Situation analySiS

Situation analySiS of Children in uganda 2015RECOMMENDATIONSRaise awareness about the value of child participation interventions. The‘value-added’ of child participation engagements – either in community, local, ornational governance dialogues – will require investments in pilot activities that haverobust monitoring and evaluation systems that are able to discern the cost-benefitcharacteristics of such engagements.Support children’s participation through rights-awareness training and supportfor children’s activities and forums. This requires developing the capabilitiesand political empowerment of children themselves as well as structures aroundthem – including school clubs, the development of more plural and diverse schoolmanagement committees, and inclusive local administration systems.Invest in a community of practice to support monitoring and evaluation ofchild participation activities. The data revolution, including advances in real-timemonitoring (such as U-report) provides a useful entry point through which to engagechildren and provide immediate outputs that can assist in promoting accountabilityin the services that are most critical for children.However, the development of child participation mechanisms should take into acountsystemic inequalities associated with such dialogues, including gender, urban and elitebias or capture. Government guidelines on child participation need to be re-promotedacross ministries and re-invigorating to ensure that they are not tokenistic.Develop and implement a child participation strategy. A child participationstrategy will help to articulate key interventions and mechanisms for enhancing childparticipation at different levels and in different spheres. It can help galvanise theefforts of different stakeholers around a common framework and sustainable avenuesthrough which to engage children in matters that affect them. Children’s input intonational surveys through child-friendly indicators and the inclusion of child-specificcategories in national-level data gathering will also improve the evidence base onchild wellbeing, and thereby improve targeting efficiencies.100 KEy ChaLLENGES aND PoLICy rECoMMENDatIoNS