Download PDF - Violence Against Children - East Asia and the ...

ecommendations
• Emerging issues, many of which come to
attention through community development
activity, require response. However, many
NGO staff face the choice of taking this on as
an additional task when they are already
overstretched, or alternatively, ignoring an
issue of exploitation. Neither scenario is
appropriate.
• Support improved project documentation
systems so that key information can be made
available to both internal and external
audiences. Approaches to documentation are
needed that allow staff to readily track
changes over time and to be able to
contribute to external advocacy.
• Build capacity in research that incorporates
child-centred approaches, so as to gather
quality data from the perspective
of children. It has been noted in ILO studies
on child labour that the unit of analysis is
usually an adult concern such as the family or
the school, but children’s own perceptions
and opinions must be taken into account.
• Provide specialised technical assistance to
operational offices, such as through shortterm
placements to assist research, analysis
and planning. This was an expressed need of
some agencies interviewed for this study.
Outcome-focused evaluation and
research
• Develop local indicators on child
protection, to be used in outcome-focused
research.
• Make links between project activities and
child-focused indicators, to better measure
which interventions improve quality of life
for children. One clear indicator used in
Cambodia is increased education access, but
other links are possible, such as a gender
focus on advocacy on local child protection
issues; income-generating/micro-enterprise
activity and quality of life improvements; or
links between alcoholism and domestic
violence that affects children, as in Sri Lanka.
• Conduct studies that move beyond the
immediate and give longer-term data on
issues affecting children. Research emerging
issues, document incidents and responses,
and monitor impact over time, making the
information available to concerned parties.
• Base evaluation and research on strategic
child protection priorities identified by
country reports on implementation of the
CRC. Such research may be designed and
implemented in partnership with others,
and result in published papers that include
perspectives from fieldwork.
• Through strategic research on child
protection, develop pilot projects/
models that can be scaled up and applied
in other countries.
• Document successful processes and
outcomes from civil society or NGO
practice in promoting child protection, to
allow these approaches to be adapted in
other settings and models to emerge; these
may be more likely to result in support
from authorities and/or donors.
• Gain further understanding of specific risks
to children and impacts of interventions
through joint research, including in
partnership with universities.
• Pay attention to monitoring, analysis and
strategic use of information from projects
that seek “less visible” structural
changes. Information emerging from
such projects may have significant influence
and impact on practice that promotes
child protection.
• Research and monitor issues affecting
children in order to support advocacy on
law enforcement or social sector reform
for child protection. Advocacy is
strengthened and made more relevant to
grassroots development, by clear examples
and systematic data collection.
88