Annual Meeting Bangkok 2019

The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) and its Areas of Responsibility (AoR), led by the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Mine Action Service and the Norwegian Refugee Council joined together at the GPC Protection Conference under the theme of Child Rights Convention at 30. That year, GPC was also joined by the inter-agency ProCap and GenCap stand-by rosters. There were over 200 participants with an overwhelming majority participation from our 27 field operations. Partners, academics and donors also joined us at the event. The GPC Protection Conference took place on 20-24 May 2019 in Pullman King Power Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand. 

The GPC and each AoR met separately for the first three days, and the final two days brought everyone together.  The CP AoR organised and facilitated the following three sessions during the two joint days:

• Protecting children from armed violence: A panel with speakers from UNICEF, ICRC, the GPC, and Corporación Infancia y Desarrollo  (a local NGO based in Colombia) discussed drivers of violence against children and core response and coordination needs in both armed conflict and armed violence settings. 
• Food security and child protection:  This break-out session explored existing relationships between violent conflicts and food security, with the aim of strengthening integrated approaches. The Child Protection AoR, the Global Food Security Cluster, WFP and UNICEF led the session, highlighting a case study from Mali in which multi-sectoral collaboration is promoting the centrality of protection agenda. 
• Coordination with governments in conflict settings: This session focused on coordination with Governments in contexts where they may be a party to the conflict. It is widely recognized that the cluster system should work collaboratively with national authorities; however, in some contexts, governments may be party to the conflict, thus compromising humanitarian actors' abilities to fully adhere to humanitarian principles when working with governments. 

For more information about topics and key recommendations and to view presentations and full summaries, visit the GPC’s website here. If you would like more information about the first three CP AoR days with Coordinators, Co-Coordinators, and IMOs, please contact the cp-aor@unicef.org.