REPORT - Resource Centre...REPORT SIDA CSO 2013–2015 ... ganisational capacity development of the...

REPORT SIDA CSO 2013–2015 | SAVE THE CHILDREN SWEDEN 2016 1

REPORT

to Sida CSO for 2013–2015

RÄDDA BARNEN | 2016


© Save the Children 2016

Compilation and editing: Elin Adelmar and Mie Melin, Save the Children Sweden

Layout: Sofia Hildebrand, Sofia H.

Save the Children Sweden |107 88 Stockholm | +46 8698 90 00

Save the Children fights for children’s

rights.

We deliver immediate and lasting im-

provements to children’s lives worldwide.


Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4

Internal change processes and policies ............................................................ 6 A growing global organisation ............................................................................................... 6 Operational Quality and Cost effectiveness ...................................................................... 8 Follow up of the System Based Audit .................................................................................. 9

Global program results 2013–2015 ............................................................... 10 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 10 Child Rights Governance ...................................................................................................... 12 Child Protection ..................................................................................................................... 33 Health and Nutrition ............................................................................................................. 59 Education .................................................................................................................................. 64 Preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction ..................................................................... 67

Risk Management ............................................................................................... 70 Operational risks – Save the Children Sweden .............................................................. 71

Cross cutting themes & aid effectiveness ..................................................... 72 Civil Society Space and Quality Partnerships .................................................................. 72 Gender equality ...................................................................................................................... 74 Conflict Sensitivity .................................................................................................................. 75 Environment and climate ...................................................................................................... 76 Anti-corruption and Fraud ................................................................................................... 77

Agreement Specific Requirements ................................................................. 79 Partner percentage................................................................................................................. 79 Long term agreements with partner organisations ........................................................ 80 Risk analysis audit coverage ................................................................................................. 80

Financial report .................................................................................................. 81

Annexes ............................................................................................................... 82


Introduction

Save the Children Sweden is a member of the world’s leading independent organisa-

tion for children, Save the Children International, which bases its work on the UN

Convention on the Rights of the Child. This three years’ report includes results from

five global programs covering the themes: Child Rights Governance; Children’s right

to Protection; Health and Nutrition; Education; and preparedness and Disaster Risk

Reduction. It covers programs and activities implemented globally, regionally in Af-

rica, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, as well as in national pro-

grams.

SC Sweden has developed this report in close collaboration and consultation with

country and regional offices, civil society partners and employed staff at different lev-

els of our organisation. It is structured to correspond to the requirements set out in

Sida’s instructions.

The first part of the report focuses on describing the internal changes which Save

the Children, both as a global and a Swedish organisation, has gone through during

the past three years and the actions we have taken to become a more efficient and ef-

fective organisation in the work for children’s rights.

The major part of the report is dedicated to the description and analysis of Save

the Children Sweden’s five global programs, their stated objectives and achieved re-

sults during 2013–2015. The programs have been implemented together with local

civil society organisations, some of them led by children.

The Child Rights Governance and Child Protection programs have been the largest.

They stand for 79 percent of the total budget for the global program, and share those

percent fairly equally.

INTERNAL CHANGE PROCESSES AND POLICIES


The largest financial support for Child Rights Governance was received by the pro-

grams in Southern Africa, the Philippines, Latin America, Bangladesh, and Senegal,

while the programs in South Africa, the Philippines, occupied Palestine territory,

Latin America, Pakistan, and Senegal received the lion share of the Child Protection

funding. Education was supported in Afghanistan and Côte d’Ivoire; Health and Nu-

trition mainly in India and Zambia; and Disaster Risk Reduction in Bangladesh and

Sudan.

The results reached in the global programs are to a large extent based on Save the

Children’s collaboration with partners. The ultimate aim for SC Sweden’s investment

in the capacity of local actors is to create sustainable improvements in children’s lives

and to contribute to a strong and vibrant civil society.

After the results oriented part of the report follows three different sections, an

analysis of the major operational risk faced by SC Sweden during the period, a de-

scription of SC Sweden’s work and development regarding cross cutting themes and

aid effectiveness as well a short summary of the information in the annexed follow

up of agreement specific requirements for the period 2013-2015.

The Financial Report, the analysis of our global indicators and a synthesis report

for evaluations completed during the period are also found as annexes.


Internal change processes and policies

The reported period 2013–2015 has been marked by the establishment of Save the

Children International. With the transition completed in 2014, considerable efforts

have been made both globally and in Sweden to analyse and review the impact and

quality of our new operational structure, and to change, adjust and strengthen our

joint operational platform and strategic focus. Save the Children Sweden is the third

largest member organisation of Save the Children and has invested a lot in terms of

building a new strong global organisation.

A growing global organisation

Save the Children has grown globally during the period both in terms of income,

children reached, employees, partnerships and programmatic breadth. The total in-

come increased from 1.2 billion USD in 2009 to 2.1 billion USD in 2015 when Save

the Children reached 62 million children directly. Save the Children Sweden in-

creased its total income from 700 million SEK in 2009 to 1.3 billion SEK in 2015.

Save the Children’s capacity to respond in emergencies increased significantly

when all national organisations became one global organisation. In 2009 Save the

Children responded in 50 emergencies and in 2014 that number was 103.

During the period Save the Children Sweden has supported associate and pro-

spect member organisations in the global south with the goal to enable them to ac-

quire a strong local supporter base in order to become legitimate national organisa-

tions with a stronger influence within the wider Save the Children movement.

SC Sweden has been actively involved in and supported, at different levels, the or-

ganisational capacity development of the members Swaziland, India, Brazil and South

Africa as well as the prospect members Indonesia and the Philippines.

For political reasons the country programs in Pakistan and Sudan have not yet

been able to transition formally into Save the Children International (SCI). A com-

plete review of the Sudan country office’s operational platform have been made to

ensure coherency with SCI’s global policies and systems and a new operating model

for Sudan for 2016 onwards has been agreed, which will bring the Sudan country of-

fice in line with all other country offices under SCI management. With this change,

the formal line management responsibility moves from Save the Children Sweden to

Save the Children International.

Other important milestones during the period have been the acquisition and inte-

gration of the organisation Merlin which is one of the largest transaction of its kind

in the global humanitarian sector as well as the appointment of Helle Thorning-

Schmidt as Save the Children International’s new Chief Executive. The former Dan-

ish Prime Minister replaces Jasmine Whitbread as CEO of Save the Children Interna-

tional and will play an essential role in leading SCI in the implementation of its new

global strategy 2016–18.



The journey to becoming “one Save the Children” with a clear sense of “we” after

the transition has gone much faster and smoother than predicted with a strong con-

tribution from a very solid and participatory process to develop the new global strat-

egy 2016–18 and the global breakthroughs for children by 2030. In this process, lead-

ers and co-workers of Save the Children, partners, children and other stakeholders

got the opportunity to discuss and collaborate with each other across organisations,

geography and themes. Save the Children Sweden was very active in this process and

instrumental to ensure that child rights, child rights programming and child rights

governance are central and visible in the strategic documents.

Despite the fantastic developments Save the Children has experienced while be-

coming a global organisation over the last five years, there are still internal challenges

that needs to be addressed. In the years to come, the global Save the Children move-

ment has agreed on an ambitious plan to further enhance program quality in domes-

tic and international programs, increase the unrestricted funding to become more

flexible and able to respond to both unexpected developments and strategic opportu-

nities when they arise, as well as to further sharpen global processes and systems.

The toughest challenges that Save the Children Sweden foresees for the next strategic

period 2017–21 is how to balance long-term, rights-based programming with the in-

creasing violence and conflicts in the contexts that we are operating in, the strong

need for integrated programming when systems and donors are not up to speed, and

the continued harmonization of systems with and within SCI.

SC Sweden’s international program department has significantly increased the

number of staff during the period to be able to properly respond to a growing pro-

gram portfolio linked to the income growth and the increasing demands for our tech-

nical support to humanitarian actions as well as for technical support within the field

of child protection. SC Sweden’s current organisation was launched in 2012, in the

midst of the transition. In 2015 the organisation was reviewed and one conclusion is

that the post transition reality is rather different from what it was expected to be. SC

Sweden has experienced a greater demand for knowledge and evidence based the-

matic development and support, operational capacity building as well as strengthened

monitoring of progress and compliance in the program than expected.

The new global strategy gives a clear signal that Save the Children wants to steer

towards a High Performing Organisation, which is recognized for its knowledge and

evidence based high qualitative programming for child rights. The organisation is

based on a networked leadership model where Save the Children International and

SC Members take the lead in different areas, on behalf of, and in the interest of the

entire organisation. Further integration of our programming is a priority and will ena-

ble our programs to be much more efficient and effective. Since these aspects are not

properly catered for in SC Sweden’s current organisational structure an adaptation

will be implemented during 2016. SC Sweden foresee e.g. a break-up of the different

thematic teams into mixed groups to facilitate integrated and full-spectrum program-

ming. SC Sweden will also need a more flexible organisation, with a scalable structure



that can ensure smooth job rotation and interchangeable roles. SC Sweden’s contri-

butions to knowledge management, thematic development and program design will

be catered for in a virtual “think tank” to which staff members from the whole or-

ganisation can be allocated short-term or long-term.

Operational Quality and Cost effectiveness

Operational quality and cost effectiveness have been key priorities for Save the Chil-

dren during the reporting period. Being more efficient and effective in the work for

children’s rights were key drivers behind the establishment of Save the Children In-

ternational (SCI) and together with other members SC Sweden have continued to

promote work that increases efficiency in both core and supporting processes. The

quality framework, improved award management system and processes, establish-

ment of Key Performance Indicators, standardized cost structures and the opera-

tional platform strengthening initiative described below are all examples of clear ac-

tions taken and processes initiated during the period to build a more cost effective

and efficient organisation.

