Multi-stakeholder pledges - Cross-cutting

Multistakeholder Pledge: Child Rights

Watch the webinar on the Multi-Stakeholder Pledge on Child Rights

Key outcomes

The goal of the Child Rights Multistakeholder Pledge (Child Rights Pledge) is to promote a collaboration between stakeholders with a common objective of ensuring children’s non-discriminatory inclusion in and access to quality national and local systems and services so that children: are protected from violence, abuse and exploitation; can meaningfully participate in decisions that affect their lives; have access to key and child sensitive services including social protection, healthcare and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS); and have access to early years, primary, secondary and tertiary education in a protective environment. By promoting pledges for children and coordinating with other multistakeholder pledging initiatives, the Child Rights Pledge serves as the ‘home’ for commitments made with and for children.

Background

Children make up an estimated 40% of the world's displaced population. Between 2018 and 2022, over one million children were born as refugees. Most children who are displaced today will spend their entire childhood in protracted displacement.

The Global Refugee Forum (GRF) 2023 process and its pledges offer a crucial opportunity to ensure children are at the heart of commitments on refugee inclusion. Pledges with and for refugee and displaced children at the GRF are crucial to put the Global Compact on Refugee (GCR)’s many positive provisions for children in all their diversity into action, with concrete commitments to protect, include and empower children.

Pledge description

Stakeholders can contribute to the Child Rights Pledge by making commitments in any of the following four key priority areas:

Child protection: We commit to facilitating children’s non-discriminatory inclusion in and access to quality national and local child protection systems and services to ensure refugee and displaced children are protected from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence, including gender-based violence and harmful practices.
Empowerment and Meaningful Child Participation: We commit to creating accessible, inclusive, child-friendly and safe platforms and processes to support children and young people to meaningfully participate in the design, implementation, and review of refugee responses to ensure that children are empowered and participate in decisions that affect them. We commit to ensuring that child-friendly communication and accountability mechanisms are in place in all pledges. We also pledge to ensure the meaningful participation of refugee and displaced children and young people in the lead-up to and during the GRF, with clear timeframes and financial commitments and resources.
Access to Key Services (Social Protection, Healthcare, and MHPSS): We commit to ensuring children’s non-discriminatory inclusion in and access to key services, including social protection, healthcare and mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS). This will help refugee and displaced children to integrate and thrive in the communities they live in, strengthen their resilience against shocks, and support their and their family’s security and stability, protecting them from poverty and exclusion. This contributes to ensuring sustainable solutions for children.
Protective and Inclusive Education: We commit to promote refugee and displaced children’s non-discriminatory inclusion in and access to quality and accredited learning and skills training in a safe and protective environment. We will promote their access to and inclusion in quality early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary national education and learning systems (in line with the 15by30 goal), as well as protection, gender equality, dignity and participation and equips them with the skills to succeed in school, work, and life.

To pledge for children, stakeholders can:

Make a holistic pledge that addresses child rights, focusing on or cutting across the priority areas under the Child Rights Multistakeholder Pledge;
Make a specific pledge on child protection or child participation under the Child Rights Multistakeholder Pledge; or
If involved in other Multistakeholder pledges, make commitments that address the specific needs of children or child sensitive services as part of those pledges and tag the Child Rights Pledge (for example by promoting protective education through an education pledge, or by pledging on child-focussed and child-sensitive services in Healthcare and MHPSS, Social Protection and Economic Inclusion, Gender Based Violence, or others relevant multistakeholder pledges).

Stakeholders can submit their pledge on the GCR website by:

Tagging the Child Rights Multistakeholder Pledge.
If supporting or mainstreaming child rights in other multistakeholder pledges, tagging both the Child Rights Pledge and the other multistakeholder pledge.

More information is available in the pledge document that outlines the key priorities, goal, and example commitments of each priority area of as well as the other multistakeholder pledges that this relates to where relevant.

Leadership

The Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts (co-chaired by Terre des Hommes & Save the Children)
Government of Greece
Government of Norway

Members

The Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts is a multi-stakeholder partnership which brings together over 30 UN entities, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, philanthropic foundations, and individual experts (visit the Initiative’s website for more info).