The overall goal is to ensure that, as active development partners, regional, national and local authorities and child rights CSOs ensure the respect, protection and fulfillment of the rights of children in the MENA region.
The objectives seek to make changes throughout the five dimensions, with a focus on changing policies and laws through the integration of relevant and appropriate recommendations from child rights CSOs, ensuring the meaningful and ethical participation of children and the inclusion of children living in vulnerable situations throughout research and data collection activities, but also in policies and practice, and strengthening the capacities of partners, networks and community leaders to advocate for the rights of the child.
A regional project and a set of country-specific projects will contribute to the above goal and objectives. The Yemen-specific projects targets the Yemeni Children’s Parliament, with which SCS has already, has a good experience and, as a pilot that may be replicated at a wider national or even regional level, female and male preachers. Additionally, a research institution will be providing a set of analyses on selected child rights themes and SCS will continue supporting the Yemeni Coalition of Child Rights in its monitoring and reporting activities.
The work with SCUS on the community youth development initiatives availed more opportunities to access to the youth groups/organizations in Yemen and link them to similar organizations and networks in the MENA region.
Save the Children Sweden added value
The Thematic Plan builds on SCS’s long-standing experience in capacity-strengthening in the country.
For the upcoming planning period, it will focus on the management and organisational capacities of core partners and step up the child-rights based approach training to ensure that it is mainstreamed throughout the partners’ programme cycle and internally. It will also continue to foster the establishment of networks and strengthen the capacities of relevant organisations to advocate for and with children.
Finally, it will work more on research and data collection, to ensure that all actors have reliable and accurate data on child rights. Monitoring the implementation of the recommendations and concluding observations made by the UN Committee on the CRC will be strengthened and improved.
Approaches
Based on the Compass, the TP will be rolled-out through a combination of SCS’s four working methods. During the first two years, the TP will focus mainly on strengthening the capacities of partner organisations and other relevant stakeholders. Apart from the more general OCD, two important elements of the capacity-strengthening component are advocacy and networking.
By the end of the second year, advocacy programmes will pick up tempo. SCS will support local and regional partners in their efforts to monitor and advocate more effectively for and with children and whenever possible, foster learning exchanges amongst the partners themselves.
Research constitutes an essential element of the TP and will be ensured through building the capacity of partner organisations in sound research methods and advocating for governments to collect and disseminate reliable data on the situation of children. Through the regional project, SCS will support partner organisations in producing country profiles and regional analyses, both of which will be used as monitoring and advocacy tools for the rights of the child. These reports will also benefit the other TPs, responding to the information needs in terms of protection and education. Finally, it will provide SCS, partner organisations and other relevant stakeholders with reliable and accurate information, enabling them to develop sound indicators and measure change and impact more easily.
In terms of direct support, it will include support to children in the use of advocacy tools such as Animate-It and in disseminating their opinions and recommendations about issues that concern them.