The country offices are important in the efficient implementation of Save the

Children programs. A program to strengthen their operational platform is being run

and measures are being taken to assist all offices to reach the set operating standards.

The quality framework that was launched and rolled out in 2014 has now become

embedded in all country offices as their basic operational procedures and standards.

Each country office conducts an annual self-assessment against the standards to

identify priorities and need for further development and the assessment results guide

the provision of additional resources and capacities to address key operational weak-

nesses.

The review of the award management process in 2014 generated an increased un-

derstanding of complexities and inefficiencies. In Save the Children the award man-

agement process, supported by the award management system, connects and coordi-

nates roles and processes during the planning, securing and management of a pro-

gram or project agreement including the communication and monitoring of donor

requirements. A number of changes has been proposed to key functions, roles and

responsibilities both at country and regional level as well as within member organisa-

tions. New tools, such as the budgeting tool and the risk assessment tool has also

been updated. Linked to the review and adaptation of the organisational structure of

the international program department, SC Sweden has also started implementing

changes in roles and responsibilities related to award management.

The joint processes of both SC Sweden’s and country offices’ performances is

monitored through a common set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Man-

agement Information established in 2015. The KPIs are followed up monthly and

quarterly at all levels and as an example, SC Sweden is being assessed against a KPI



monitoring the timeliness of submissions of reports to donors. The KPI and Man-

agement Information will assist Save the Children in the assessment of progress in

the development of its award management as well as other key processes and

achievements in building a high performing organisation.

Linked to a need for stronger systems and harmonised routines a standardized ap-

proach to cost recovery was developed during 2015 which will allow automation and

increasing predictability of cost allocation over the program portfolios’ lifespan. It is

foreseen that this will reduce the time consuming manual work of finance staff at

country and regional levels and improve the monitoring of program budgets as well

as increase the transparency and predictability in relation to shared support costs.

The model is to be rolled out through 2016 to all Save the Children’s country and re-

gional offices and is one of several priorities towards further harmonizing financial

routines.

To summarize and set a common ground for the new global strategy period, an

internal organisational review was made in 2015 of the collaboration within the Save

the Children movement. The review highlighted a number of remaining complexities

in the collaboration between Save the Children’s members, regional offices and

country offices. As a result new priorities have been set on improving efficiency and

effectiveness and reduce “complexity, cost and stress” throughout the global move-

ment. The priorities have also been translated into clear actions under a High Per-

forming Organisation initiative which is a priority in the Save the Children common

strategy for 2016–18.

Follow up of the System Based Audit

Since the System Based Audit of Save the Children Sweden which was commissioned

by Sida in 2007, SC Sweden has developed annual action plans on key areas. The ac-

tion plan for 2015 focused on e.g. Capacity Building, the Quality Framework and the

roll out of a global Award Management System (AMS). Several of these areas have

been addressed in this report. However, an overview of actions taken in 2015 as well

as a list of further actions to be undertaken in 2016 are presented in Annex 2.

GLOBAL PROGRAM RESULTS 2013–2015


Global program results 2013–2015

Introduction

Save the Children Sweden’s international program is vast in terms of geographic

spread, thematic focus, number and type of civil society partners. In this report we

analyse the results we have achieved at global, regional and country level. We de-

scribe SC Sweden’s work and strategic goals under each of the five thematic program

areas: Child Rights Governance; Children’s right to Protection; Health and Nutrition;

Education; and preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction. We describe the strategies

used and results achieved in the countries and regions of our operations. We further

analyse risks and lessons learned and our ambition for the coming last year of our

current strategic period.

In our program work we use Child Rights Programming (CRP), placing children

in the centre of our work. It recognises children as rights-holders and helps to engage

them in their own development. It recognises governments as the main duty-bearers

in fulfilling children’s rights and promotes their accountability to their citizens.

Adopting a child-rights based approach is the most effective way to bring about posi-

tive and lasting changes for children, their families and their communities. In a child-

rights based program civil society work with the whole chain: empowering citizens;

mobilizing them; strengthening the whole society; advocate for rights and enable the

citizens’ participation in public decision-making.

Consequently, as part of assessing how well we have reached our objectives, we

have specifically looked for changes in the capacity of civil society and the commu-

nity to support children’s right, and for changes in policies and practices affecting

children’s rights and finally for changes in children’s participation and active citizen-

ship.

Policymakers play a crucial role. They have the ultimate responsibility to ensure

that children’s rights are fulfilled and that children are protected from violence,

abuse, neglect and exploitation through supportive policies and legislation. However,

a policy change alone is not enough to realize children’s rights, even though it sends

a strong message that violence is unacceptable and punishable by law. It also requires

a civil society with empowered citizens, that continuously and closely monitor laws

and policies, act as watchdogs, and push for law fulfilment.

This report is based on reports from Save the Children’s regions and countries

covering the years 2013 to 2015, with the results analysed in collaboration with our

partners, and on SC Sweden’s internal results, reported each quarter of 2013, 2014

and 2015. We have further included results from our Advocacy Measurement Tool as

well as from the Global Indicators analysis report for 2013–2015 measuring the pro-

gress of global movement. A complete analysis of all our Global Indicators are re-

ported in Annex 6. We have finally gathered and analysed information from other



relevant evaluations and strategic documents made either by Save the Children or our

partners.

During late 2015 SC Sweden arranged regional and country workshops to follow

up on our objectives, and to ensure that the results of past years were captured and

appropriately analysed. This process of harvesting our program results involved staff

and partners across our regions and countries, and was particularly well received. It

was also an opportunity for us to further strengthen the understanding of Save the

Children’s partnership approach. All of this has been part of the ambition to

strengthen our monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL), and criti-

cal to the success of all our programs.The process to analyze and document results

for this three year report to Sida has made the staff and our partners better prepared

for the coming strategic planning period. It has contributed to improved skills and

ability to plan, monitor and evaluate programs. An effective MEAL system helps us

to systematically track progress, make adjustments, discover unforeseen effects of the

programs, and review the impact we have made on the lives of children and their

families.

We will not in this chapter be able to cover the richness of all the results that have

been achieved by the end of 2015, but will highlight results to reflect the breadth. It

is worth noting that several of the presented results are achieved thanks to consistent

work over an extended period, and not only within the timeframe of this Sida appro-

priation grant. For the same reason many programs will continue after 2015, in order

to ensure sustainable changes in the lives of children and their rights.

Nevertheless, we hope our extensive harvesting of results is visible, as well as

how SC Sweden has contributed to a democratic, pluralistic and child rights focused

civil society both at national, regional and local levels, including children’s active and

meaningful participation.



Child Rights Governance

Overall description

Over the years Save the Children Sweden has – together with our civil society part-

ners – contributed with vast knowledge and experience in how to turn children’s

rights into realities and how to gain and maintain good governance for children.

Child Rights Governance (CRG) means the existence of legislation that protects the

children’s best interests, that authorities and other important actors in society possess

knowledge of children’s rights and needs and that there are financial and social pro-

tection systems in place for children and families. This also includes strengthening in-

stitutional capacity to listen to children’s voices when designing measures.1 The aim

of Save the Children Sweden’s child rights governance program is to increase chil-

dren’s and civil society’s awareness of and capacity to promote children’s rights and

hold duty-bearers to account, and to strengthen state institutions and mechanisms

for the implementation of children’s rights.

Save the Children Sweden’s CRG program include global, regional and national

support, and interventions aiming at fulfilment of the rights of more children in ac-

cordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Throughout this reporting period SC Sweden have had regional CRG programs in

East Africa; Latin America; South East Asia; Southern Africa; and West and Central

Africa.

SC Sweden provided support to 12 countries; Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethio-

pia, Kosovo, Lebanon, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines,

Senegal, Sudan and Yemen. The CRG program has further included support for the

development of the following national Save the Children members: Brazil, India,

South Africa and Swaziland, and of the prospect members Indonesia and the Philip-

pines.

One of the cornerstones of the program is partnerships with national and regional

child rights coalitions and networks, as well as with individual organisations. In total

around 150 civil society organisations are supported by the program.

The key approach in our CRG programming has been to focus on knowledge de-

velopment, to plan and carry out advocacy and awareness raising activities as well as

conduct trainings and give direct support. This has mainly been done through re-

gional and national programs, and within Save the Children’s global Child Rights

Governance Initiative (CRGI). Other main strategies have been to work across all

sectors, not least through our five Global Initiatives to ensure that all rights and as-

pects of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) are captured in all

programs.

1 SC Sweden’s Strategic Plan 2013–2015, adopted in October 2012.

GLOBAL PROGRAM RESULTS 2013–2015 – CHILD RIGHTS GOVERNANCE


The overall goal for 2013–2015 has been:

► More children have their rights fulfilled in accordance with the UNCRC.

To meet this goal the child rights governance program focused on the following

three global outcomes: 1. More children participate actively in the monitoring of the UNCRC;

2. Improved implementation of the General Measures of Implementation;2

3. More civil society organisations have the capacity to independently influ-ence governments to fulfil with the UNCRC.

In this chapter we have summarised significant achievements at global, regional and

national levels. In the first section we summarise the results on an overall global

level. Then we present results on country and regional level for each of the above

three program outcomes. When analysing the results we have looked at whether chil-

dren’s participation resulted in strengthened monitoring of the UNCRC and in-

creased opportunities for children to claim their rights; how effective Save the Chil-

dren and our partner organisations have been in pushing for improved implementa-

tion of the UNCRC; and finally how well SC Sweden supported the organisational

capacity development of our partners, and if we have contributed to members be-

coming stronger Save the Children organisations, as well as to regional and national

coalitions becoming stronger actors for children’s rights.

