Violence Against Children Final Draft - SDG's

Dear IICRD friends (please forward this to anyone I may have missed),

Please find attached an important update on the latest inclusion of Violence Against Children in the near final draft of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). This will significantly help our work especially as Ravi and others at the UN have been leading efforts to include more “bottom up” approaches to include young peoples and their communities in the drafting of the SDG’s. Strengthening ongoing implementation and monitoring of the SDG’s will of course be the great challenge, and this warrants discussion in our current strategic planning process. Susan Bissell’s webinar on July 7th will be of interest.

Best,

Philip

Dear colleagues,

We are sharing with you here an update from last week's round of Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (22-25 June), which focused on the zero draft of the outcome document for the UN Summit in September 2015, which will adopt the Post-2015 Development Agenda.  The zero draft covers four components of the Agenda: an opening Declaration; the Sustainable Development Goals and targets; Means of Implementation and the Global Partnership; and Follow-up and Review, and can be found here.

The negotiations in preparation for the Addis conference on Financing for Development (FfD) have also been underway.  The latest draft of the FfD outcome document is attached to this email.

SDGs:

With the VAC goals and targets at this point remaining secure, there are a few points to highlight from the latest round of negotiations:

• There was a push by some Member States to include more language on the rights of women and children in the declaration, and to emphasize that children and youth are active participants in the implementation of the agenda (rather than mere recipients of aid).  While the negotiations were not line-by-line, there were positive mentions from some Member States on the need to have more explicit language on child protection, including from Canada and Paraguay;
• Given the critical role of disaggregated data in assessing implementation (including for the VAC goals and targets), there has been a call to include age within paras. 17 and 22 of the Declaration;
• While the Sustainable Development Goals (including Goal 16, which includes VAC) will not be re-opened, there has been new language proposed to strengthen VAC-related target 8.7 (see zero draft, p. 36).

The Child-Focused Agencies issued a joint response to the zero draft (found here), which includes suggested language and inputs on violence against children. 

Financing for Development (FfD):

As the draft Addis outcome document continues to be negotiated, and the clock is ticking towards the Addis meeting, there have been positive additions to the draft to include children.  Explicit mention is made to children in para. 7:

7.   We recognize that investing in children and youth is critical to achieving inclusive, equitable and sustainable development for present and future generations, and we recognize the need to support countries that face particular challenges to make the requisite investments in this area. We reaffirm the vital importance of‎ promoting and protecting the rights of all children, and ensuring that no child is left behind.

We continue to call for a reference to be made to child protection in para. 12. 

Global Side Event on VAC at FfD Conference in Addis:

A side event on ‘Sustaining Investments in Childhood’ will be held in Addis on 13 July 2015 that will focus on the role of an emerging Global Partnership and associated Fund to end violence against children. The side event will consider the critical opportunity offered by SDG 16.2 to end all forms of violence against children, as well as the important role of governments in preventing violence and building systems that make societies a safe place for children to thrive.  The Partnership and Fund will be one of several financing mechanisms supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A new Partnership for ending violence and protecting children can play a catalytic role in demonstrating how violence against children can most effectively be reduced, while leveraging new sources of investment.  With the development of the Partnership underway, there will be an opportunity to hear an update from Susan Bissell, UNICEF Chief of Child Protection, on the partnership on Tues, 7 July from 9-10am EST.  More details on joining the call are attached.

To join the vacinpost2015 listserv to receive updates and event notifications, please send a request to subscribe to Katie Wepplo at kwepplo@gmail.com.