Government Leadership & Engagement

The CP AoR recognises that States have the primary role and responsibility in the initiation, organisation, coordination and implementation of humanitarian assistance within their territory. Therefore, national systems’ capacities need to be strengthened to guarantee their increased involvement in coordination and leadership of the child protection humanitarian preparedness and response, both at national and sub-national level.

CP AoR is therefore working together with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to strengthen government leadership and engagement. 

The overall aim of the project is to:

1. Improve overall coordination with partners to address the capacity needs of local governments for stronger coordination leadership in child protection in emergencies preparedness and response. 
2. Strengthen four East Asia and Pacific Region governments’ technical and institutional capacity for coordination of child protection response in humanitarian and early warning situations, with an emphasis on reinforcing preparedness. This outcome will be achieved by pursuing the following objectives:
   • providing local actors with the necessary knowledge, skills and resources to lead or contribute to CP coordination (capacity building)
   • contributing to ensuring local actors participate meaningfully and take on leadership, as adequate, in the humanitarian planning process (governance reform).

In 2015, the UNCEF WCARO and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility had identified the need to strengthen national systems to be better involved in the coordination, leadership and preparation of the CP humanitarian response at all levels (national and subnational and developed a three-year project to respond to this need. 

A series of regional workshops have since been held in the periods of December 2015, December 2016 and May 2017 in partnership with UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, with the aim of:

1. strengthening the understanding of the role of governments in coordinating the child protection humanitarian response,
2. strengthening the interaction between the humanitarian system and the existing child protection system in country, and
3. sharing good practices on how to ensure government-led coordination. Based on this, participating governments developed country-specific action plans aimed at strengthening the coordination of child protection in humanitarian settings in their respective countries.  

After the evaluation of the WCARO initiative, lessons learnt were collected and guided a second workshop in Addis Ababa, this time with seven English speaking countries. See the one pager here. 

In February 2020, the CP AoR has worked with the UNICEF Kenya Child Protection Section in Nairobi to support the Department of Children’s Services in Kenya to strengthen the capacity of County Children Coordinators in the emergency prone counties in Kenya. The focus was on developing  and reviewing preparedness and response plans for children affected by emergencies.  The CP AoR also undertook the review of the Operational Guidelines for Child Protection in Emergencies developed by the Department of Children’s Services, which was planned to launch before the end of 2020. 

For more information regarding this initiative, please see the infographic here or contact: Joyce Mutiso (jmutiso@unicef.org).

Related resource:  Engaging with States in Conflict Settings or other Situations of Armed Violence: key considerations for child protection coordinators (6 pages - 2019)