Overall Child Rights Governance results

During this first reporting period, following SC Sweden’s transition into Save the

Children International, it has become evident that Child Rights Governance as a

theme has gained increased recognition within the global movement. During this pe-

riod the rights based approach has been strengthened much thanks to SC Sweden’s

effort and that by the global Child Rights Governance Initiative. This was further

manifested through the child rights situation analysis (CRSA) becoming mandatory

for all countries in the new strategic planning process, and the new partnership

framework considered as good practice for all types of partnerships. In addition, pro-

gress has been made in the integration of child rights governance in humanitarian re-

sponses where SC Sweden plays a prominent role in its collaboration with the Initia-

tive.

The Child Rights Governance (CRG) Initiative analysed all Save the Children’s

country strategic plans for 2016–2018 to ascertain their focus on Child Rights Gov-

ernance. The top five focus points were: children’s visibility in budgets; strengthening

coalitions and civil society organisations; follow up advocacy on concluding observa-

tions; children engaged in monitoring UNCRC; and reporting to UN Committee on

2 The General Measures of Implementation consists of a number of measures such as legislative, policy, institutional, budgetary and statisti-

cal actions that countries must undertake for an effective implementation of the UNCRC.



the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) and the Universal Periodic Review.3 These are all

topics, which SC Sweden has focused on for the past reporting period.

Child Rights Governance is an overarching program area with strong links to all

other thematic areas, but with the smallest budget within the global movement. The

CRG Initiative and country programs are struggling with funding. The Initiative de-

scribes in its annual report 2015, that there has been no breakthrough with donors.4

Another funding challenge is the reduction of the Nordic members framework fund-

ing. Previously our country programs has been able to mobilise additional resources

from Save the Children Denmark, Norway and Finland.

To strengthen the child rights based approach across the global movement and

partner organisations SC Sweden has led the development of a mandatory on-line

training on Child Rights Programming produced together with Save the Children

Norway, Denmark and Finland, and with the centre at Save the Children Interna-

tional. The training will be launched globally for all program staff in 2016.

Another priority during the period has been to improve the support to our part-

ners’ thematic and organisational capacities. Therefore, a specific guidance paper –

“Position and Criteria for SC Sweden’s OCD support” – was issued to improve and

ensure that a coherent organisational capacity development approach to partners will

be included in all SC Sweden funded programs.

SC Sweden has been the leading Save the Children organisation in the develop-

ment of the global approach to Child Rights and Business. During past years we have

seen an increasing interest from countries and partners to act as agents for change, to

learn how to work with the corporate sector and what businesses can and should do

to respect children’s rights.

Among Save the Children’s 30 members SC Sweden is the only member with pro-

grams on a regional level and with support to regional coalitions, although child

rights coalitions in all regions expect of South Central Asia are supported by Save the

Children. These coalitions are putting together alternative reports to supplement the

reports that the states submit to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The

coalitions follow up on the recommendations put forward in the Universal Periodic

Reviews, advocate for laws strengthening the rights of the child and conduct lobby-

ing on different child rights issues affecting their whole region.

Civil society coalitions differ substantially from single organisations, and require

well-defined structures. They are very complex and inherently unstable and increas-

ingly difficult to coordinate as they grow in size, geographic reach, and functional di-

versity. To lead, participate in, or support CSO coalitions requires structures, ap-

proaches, and strategies that are different from what most single organisations are

used to.5

3 Making Noise. Child Rights Governance. CRG global secretariat Annual Report 2015. 4 Ibid. 5 Read more in “How to use the Children’s Rights and Business Principles; A Guide for Civil Society Organisations” and “Business and Chil-

dren’s Participation, How Business can create opportunities for children’s participation”.



Global Program Outcome 1:

More children participate actively in the monitoring of the UNCRC

Strategies for goal fulfilment

Save the Children Sweden is the member of Save the Children with the longest-stand-

ing experience of how to engage children – of different ages and abilities and includ-

ing the most marginalized – to express their view, influence decision-making and

achieve change, in any matter that concern them.

SC Sweden has provided extensive support to country offices through training,

development of tools, guidance and analysis of approaches to children’s participa-

tion. This has been done within the framework of the global Child Rights Govern-

ance Initiative, and with particular focus on strengthening individual civil society or-

ganisations and coalitions, including child-led ones, as well as on child participation

in the monitoring of the UNCRC, the Universal Periodic Review and in regionally

established mechanisms.

Children’s participation is especially important in telling the United Nations Com-

mittee on the Rights of the Child how children’s rights are respected in each country.

Moreover, it gives girls and boys of different ages and backgrounds insights into

what they can claim as right holders, from governments that are the primary duty-

bearers.

By participating the children have learnt not only democratic values, but also what

an inclusive and active citizenship entails. The ultimate aim is that their opportunities

to be active citizens are not only encouraged, but above all built into the state gov-

ernance systems.

Summary of reported outcomes

In 2015, 88 percent of the countries with a country office or member presence sub-

mitted supplementary reports to the United Nations. All of the countries were sup-

plementary reports were due and with Save the Children member presence reported

against the UNCRC framework.6 12 out of 15 countries reported against the Univer-

sal Periodic Review framework. According to the global Child Rights Governance

Initiative the trend towards increased child participation in supplementary reports

grew stronger in 2015, with 17 out of the 22 reports submitted being informed by the

views of children.7

When summarising the results we see different levels of child participation in the

monitoring and reporting process, mainly depending on the maturity of the country

and its willingness to promote the participation of children. In some countries the

children made their own organisations lead the monitoring process. In more difficult

6 The countries were; Haiti, Peru, Kenya, Senegal, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Sierra Leone, South Africa. 7 Making Noise. Child Rights Governance. CRG global secretariat Annual Report 2015.



circumstances other strategies were used to achieve results, strategies that will show

us how to function in very difficult contexts.

The CRG Initiative states that 21 countries8 reported increase in public spending

in child focused sectors, either by local or central governments. This can be seen as a

result of well-supported interventions by Save the Children. Moreover, in the process

to adopt the Human Rights Council resolution “Towards Better Investment in the

Rights of the Child” the CRG Initiative: co-chaired the coalition of child rights or-

ganisations and networks; supported the organisation of a council meeting; was rep-

resented in the expert panel; and supported the draft resolution. Most significantly, in

collaboration with other organisations, Save the Children amplified children’s voices

by a comprehensive consultation with more than 2,700 children from 71 countries.9

In Bangladesh, Save the Children supported the National Children’s Task Force

(NCTF)10 to develop a new interactive web and social media platform, which enabled

children to interact regardless of their physical location. Children in about 50 districts

could participate and directly access duty bearers with their recommendations. The

active participation of children on this digital platform contributed to greater public

advocacy and made it possible to reach a larger audience in shorter time. NCTF

members used data collected by 256 child researchers to influence local and national

authorities. The campaign succeeded in stopping a law proposing to lower the age of

marriage to 16 year. In addition, NCTF also played a significant role in mobilizing

children to raise their voice on violence against children. All together they collected

one million signatures in 2015 requesting the government to take action against child

killings, submitting petitions to commissioners in all 64 districts.

In the Philippines the children’s active engagement in child rights monitoring

and advocacy have made it possible for them to take a concrete stand and propose

policy recommendations on broad issues that impact their lives. This started in 2013

and has managed to let more than 2,000 children give their views through consulta-

tions, dialogue and congressional hearings. By the end of 2015, our partner the

Choice To Change (C2C) had engaged 26 child groups from Luzon, Visayas and

Mindanao – further broadening C2C’s scope both geographically and thematically.

8 El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Peru, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Dominican Republic, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan,

Uganda, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Albania. 9 www.childrightsconnect.org/govtspendingsurvey 10 www.nctfbd.org

Children’s right to be heard and to be taken

seriously is a visionary provision and crucial to the

Convention on the Rights of the Child

http://www.childrightsconnect.org/govtspendingsurvey

http://www.nctfbd.org/



The children developed concrete recommendations drawn from their UNCRC moni-

toring work, and the child groups are well prepared and well organised to participate

in the supplementary UNCRC reporting process due in 2017.

In Lebanon, three of Save the Children’s partners: Nabaa, Mouvement Social and

Abaad were trained on supplementary reporting to the Universal Periodic Review

(UPR) and submitted a joint report on child rights to the UPR Working Group meet-

ing in March 2015. Children from all Lebanese governorates, and both Lebanese and

Palestinian refugees, were consulted. They were already engaged in research on the

situation of child rights in their geographical areas. With their knowledge, their input

was valuable and quite sector specific, such as education, health and protection.

Conclusions and lessons learned

The results clearly shows that children’s participation in monitoring is increasingly

important to the strategic work for child rights governance. Most countries have inte-

grated child participation in the UNCRC monitoring and many in the UPR reporting

processes, and some also in the regional human rights mechanisms. It is no longer a

one-off activity carried out in the year when the country is supposed to submit a sup-

plementary report. It has become continuous and an integral part of child rights gov-

ernance.

