generational barriers and extending democratic participation to those below the age of 18.
By institutionalising children’s right to participate in decisions impacting their lives, we strengthen the transparency and effectiveness of governance systems while offering children the opportunity to develop important life skills, such as reasoning, problem solving and ideation; creativity and innovation; leadership and social influence; emotional intelligence, management and collaboration; and collective decision-making. In the long term, participation will strengthen the foundations of democratic decision-making by reaching future voters before they reach adulthood.
Child-friendly governance and the sustainable development goals
In 2015, world leaders adopted an ambitious agenda for sustainable development, the 2030 Agenda. The 2030 Agenda sets out 169 targets for sustainable development across 17 goal areas. 44 of these are directly related to children, ranging from education to healthcare coverage, violence prevention to eradicating child poverty. Beyond the child-specific targets, tackling challenges like conflict, climate change, and biodiversity loss will have significant impacts on children’s well-being.
Children were part of the crafting of the 2030 Agenda, and they should play a similarly important role in their implementation. Given the impact that the success or failure of achieving the sustainable development goals will have a significant impact on the lives and futures of our youngest citizens, it is imperative that they are also heard on decisions made in the process. Around the world, children are calling for action on issues ranging from climate change to violence - challenges that the world set itself out to solve by 2030. Building child-friendly governance systems and opening the doors of decision-making to children is therefore central to achieving the 2030 Agenda. Only by working together with children can we achieve the ambitious targets in a child-sensitive way.