Putting Children First
CONFERENCE: Putting Children First - Identifying solutions and taking action to tackle poverty and inequality in Africa.
CROP is one of the co-organisers of this event and will be chairing the introductory session for Theme 1 of the conference: "Setting the Scene: Who and Where are the Poor Children?" on Monday 23 October. CROP will also play a key role in ensuring the smooth running of the conference's full three-day programme of parallel sessions.
Despite important strides in the fight against poverty over the past two decades, with nearly 1.1 billion people escaping extreme poverty since 1990 (UNICEF and World Bank, 2016), child poverty remains widespread and persistent, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF). From 23-25 October, policymakers, researchers and NGOs will come together to identify solutions for fighting child poverty and inequality in Africa at the Putting Children First conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
As children across the world are most likely to be poor, with 50 percent of extremely poor children living in sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF and World Bank, 2016), the event aims to build on the momentum of the SDGs to ensure that children remain at the centre of the agenda in Africa and other parts of the world.
Agnes Akosua Aidoo, African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), who will be presenting at the event said: 'Poverty affects children in lifelong ways, from malnutrition, poor health, lack of success in school, harmful labour and an overall poor quality of life. Not only is this extremely damaging for children and their families, but it has a lasting and detrimental impact on the prosperity and the wellbeing of their countries. Child poverty is everyone's problem, and national governments should make addressing it their absolute priority.'
H.E. Ms. Demitu Hambisa, the Gender Minister for the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ethiopia will also be speaking at the opening session, alongside Leila Pakkala, Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, UNICEF.
The conference will be framed around four overarching themes:
- Setting the Scene: Who and Where are the Poor Children?
- Child Sensitive Social Protection: Making Social Protection Work for Children
- Ensuring Access to Basic Services for All: Reaching and Linking the Poorest and most Marginalised
- Supporting Secure Transitions to Adulthood
It will offer a platform for bridging divides across sectors, disciplines and policy, practice and research and an opportunity to share knowledge and experience.
"Responses and solutions to child poverty are both available and affordable. The provision of social protection that has children at the heart, has now been widely tested and proven in many African countries. However, much room and urgency for improvement remains. Learning about what works and innovative solutions for children in poverty are needed, most of all, in places where there is instability, conflict and weak institutional capacity to deliver." (Keetie Roelen, Institute of Development Studies.
This conference aims to bridge the gaps between policymakers, practitioners, civil society and researchers (pdf) in recognition of the importance of and opportunity for using knowledge and evidence generated from well-focused research on children in poverty in Africa to inform the design of more effective and policies programmes – and to address the multi-dimensional and complex challenges of poverty.
Ultimately it aims to 'make evidence matter' for the poorest and most marginalised children. This is in order to inspire action and mobilise champions among policymakers, politicians, civil society and other key decision-makers throughout African societies.
The CROP Secretariat will make use of its extensive experience in producing publications from similar events in order to contribute towards the post-conference process of identifying and implementing opportunities to publish the best and most informative outputs from this conference.
The conference is co-hosted by the Ethiopian Centre for Child Research, Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI), the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), ESRC DFID Impact Initiative for International Development Research and the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty, including the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), Save the Children, UNICEF and Young Lives.
Links to background documents:
- Call for Papers
- Putting Children First - Concept Note
- Putting Children First - Programme [19-oct-17]
- Putting Children First - Conference Book [19-oct-17]
- Putting Children First - Communique for consultation