There is an understanding among country offices and partners that getting chil-

dren actively involved requires a long-term investment and a mix of strategies. Train-

ing of staff and partners on the UNCRC and how to analyse the situation for chil-

dren’s rights in a country, build systems for monitoring, and develop databases for

improved evidence have all been necessary strategies to improve children’s participa-

tion in the monitoring processes.

It is further obvious that a non-discrimination lens has been used. Numerous

countries report an increased focus of involving both girls and boys belonging to

marginalized groups, such as children with disabilities, street children, refugee chil-

dren and children from ethnic minorities, just to mention a few.

In many of the countries that SC Sweden support we can see that children have

become more active and committed. At the same time we notice that the ambition to

involve children in monitoring is quite challenging and resource demanding, as de-

scribed by Save the Children’s country office in the Philippines:

“Strengthening children’s participating and citizenship involves long term strategic

planning, partnerships and consistency in programming as well as resourcing… Chal-

lenges include the need to continuously create and provide new opportunities from

children’s groups learning, exposure and participation and to make children groups

sustainable.”



The Child Rights Information Centre in Moldovia reflects over the necessity to in-

crease the focus on marginalized children and the need for child protection polices

and standards while engaging children in various activities and programs.11

The ultimate aim is to create a system that is part of an improved governance for

children, enabling them to have a solid platform where they can exercise their rights

and where adults listen to them and take their views into consideration.


Improved implementation of the General Measures of Implementa-

tion


To ensure that governments are increasingly applying the UN Convention on the

Rights of the Child in legislation and policies a number of broad measures for effec-

tive implementation are contained in the convention. Save the Children’s Child

Rights Governance program builds on the guiding article 4 which provides: “States

Parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures”

for the implementation of the rights recognised in the Convention. This set of

measures, which needs to be in place for a state to effectively implement and realise

children’s rights, are called the General Measures of Implementation (GMI).

In collaboration with children and civil society organisations, Save the Children

has identified gaps and weaknesses in the implementation of these measures and also

advocated with governments to ensure that an infrastructure is put in place, and ade-

quately resourced with funds and qualified human resources. SC Sweden has worked

to strengthen national implementation structures by focusing on three of the GMI’s:

review of laws and policies, in particular addressing discrimination of groups of chil-

dren and inequalities between girls and boys; child centred budgeting to ensure in-

creased and fairer allocation of public funds for e.g. education, health and protection;

and finally training and capacity building for all those involved in the implementation

process.

Save the Children’s Child Rights Governance Initiative has, with SC Sweden’s ac-

tive contribution, developed tools and methods and has strengthened the capacity of

civil society partners and children to better support the implementation of the GMI’s

in each country. SC Sweden has also advocated larger groups of civil society organi-

sations and duty bearers on all levels – local, national, regional and global. These ap-

proaches have helped to create a constructive dialogue between our civil society part-

ners and their governments, and made policymakers better informed on the weak-

11 From CRIC report Lessons learnt EUR program: Children's participation in the project activities poses a general risk of harm (various types

of violence) and increases the risks specifically related to children's participation, for example manipulation or negative reactions when

children claim their rights (disregard to open hostility). CRIC has Child Protection Policy (includes timely risk analysis & mitigation strate-gies) and Participation Standards (includes children's safety). Also, CRIC is supporting development of protection structures and procedures

in the education sector, which improves its effectiveness in violence prevention and protection of children form violence. CRIC cooperates and coordinates its actions also with other sectors (both authorities and NGOs).



nesses and gaps regarding child rights. Through carefully selected strategies SC Swe-

den has tried to make governments move forward with the implementation of the

General Measures of Implementation more quickly.


Policy and legislation

Save the Children’s regional program for East Africa contributed to a regional Child

Rights Policy, drafted by the East Africa Community (EAC). It is a mechanism to re-

inforce child rights standards across the region, and will strengthen the framework

provided by UNCRC and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the

Child. The Child Rights Policy will help to enhance the protective mechanisms for

children and reinforce the need for national child protection systems and of a harmo-

nized national legislation across the region, about some of the contradictory aspects

on the definitions of a child, minimum age of marriage and conscription into national

armed forces. The capacity of EAC to deliver on the common approach required

support from Save the Children as well as from other organisations. The EAC Child

Rights Policy is supported technically and financially by the Inter-Agency Working

Group initiated by Save the Children in 2012.12 During 2014 and 2015 the drafting

process was carried out in consultation with Member States experts and it was

adopted during the Sectorial Council in April 2016.

In 2014, Save the Children’s partner CONAFE13 in Senegal, gave priority to three

concluding observations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in

2006. The priorities were on birth registration, universal free health care for children

aged 0 to 5 years and inclusive education. The advocacy resulted, for example, in

birth certificates for almost 2,500 children and free health care for 14,000 children. In

2015, CONAFE continued mobilizing the community and carried out advocacy that

resulted in thousands of children being registered and getting their birth certificates.

The advocacy has pushed the government to start modernizing the civil registry ser-

vice so that children can get their birth certificates easily and safely and enjoy their

12 It includes likeminded organisations like Plan International, the Africa Child Policy Forum, Elizabeth Glaser for Paediatric Aids Foundations,

World Vision and the Africa Platform for Social protection. 13 Coalition Nationale des Associations et ONG en Faveur de l’Enfance (CONAFE). CONAFE Senegal is an umbrella organisation created in

2004 gathering over 200 child focused member NGOs and associations.

General Comment No. 5 deals with “General Measures of

Implementation of the Convention” and lists a number of

measures that countries must undertake for an effective

implementation of the UNCRC. This can be legislative, policy,

institutional, budgetary and statistical actions



right to citizenship. This took place in a country where numerous vulnerable children

had died before their fifth birthday from preventable causes, many of them without a

right to education or civil status, excluding them from democracy and their country’s

economic development.

In Bangladesh, Save the Children’s and our partners’ continued advocacy and

follow up with the government on specific improvements of the recommendations

under the general measures of implementation resulted in a new Children’s Act, re-

pealing an act from 1974. The new act was approved by the government in 2013 for

the purpose of implementing the UNCRC. In 2015 the process to establish a sepa-

rate Children’s Directorate started and a committee to accelerate the process was

formed. Alongside government departments in this committee, Save the Children is a

member and can provide technical support.

To ensure a proper implementation of the National Plan of Action for Children

and Adolescents 2012–2021 in Peru, Consultative Councils of Children and Adoles-

cents were established. Together with partners Save the Children has contributed to

the development and function of 18 regional advisory councils and continuously

worked to convince the reluctant authorities to include children in these councils.

Save the Children and partners supported the children and adolescents on manage-

ment, planning and advocacy to prepare them for their tasks. The trainings gathered

interest among more than 800 children and adolescents.

Child centred budgeting - Investment in Children

In Bangladesh, the Child Friendly Local Governance project (CFLG) has created

space for children’s citizenship by engaging children in local decision-making pro-

cesses. Through guided participation almost 25,000 girls and boys were engaged in

community meetings and planning and budgeting meetings of the Union Parishads

(local councils)14 and municipalities (urban local government). As a result, the local

government institutions have, for the first time, explicitly acknowledged resource re-

quirements and budgeting for children. In the fiscal year 2014–2015, some Union Pa-

rishads and municipalities allocated USD 194,900 for child focused plans and USD

166,000 was spent on school uniforms and educational materials, cash transfers to

extremely poor children and their families and solar panels for non-electrified house-

holds. In late 2015, 14 Union Parishads submitted proposals based on the CFLG in-

terventions to an “innovation fund” organised by the prime minister’s office. Pro-

posals have been approved and around 18,000 USD will be allocated to each Union

Parishad. Save the Children’s partners the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers As-

sociation (BNWLA)15 and the Social and Economic Enhancement Program (SEEP)16

14 Union Parishads or Town Unions are the smallest rural administrative and local government units in Bangladesh. Each Union is made up

of nine Wards, so called administrative units. 15 Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA), ensure rule of law and gender equality by accountable, transparent demo-

cratic practice of state to respect Human Rights and Fundamental rights. 16 The Social and Economic Enhancement Program (SEEP), a voluntary social welfare organisation.



mentor the child and youth groups and enhance their understanding of local social

accountability.

In Pakistan, Save the Children together with our partner Child Rights Movement

(CRM) analysed taxation and child specific budgeting,17 which was the first time taxa-

tion was discussed in relation to children’s rights in Pakistan. In Punjab and Sindh,

CRM conducted a budget analysis and used the findings to demand increased alloca-

tion for children. There were commitments from the members of the Provincial As-

sembly for increasing budget allocation for children. The Child Protection and Wel-

fare Bureau got an increase from 368 million in 2013–2014 to 500 million in 2014–

2015, which meant that more children received support from protection authorities.

However, the quality of the services is not yet up to standard. Together with CRM

Save the Children will keep advocating for minimum standards in protection services

for children, in budget allocations and spending, and further continue to monitor the

process.

As a result of the regional program’s growing capacity on investment in children in

Southern Africa, the civil society organisations realised that governments in the re-

gion needed to allocate adequate resources to the child sector. This has led to the es-

tablishment of the Southern Africa Regional Child Budget Network (Imali Ye

Mwana), focusing on advocacy towards the Southern Africa Development Commu-

nity (SADC). To inform the network’s further development its members undertook

an evaluation in 2012, with support from Save the Children, which recommended the

development of a comprehensive strategy for Investment in Children in the SADC

region. The Child Rights Network for Southern Africa (CRNSA) has managed to

claim a space at the SADC Council of NGOs to represent children’s issues, and to

continue lobbying for member states to adhere to their commitments to children’s

rights starting with SADC, the African Union and finally the United Nations.

