Bringing young street-connected people’s voices into monitoring,

evaluation and planning

Dr. Sarah Thomas de BenitezConsortium for Street Children

Youth | Participation | Impact Manchester 2015

1.Youth - Young street-connected people

2.Participation - A focus on participatory monitoring and evaluation

3.Impact – From NGO planning to UN law

A Passport to Participatory Planning

1. Young street-connected people

Definition: A young person for whom the street is a central reference point, one which plays a significant role in his or her everyday life and identity

1. Young street-connected people: leaving the streets or disappearing from agendas?

1. Young street-connected people: From visible to invisible

• Evidence of ‘street children’: ignored, distorted by government policies

• Discrimination, brutality and round-ups by police

• The role of civil society?

• ‘Figures that occupied a prominent role in the early 1990s, such as the street child, have slowly disappeared from the agenda, while the child victim of violence has gradually become the dominant icon…’

• 1 – Complex arguments: violence against children is simpler & easier to argue than advocacy on behalf of street children

• 2 - Asymmetries of power: have rallied actors around the priorities of UN entities and large INGOs backed by States’ vested interests

Poretti et al, 2013: The rise and fall of icons of ‘stolen

Childhood’ since the adoption of he UN Convention on

the Rights of the Child

1. Young street-connected people: Why do they become invisible?

1. Young street-connected people: How do they become invisible?

Jones et al, ODI, 2013: Knowledge, policy and power in international development: a practical framework for improving policy

2. Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: What’s the Problem?

Making sure we ask the ‘right’ young people…

2. Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: The ‘How’ part…

Asking appropriate questions in meaningful ways…

2. Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: Using adult knowledge…

Opening up adult understandings and knowledge, fostering dialogue with young people…

2. Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: An example

3. Impact – Take up in NGO Planning

Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: Taking it into

3. Impact –Take up in NGO Planning

Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation: Taking it into

Transparency from Evaluation to Planning…

3. Impact – UN Law: UN General Comment on Children in Street Situations

• First piece of international law on street children!

• Focus on discrimination & rights in public spaces

• Consultations with Young People

3. Impact – UN Law: UN General Comment on Children in Street Situations

• Make young people visible

• Make them heard

• Make people listen (the hardest?) – Implementation?

Final Comments

• Strive to make the most excluded young people visible

• Make sure they get heard

• Listen well and use their evidence in planning