Training and capacity building

In the occupied Palestinian territories, the active civil society was instrumental in

influencing the Palestinian Authority to ratify, commit and report on UNCRC and

the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). During 2013–

17 Report: Taxation Systems in Pakistan and its impact on children, CRM and Save the Children 2014.

Work on public investment in children is central in

reaching out to many children with essential services

for them to enjoy their rights. This work requires

strong collaboration with other themes and partners

Child Rights Governance Initiative, Annual Report 2015



2015 Save the Children together with our partners successfully managed to build the

capacity of different stakeholders on both conventions, and to improve the capacity

of both children’s and civil society’s organisations to monitor child rights violations.

In 2015, national committees in the West Bank and Gaza were formed and relevant

stakeholders agreed on their respective roles. The committees were trained on re-

porting mechanisms and how to draft a report, and the necessary data was collected.

These capacity building efforts were essential in preparing for the coming submission

of state and supplementary reports on the International Covenant on Economic, So-

cial and Cultural Rights (CESCR)18 and on the CRPD, as well as the UNCRC op-

tional protocol on armed children.

In Kosovo Save the Children continued to provide support and opportunities for

partners, both national and regional, on thematic and organisational capacity building

through trainings, workshops and exchange meetings in specific child rights themes,

such as Children in Media, Investment in Children, Advocacy and Emergency Pre-

paredness Plan, Child Participation, Child Safeguarding, Organisational Capacity De-

velopment planning, and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning. As a

result they can see a shift in how organisational capacity development is perceived,

and an increased capacity among our partners to act as watchdogs for children’s

rights, to hold duty-bearers accountable, and to promote mechanisms to make

schools and municipality a safe place for children.

In Bangladesh, Save the Children brought the civil society network Child Rights

Advocacy Coalition together to develop a unified child rights monitoring and report-

ing framework sharing responsibilities and resources for submission of an evidence-

based supplementary report to the UN CRC. Three key results should be highlighted:

firstly, a collective understanding of the need to underpin monitoring of child rights

and advocacy with qualitative evidence; secondly, a high quality supplementary report

to UNCRC, submitted in 2014 by the Child Rights Advocacy Coalition,19 where 38

out of 50 recommendations in the supplementary report were reflected in the UN

CRC’s concluding observations in 2015; lastly, the Coalition, with support from

SC Sweden, continues to expand its scope of advocacy persuading the government to

ratify the Optional Protocol to UNCRC on a Communications Procedure (OP3

UNCRC) and to establish a Child Rights Ombudsperson. Starting in 2015 the aim is

to regularly produce a state of the children’s report to advocate with the government

and to build cohesion and stronger analysis into the next supplementary report.


While further development of the whole framework of the general measures of im-

plementation is needed in all our countries, it is obvious that keeping a focus on

18 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) is the body of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of

the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by its States parties. 19 10 members: Action Aid in Bangladesh (AAB); Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK); Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF); Child Rights Govern-

ance Assembly (CRGA); Education to and Development Foundation (EDUCO); National Girls Child Advocacy Forum (NGCAF); Plan Inter-national Bangladesh (PIB); Terres des Hommes-Netherlands (TdH-NL); and World Vision Bangladesh (WVB).



three particular measures – reviewing laws and policies, child centred budgeting, and

training and capacity building – has been a well-chosen strategy. Most country offices

working on child rights governance, advocate one or more General Measures of Im-

plementation. Several training and learning events have taken place across countries

and regions were we work and we see increased capacity among our civil society part-

ners to challenge their governments on how they implement the GMIs. But the ca-

pacity needs to be improved on all of the General Measures of Implementation.

Guidance on GMIs will continue to be important for SC Sweden, in cooperation

with the Child Rights Governance Initiative.

Notably, Save the Children’s global initiative on Child Rights Governance

acknowledged that most countries carried out their supplementary reporting on the

UNCRC, UPR and African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child more in-

dependently compared to previous years. The training, tools, and webinars provided

to our partners - mainly by SC Sweden and Denmark – have produced the desired ef-

fect.20

The results confirm the CSO’s active engagement, both as individual organisa-

tions and as part of cooperation in coalitions and networks have helped them to

push for greater follow up of the GMIs. However, there are also challenges. SC

South Africa reports lack of follow-up on the concluding observations and lack of

meaningful engagement in the process of compiling supplementary reports to UN

CRC and ACERWC. Their conclusion is that it is imperative that CSO’s engage

member states on raising awareness on the concluding observations and strive for

their collective implementation.

Kosovo states that the full implementation of the GMI is still far from being

reached, due to “the instable political situation in the country”. In our forthcoming

strategy, we should therefore find ways of pushing for a comprehensive framework

and a long term vision, as well as for the various important parts of the GMIs.

Understanding national and local budget processes can be quite complex espe-

cially as Save the Children mostly operates in countries where budgets and plans are

seldom developed and implemented in a transparent way. Save the Children in Ethio-

pia has reflected on this; “Engaging children in budgetary and social accountability

process requires rigorous capacity building and long term engagement… there are

still gaps to meaningfully engage children in budget influencing work, which further

requires more capacity building to children, adult community members and govern-

ment authorities”.

The Philippines has also documented lessons learnt regarding the same: “As

CSOs and children have realised, there are challenges at every step of the way within

the public finance process. Thus, it is important to build champions at every stage”.

Since governments do not always automatically act with the best interest of the

child in mind strong efforts are needed to ensure investments in children. Save the

20 Making Noise. Child Rights Governance. CRG global secretariat Annual Report 2015.



Children has worked with governments and citizens to increase and improve spend-

ing on children. With enhanced understanding among our civil society partners and

the children themselves, on how their government spend its money they will be bet-

ter positioned to advocate for change. Ultimately, it comes down to a country’s polit-

ical willingness to invest in children.


More CSOs have the capacity to independently influence governments


Save the Children works with many types of partnerships that help to mobilise differ-

ent actors for children’s rights. The capacity and skills of civil society organisations

are critical for Save the Children’s achievement of our objectives and breakthroughs

for children. Consequently, a part of the core of SC Sweden’s support to our CSO

partners has been the development of their organisational capacity and their thematic

knowledge. By assessing our partners’ strengths and weaknesses as organisations in

order to identify their need of organisational development, and by supporting other

national Save the Children members we further the development of a strong inde-

pendent civil society that can promote the best interest of the child, from grass root

to parliamentary level. Other core strategies have been to focus on building staff and

partners’ capacity on Child Rights and Business Principles and on strengthening re-

gional and national child rights coalitions.


Organisational Capacity Development

Save the Children have assessed our partners’ capacity in past years in relation to five

different organisational dimensions on a five graded scale. The dimensions are: insti-

tutional arrangement; implementing capacity; planning, monitoring and evaluation;

sustainability; and financial management. In 2015, 147 partners out of 160 had in-

creased capacity in at least one organisational capacity development (OCD) dimen-

sion. 23 percent showed better capacity in all the dimensions, 18 percent in 4 dimen-

sions, 24 percent in 3 dimensions, and 16 percent in 2 dimensions, and 10 percent in

one of the dimensions.21 This is a great step in the right direction from the baseline

report of 2013, when Save the Children first assessed the organisations’ capacity in all

OCD dimensions. SC Sweden has been a prominent contributor to our partners’ in-

creased organisational capacity.

In Kosovo, Save the Children reports a paradigm shift in how OCD is perceived

now compared to 2013. Save the Children increased the capacity of both national

and regional partners by providing a variety of opportunities for them to share their

21 Global Indicator Analysis Report 2013-2015.



experiences, and to learn more on monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learn-

ing; child safeguarding and OCD planning. The continued partnership support have

had great importance for the development of a shared regional child rights agenda.

The Kosovo country office reflects that “synergies built with regional and local part-

ners in partnership with Save the Children made all of us more influential to fight for

children’s rights.”

In Ethiopia, the findings of the 2013 organisational capacity assessment of one of

its partners, Organisation for Social Development, recommended: including men on

the board of directors since it only consisted of women; developing a fund raising

strategy and a gender and child protection policy; recruiting an independent monitor-

ing and evaluation unit; and training on fund raising, proposal development, and cor-

porate social responsibility. In 2015, with funding from SC Sweden, the partner has

developed: a monitoring and evaluation guide; a fund-raising and communication

strategy; and a child protection policy. In addition, relevant staff members of the or-

ganisation were trained on investment in children, child rights programming, and

Save the Children’s monitoring, and on evaluation framework.

In 2013 SC Sweden and Denmark supported a position on partnership in Bangla-

desh with the purpose to strengthen the overall partnership management system and

develop a coherent partnership framework for the country office. The framework

was developed in 2013–14 and implemented by the country office in 2014–15. The

development of the framework has proved to be very strategic also from a broader

perspective as it has been replicated and used as a model for several other country of-

fices, both in the region and elsewhere, in improving their partnership management

systems. SC Sweden’s and Denmark’s investment in partnerships in Bangladesh, Save

the Children’s second largest country office, has been a strong contributing factor in

putting partnerships very high on Save the Children’s agenda.

In Yemen, Save the Children’s six partners held several meetings in order to up-

date each other on their results. In parallel, Save the Children provided them with

technical, advocacy and proposal writing skills. In 2015, Save the Children managed

to gather them and provided training on advocacy in emergency settings and on case

management. Throughout the three year project, all of our partners have gradually

developed in some areas and show a high improvement rate of their organisational

Civil society organisations are catalysts and facilitators

who can influence decision-makers to see issues

through a child rights lens and advocate for concrete

changes

From Child Rights Governance IS Good

Governance for Children



capacities, as well as increased thematic competence, and ability to implement their

projects.

In Côte d’Ivoire, Save the Children’s institutional capacity support allowed Fo-

rum des ONG to organize its General Assembly in 2013 and select its board of di-

rectors in line with its rules and procedures, without any institutional dysfunctions,

unlike previous times. The capacity building support from Save the Children in re-

source management also enabled Forum des ONG to revise its procedures to make

better use of its human and financial resources. Save the Children’s support further

enhanced the technical capacity in child rights issues and allowed Forum des ONG

to be considered as a key actor on child rights. They were invited by the government

to represent child rights organisations in different events, such as the development of

the national policy on child protection and the national plan of action on child labour

and child trafficking. However, the ability of Forum des ONG to sustain the organi-

sation and its operations over time is still weak, with Save the Children as their main

technical and financial partner.

Strengthening of national Save the Children members

SC Sweden provided support to four new Save the Children members and two pro-

spect members: Brazil, through the associated member organisation Fundação

Abrinq, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa and Swaziland. The ambition

has been to strengthen their organisational capacity and ability to act as a strong child

rights organisation in their respective countries. Financial support for organisational

capacity development was given to all six above mentioned countries.

In 2013, Save the Children South Africa was established through the unifica-

tion of four different Save the Children organisations, two national and two interna-

tional. Organisational behaviour, and processes and procedures differed between the

organisations, which posed challenges to the unification process. The organisations

also lacked a common understanding of what the key issues for children in South Af-

rica were. With the funding received from the Sida appropriation, SC South Africa

was able to undertake the first ever comprehensive analysis of the children’s sector in

South Africa. SC South Africa developed a comprehensive 6-year organisational

strategy which was adopted by its Board in November 2014. This strategy has since

guided all programming for SC South Africa and has united the staff around a com-

mon goal for children in South Africa. Through the strategy, SC South Africa has

transformed its programming approach, the quality of its programs and guided the

organisation in becoming a thought leader22 in the South African children’s sector.

Save the Children Brazil, Fundação Abrinq, was affiliated to Save the Children

at the start of this planning period. The organisation, with program in various parts

of Brazil, intended to become a strong Save the Children member and part of a big-

22 With the term thought leader we refer to Save the Children being recognized as an authority in child rights and in the thematic areas we

work, where our expertise is sought and often rewarded.



ger network. Technical and financial support was given focusing on support to coor-

dination and liaison with partner organisations in Brazil, and on becoming an active

Save the Children member in Latin America. Fundação Abrinq worked on a country

strategy to guide the program development in Brazil. They further developed their

capacity to coordinate and network with four partner organisations in Brazil on the

promotion of monitoring of children’s rights and budget allocation for children,

campaigning against corporal punishment and development of work to address gen-

der issues through a pro-active pilot on men and boys and fatherhood. Even though

the collaboration between the organisations developed well, Fundação Abrinq de-

cided to leave Save the Children in August 2015.

Save the Children Swaziland received both financial and technical support

from SC Sweden to strengthen them as a member and a child rights organisation.

During this period the board members received training on good governance and

children’s rights from external consultants. One of the visible results is that SC Swa-

ziland has been appointed into the High Level Committee on Violence against Chil-

dren in 2014, and is now recognised by the government and other stakeholders as the

leading child rights organisation.

Save the Children Philippines officially became a domestic legal entity in the

Philippines in the beginning 2015, which is a milestone in the organisation’s life, and

the first phase of the transition towards becoming a full member. Based on a self-as-

sessment against the Save the Children’s International Essential Standards, the coun-

try office is generally performing well in its delivery of programs. Many of the areas

that scored 50 percent and below in the assessment some years back have now im-

proved, such as: communications and media; IT; MEAL; advocacy and campaigns;

partnership management; and procurement. For example the funds for the Stronger

Members’ OCD helped the media and communication team to promote the local

identity through a series of high-visibility activities following the official launch of a

national campaign against hunger – LAHAT DAPAT. Further, MEAL competences

have been strengthened, as well as how to carry out more targeted advocacy. This

helped the advocacy team move forward the Children in Emergencies (CiE) bill. As

an initial result the CiE bill has been approved by the Senate. Two staff members of

Talking to adults is something new,

and other children are surprised…

We have to fight for children and the

welfare of children. We have to be

role models. We will change society

16-year-old boy, Philippines



the advocacy team is now part of the review team that will propose and draft the re-

vised Disaster Risk Reduction Management rules. SC Sweden is a member of Save

the Children’s strategic support group to Save the Children in the Philippines.

Save the Children India has grown in size and thematic and organisational com-

petence with the support from Save the Children’s stronger member’s scheme, funds

from the Sida appropriation grant and technical support from SC Sweden. An exter-

nal analysis of SC India’s organisational needs has helped to build the organisation’s

capacity across different functions. As one example, a consistent human resource

management system was built throughout the whole organisation from head office in

Delhi to field offices. The offices were upgraded technically with a robust IT system.

Funds were also allocated to develop and communicate a new strategy that was dis-

seminated through road shows to ensure buy-in across all state offices. One of SC

India’s priorities has been to develop a strong and uniform brand identity. Another

priority was to become a strong voice of the global south within Save the Children

and to ensure that realities and experiences of the global south are integrated in all in-

itiatives. Additionally, with the support from SC Sweden SC India has participated in

various Save the Children forums like the Asia Pacific CEO group and the CEO

Steering Group that provided strategic direction to the new member.

They will continue to receive organisational support from Save the Children but

will from 2016 no longer be included in the OCD support from Sida.

Save the Children Indonesia laid the foundation for a membership when they

in May 2014 registered as “Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik”. Areas identified under the

stronger members grant were analysis and capacity building on program quality and

implementation, humanitarian response, advocacy and campaigning integrated with

public profiling. The latter was after six months put on hold as to give space and

time for development of a human resource strategy. Work in various areas were sup-

ported by consultants whose recommendations will be implemented in 2016.

SC Indonesia states that “Organisational development funds provided through

this project significantly supported the organisational transformation, and ensured

quality analysis, planning and implementation of the key priorities”. Although

SC Sweden will not continue to provide them with Sida funds in 2016, the country

office and SC Sweden will continue to collaborate on OCD through other project

support.

Strengthening CSOs on Child Rights and Business Principles

SC Sweden was the lead organisation in the development of Save the Children’s ap-

proach to Child Rights and Business and on how to engage the civil society and chil-

dren in holding businesses and governments to account. For that reason we have

supported the implementation of the Child Rights and Business Principles (CRBP),

including the General Comment 16, on States’ obligation to hold the private sector

to account. SC Sweden has also developed a child friendly version of the CRBP, to

support children’s engagement with the business sector, widely distributed within



Save the Children and among interested partner organisations. SC Sweden is unique

in doing this programmatic work. We push for the highest standards, and have in-

vested in trainings on the Civil Society Guide and the Child Participatory Approach23

in all regions except Middle East, knowing that we cannot allow to fail the children.

As a result of our work with General Comment 16 several Save the Children

country offices and selected civil society core partners in Latin America have started

to analyse and prepare for the next phase and follow up process, as done in a number

of countries in Africa including Kenya, Zambia, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

In Côte d’Ivoire a taskforce was established to coordinate the efforts of key ac-

tors and facilitate the internalization of the Child Rights and Business Principles. The

taskforce includes representatives of key actors from the state, private sector, civil so-

ciety, and children. The formation of the taskforce was the main outcome of a work-

shop, taking place in 2014, where Save the Children introduced the Principles to key

state and non-state actors,24 including the Coalition of Child-Led Organisations and

the Child Parliament, for the first time. Representatives from national coalitions from

Niger and Senegal attended the seminar as well. Participants confirmed that the

workshop was the first of its kind, and had increased their interests to engage more

efficiently with the private sector. In 2015, Save the Children conducted a situational

analysis to identify the priorities in the area of child rights and business, and how

businesses, especially those in the cocoa sector affect the lives of children in Côte

d’Ivoire. Within a very short time, Save the Children and its partners have witnessed

an increased interest to engage the private sector in the promotion and protection of

child rights in Côte d’Ivoire. The interest from different sectors to join the taskforce

is a sign that child rights and business has gained prominence.

In Senegal, Save the Children’s partner CONAFE,25 with the technical support

of Save the Children, created a space for children and youth to voice their views in

matters that concern them by establishing child and youth consultative councils in

the region. CONAFE supported and coached these councils to produce and broad-

cast radio programs on child abuse, to organize peer discussions, to engage in studies

conducted by CONAFE, and to engage with local authorities. CONAFE further

supported its member organisations to enhance their engagement with the private

sector on child rights implementation. CONAFE’s continued training efforts led to

the identification of child labour in gold mines and provided assistance to pull chil-

dren from the mines and reintegrate them in school. This engagement resulted in a

decrease in the worst forms of child labour in gold mines in seven communes.

In Ethiopia, Save the Children and its partners have supported the private sector

to respect, protect and contribute to the fulfilment of the rights of children by adopt-

ing Child Rights and Business Principles (CRBP). Save the Children and its partner

23 “How to use the Children’s Rights and Business Principles; A Guide for Civil Society Organisations” and “Business and Children’s Participa-

tion, How Business can create opportunities for children’s participation. 24 Representatives from various government authorities, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, banks, the private sector, mainly from the

cocoa industry, the media, CSOs including the Coalition of Child-Led Organisations, and the Child Parliament attended the workshop. 25 Coalition Nationale des Associations et ONG en Faveur de l’Enfance.



Organisation for Social Development (OSD) has built the capacity of: 70 representa-

tives of private sectors; regional Chambers of Commerce and Sectorial Associations;

CSOs; media; and relevant government offices. The mandated institutions agreed to

establish a multi-stakeholder committee which oversees, monitor and provides policy

guidance on business and facilitate children’s interaction at the national level to sup-

port implementation of the General Comment No. 16. OSD signed a Memorandum

of Understanding and an action plan with the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and

Sectorial Associations (ECCSA) and Fana Broadcasting Corporate to enhance the ca-

pacity of Ethiopian businesses in adopting the CRBP. Following this, ECCSA has se-

lected five companies to integrate CRBP and the codes of conduct on child protec-

tion and anti-corruption in their operational manuals and program activities.

Strengthening regional and national coalitions

Looking at Save the Children’s support to child-rights coalitions during the reporting

period we see increased impact and influence among many of the supported coali-

tions. In Save the Children’s global indicator analysis report for 2013–2015 impact

has been defined in four categories: relationships and networking; supporting

UNCRC principles; influencing policy or budget allocation; and/or influencing pub-

lic debate.

Coalitions have been supported and developed in a number of ways, and they fol-

low different strategies to further children’s rights in their regions or countries.

SC Sweden has supported coalitions on both regional and national level, and see

them as important measures of the degree to which organisations and civil society are

able to work together to hold governments accountable on child rights issues.

Several of our regional partners have been working quite successfully with

SC Sweden for a long period, such as Red Latinoamericana y caribeña por la defense

de los derechos de los niños, niñas y adolescentes (RedLamyc)26 in Latin America,

the Child Rights Coalition Asia27 and the Child Rights Network in Southern Africa.

Another strong network is the Manara network28 established in 2013 in the Middle

East, and a year later in 2014 the East African Child Rights Network29 was estab-

lished.

Some examples of the coalitions’ impact encompasses: advocacy to include child

rights organisation as a permanent member on the Human Rights National Commis-

sion (Côte d’Ivoire); creating a national pressure group for the protection of children

(Pakistan); capacity building of local organisations to develop coalitions and networks

(Yemen, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Lebanon); creating a regional advisory council involving

26 http://www.redlamyc.info/ 27 Child Rights Coalition Asia - a regional network of children’s rights and human rights organisation with the main objective to mainstream

the children’s rights perspectives and agenda into the regional and international advocacy processes.

http://childrightscoalitionasia.org/about-us/ 28 The Manara network was registered in Lebanon in 2013. It is a child Rights Network joining 11 Civil Society NGOs working in 9 Arab

Countries: Lebanon, Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. 29 The Coalition brings together 15 national coalitions from the wider East Africa Region with the main objective of creating an open space

for CSO engagement in the region, joint capacity building for CSO national networks and collaborative engagement with human rights mechanisms and specifically the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC).

http://www.redlamyc.info/

http://childrightscoalitionasia.org/about-us/



children’s organisations (Peru); and increasing budget allocation for children (Paki-

stan, Zambia and Peru).


During this reporting period SC Sweden has held regional workshops to discuss the

role of civil society in child rights work as well as the potential and challenges in pur-

suing this. It is obvious that this has paid off. All SC Sweden’s country programs are

involved in building their partners’ capacity for this. Within Save the Children

SC Sweden is the strongest advocate for capacity building of thematic competence; in

child rights programming, child rights, UNCRC reporting systems, child participation

and non-discrimination. Organisational capacity development is more complex and

can be achieved through various processes and in different ways, such as: direct ca-

pacity support from Save the Children; OCD processes managed by the organisa-

tions themselves; learning by doing; learning through implementing child rights pro-

jects; peer learning; and through interaction and dialogue with Save the Children

within the partnership itself. It is a long term investment and it requires a deeper un-

derstanding of partnerships as well as a conscious decision from SC at country level

on which partners are most strategic and therefore “worthwhile” to invest in.

Save the Children in Côte d’Ivoire reports along these lines: “SC Sweden should

be more involved supporting the country office to integrate OCD indicators in the

logical framework”. Côte d’Ivoire also reflects upon methods of capacity building

and concludes: “…that not only trainings should be the method of capacity building,

different planning is needed and should include mentoring as well”.

Save the Children in the Philippines highlights the need for more guidance:

“...During the latter part of the grant period, there was more guidance and clarity on

what OCD should be ... Efforts were then made to adhere to the criteria of OCD in

2015... The country office will come up with a list of core partners that will go

through the OCD process – from assessment, planning, implementation to evalua-

tion ... and that as owners of the process, the partners will be allocating a budget

from their sub-award for this specific purpose”.

Building the capacity of child-led organisations is complex, resource demanding and

requires a creative and flexible approach. The Philippines states that: “...The child-led

organisations have a constant need for OCD because of the regular turnover in its

membership and the reliance on external funds. OCD for children’s groups focused

on setting up mechanisms to ensure project continuity, continuously build

knowledge and skills of existing and new members, and help the organisations cope

with transitions in their group”.

SC Sweden’s global mapping of child participation concludes that there is in gen-

eral, insufficient support to networking between child-led organisations at different

levels.30 Quite a few countries report political challenges in working with CSOs, such

30 Mapping and Analysis of Child Participation, SC Sweden 2015.



as Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Lebanon and Pakistan to mention a few. Despite these

difficult circumstances we can see development of the CSO’s capacities. However, at

present we see a need among Save the Children’s country offices to become more

strategically engaged in national level discussions about civil society’s role and space.

This is something SC Sweden will push for in its forthcoming strategies.

Through our work with child rights and businesses we know it is vital for corpo-

rations to gain a deeper understanding of the impact their actions and products have

on children’s lives. Although the area is new for the Save the Children’s country pro-

grams and partners we can see developments, but many countries also report the

need for further support and engagement. Investment in the Child Rights and Busi-

ness Principles is highly demanding and requires, not only competence in principles

and child rights, but competence on how the private sector functions and how to in-

teract with this new sector, in order to attract interest and be relevant for the private

sector.

With SC Sweden’s continued efforts to strengthen ethical and meaningful child

participation and dialogue with corporations, we anticipate that businesses will gain a

better understanding of children’s rights and that children will be supported to un-

derstand how to engage with the private sector and the role they can play in influenc-

ing business.

SC Sweden’s engagement in regional coalitions is unique in that sense that no

other SC member actively support regional coalitions and networks. We see signifi-

cant evidence that the coalitions have become more visible and understand more

about both regional and national coalition’s role in advocacy. They show increased

competence in children’s rights, and are more active in both regional and global hu-

man rights mechanisms. Coalitions have also been important in developing child par-

ticipation. The voluntary, safe, and inclusive participation of children is annually as-

sessed globally by Save the Children since 2012. From these assessments we see that

children’s participation in the preparation, submission and follow up of the supple-

mentary reports to the UN CRC, has become a stronger component in country and

regional programs.31

31 Global Indicators Analysis Report: SC Sweden 2013-2015.



Child Protection

Overall description

Protecting children from violence is central to Save the Children’s mandate as an or-

ganisation guided by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The

current report covers the period 2013–2015 in SC Sweden’s child protection program

aimed at preventing and responding to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation

against children, in both development and humanitarian settings.

Child protection is an extensive and complex area.32 SC Sweden therefore focuses

on some aspects within this thematic area to support program implementation.

Other Save the Children members capture additional aspects in their work with child

protection, to ensure a broad range of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect is

covered within Save the Children. SC Sweden is the lead for Child Protection within

Save the Children, and as such has been the most significant contributor, in terms of

money and resources as SC Sweden since the Global Initiative on Child Protection

(CPI) started in 2009. SC Sweden is as such the lead member of the Global Initiative

on Child Protection, and has supported CPI with development of knowledge and

methods and support to regional and national child protection programs.

SC Sweden has supported regional child protection programs in East Africa, Middle

East, Latin America, South and Central Asia and West and Central Africa. The pro-

gram has also included national child protection programs in Bangladesh, Brazil,

Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Lebanon, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan,

Peru, the Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, and Yemen.

32 Child protection is comprised of measures and structures to prevent and respond to all forms of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence

affecting children as per the Convention on the Rights of the Child article 19 and as discussed in the Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 13 (2011), “The right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence,” CRC/C/GC/13, 18 April 2011.

I’ve been coming to the group ses-

sions and doing drawings… We also

blew up balloons and then we jumped

on them. Inside the balloon we had

written bad words on a piece of pa-

per – I wrote ‘war’. Then I jumped on

it and burst it. I remembered that

the war is over

8-year-old girl, oPt

GLOBAL PROGRAM RESULTS 2013–2015 – CHILD PROTECTION


To reach its child protection objectives SC Sweden has selected a variety of strate-

gies. Building the capacity of and collaborating with civil society partners has been

one key strategy, and one of the salient factors behind our success in child protec-

tion.

Other key approaches to reach our results have been supporting research and dis-

semination of information; advocacy; provision of preventative and response child

protection services for children and families; child participation and awareness raising

on child protection issues; and capacity strengthening activities to increase data and

monitoring. All our strategies are aimed at strengthening comprehensive community

and national child protection systems. Systems that will ensure that children who are

survivors of violence or abuse receive the protection and rehabilitation they are enti-

tled to.

Within SC Sweden’s child protection program the overall goals for 2013-2015 has

been:

► Fewer children are victims of physical and psychological violence, harassment and discrimination primarily through a child protection systems approach.

► Fewer children are separated from their families, and more children are being reunified with their family members in both development and emergency context.

To meet these goals the child protection program focused on the following five

global program outcomes:

1. Fewer girls and boys are victims of sexual violence and harmful traditional practices in the home, at school and in society;

2. More girls and boys have access to psychosocial support;

3. More countries institute anti corporal punishment laws and reduce the occur-rence of corporal punishment (from ban to elimination);

4. More children have access to a comprehensive community based and/or na-tional child protection system;

5. Fewer children are separated from their families or caregivers and more chil-dren are reunited with their families and caregivers through the development of national and local systems that further children’s right to protection.

In this chapter we have summarized significant achievements at global, regional and

national levels for each of the above five results, beginning with a presentation of the

global overall achieved results within the child protection theme. Hereafter we pre-

sent the results in relation to changes in policies and laws affecting children’s rights;

changes in children’s participation and active citizenship; and changes in the capacity

of civil society and communities to support children’s rights.



Please note that the fifth reported Global Program Outcome above is a merger from

outcome 5 and 6 in the results framework in the original application.33

Child Protection results at global level

During the past three years Save the Children has further strengthened its position as

a global leader in child protection, to a large extent thanks to Save the Children Swe-

den’s untiring efforts to keep child protection high on the agenda, and our strong

commitment and financial support to Save the Children’s Global Initiative on Child

Protection (CPI). Child Protection is, and will continue to be, one of SC Sweden’s

priorities together with Child Rights Governance (CRG) and Education.

Building the capacity of our civil society partners is a key strategy for SC Sweden.

Through cooperation with the children themselves and support to civil society part-

ner organisation we have strived hard to prevent and respond to violence affecting

children. It is apparent in SC Sweden’s countries of operation that the civil society re-

mains one of the most important actors to ensure children their unquestionable right

to freedom from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect, not to mention in the pro-

motion of effectiveness and sustainability in all our programs.

From our civil society partners and from the children themselves SC Sweden has

learned that ending violence is one the first issues children mention when asked what

to focus on. Studies illustrate that up to 1.5 billion children every year experience vio-

lence, and that a child dies every five minutes as a result of violence.34 It is therefore

not surprising that children cite tackling violence as one of their key priorities as does

the new comprehensive 2030 development agenda – “Transforming our world: the

2030 agenda for sustainable development”, contrary to the Millennium Development

Goals that failed to address children’s right to protection. Save the Children, and not

least SC Sweden, has been instrumental in ensuring that violence against children was

included in the post-2015 agenda.

SC Sweden has gained much recognition - both internally and externally - for our

long-standing and salient child protection work. One important organisational result

is that child protection now has become a main focus area for the entire Save the

Children organisation, and one of its three ambitious breakthroughs for 2030 is: “Vi-

olence against children is no longer tolerated”. Ending violence is also crucial to

achieving the other two breakthroughs – that “no child dies from preventable causes

before their fifth birthday” and that “all children learn from a quality basic educa-

tion”.35

Within the initiative on Child Protection SC Sweden has led the task groups on

Child Protection in Emergencies and Physical and Humiliating Punishment. SC Swe-

den has further had a leading role in the development and the roll-out of the Mini-

mum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.

33 SC Sweden’s Application to Sida’s CSO Appropriation Grant 2013-2015. 40 p. 34 Working to end violence against children. Save the Children’s child protection 2016-2018 thematic plan. ii p. (2016). 35 Working to end violence against children. Save the Children’s Child Protection 2016-18 Thematic Plan. 5 p. (2016).



On a regional level SC Sweden during the period of 2013-2015 supported different

regional initiatives.


Fewer girls and boys are victims of sexual violence and harmful tradi-

tional practices in the home, at school and in society


Protection against sexual violence is a growing program area within Save the Chil-

dren Sweden, and a priority in all countries where we work, but also a very challeng-

ing area to work in. Not least due to the sensitivity of working with sexual violence

against girls and boys in many contexts, but also because there is a lack of knowledge

among staff and partners on how to tackle different forms of sexual violence, such as

sexual abuse, child marriage and female genital mutilation. During this period we

have put a lot of effort into developing concrete tools that will support the country

offices in their programs to prevent and respond to sexual violence against children.

In our application we particularly mentioned four countries that we would focus

on: Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Lebanon and Palestine. In the Middle East regional

program SC Sweden continued to strengthen the sexual violence component in the

current regional Sexual and Reproductive and Health Rights (SRHR) program. We

further focused on identifying effective preventive measures of harmful traditional

practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation in West Africa.

Throughout this period we have continued involving boys and men, alongside girls

and women, in the work to address sexual violence against girls and boys.


Results at global level

SC Sweden has developed a draft of programming guidelines for sexual violence that

are currently undergoing final revisions prior to field testing in 2016. These guidelines

are based on consultations with country offices and developed as a concerted effort

among Save the Children members to provide programming guidelines for field staff

and partner organisations pertaining to various standards of the Minimum Standards

for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS). The purpose of the guidelines

is to build knowledge and understanding of sexual violence among staff and partners.

It is also to support an effective and well-coordinated planning and implementation,

monitoring and evaluation process, focusing on sexual violence interventions.

20 percent of women and 5–10 percent of men suffered

sexual abuse as children



A practical handbook developed by SC Sweden’s domestic program Respect! My body!

was developed for adults on how to talk to children at different ages about body

boundaries and sexual abuse. It has now been contextualized and translated into

English, Arabic, Spanish and French, and distributed widely to all Save the Children

members and country offices together with a campaign package consisting of film

clips and a document describing how to use the material within Save the Children

and partner organisations. The handbook were well received and met the expressed

demands of having reader friendly material on sexual violence against girls and boys.

In West Africa e.g. the handbook has been printed in 2,000 copies to be distributed

among partners and relevant stakeholders. It was also distributed among key players

at the High Level conference on online sexual abuse at the Council of Europe in

Strasbourg.

Another practical tool is the handbook #netsmart, developed in collaboration with

SC Sweden’s domestic program, and translated into English. This tool provides ad-

vice and guidance on how to protect children from sexual abuse on the internet, a

rapidly growing problem. Both these above mentioned tools are focusing on building

girls and boy’s capacity to protect themselves through life skills, and gender-sensitive

and reproductive health and rights education.

There is a tendency to conflate sexual violence with violence against girls and

women, overlooking that boys are targets of sexual violence, too. To understand

more, SC Sweden developed a discussion paper and a literature review in 2015 to ex-

amine boys and sexual violence in emergency settings. This discussion paper will be

used to move the discussion forward on how Save the Children and our partners can

ensure the inclusion of boys affected by sexual violence in our humanitarian response

interventions. One of the conclusion made was that sexual violence against boys are

not only under-recognized and under-reported it is also under-studied and under-the-

orized.

Results at country level

In Palestine Save the Children has reported a shift in how communities viewed and

were able to discuss sensitive topics around child marriage, sexual abuse and sexual

and reproductive health rights (SRHR).

Since 2010 SC Sweden has continuously supported staff and partners in the West

Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in their work with SRHR. To strengthen the capaci-

ties and knowledge SC Sweden has been instrumental in the past years in developing

a comprehensive training packages on gender based violence and sexual and repro-

ductive health together with the regional program in Middle East. The goal was to

build the capacity of SC staff and other service providers for the engagement in sen-

sitization and awareness raising with children and adults on sexual violence. These

materials were developed in consultation with regionally based experts and several

partner organisations, such as Juzoor, PCC and Aisha, who ensured the material was



contextually and culturally relevant. As a result of the program’s successfully commu-

nicated behavioural approach the voice of children was heard, and through partner-

ships the program was able to achieve high reach and serve as an evidence-based

platform for advocacy and policy change.

In Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea they advocated for the implementation of

a national law against female genital mutilation (FGM). In for example the Gambia in

November 2015 the president announced the prohibition of FGM with immediate

effect. In December the law banning FGM was approved. Save the Children’s part-

ner GAMCOTRAP was instrumental in mobilizing support against the practice of

FGM in the Gambia. In a meeting in 2014 with the First Lady of the Gambia the

child-led Voice of the Young, part of our partner Child Protection Alliance, advo-

cated against FGM.

During the past three years 84 Child Protection Committees (CPCs) and 84 Chil-

dren’s Groups (CGs) were established or revitalized in 13 communes throughout

Côte d’Ivoire and this has led to more initiatives taken by children in order to ac-

tively protect themselves against sexual violence, abuse and exploitation. Almost 140

awareness campaigns were initiated and led by the CPCs and CGs in their respective

areas to enhance communication. Save the Children’s partners SOS Violences Sex-

uelles, Vision Nouvelle, Renaissance Santé Bouaké, Soura, Siloé and Notre Grenier

were involved in different capacity building activities and supported children to build

their self-confidence and report cases of sexual abuse.

In Peru, Save the Children encouraged involvement from the regional governments

of Cusco and Madre de Dios in the fight against human trafficking, and especially

children, with the result that both authorities agreed to give priority to the issue. To-

gether with the Ministry of Public Affairs and the NGO Tierra de Hombres, a child

approach has been included in the Protocol for Attorneys’ performances in attending

victims. Further a bill was drawn, reforming the penal code to include a better de-

scription of the crime of human trafficking. The law was approved by the Congress

in 2014.

In Bangladesh, communities have become more responsive to sexual violence

concerns. Through SC Sweden’s long-standing support to staff and partner organisa-

tions, men and boys have changed their attitudes and practices towards girls and

I saw guys talking to boys and taking

them away. I heard that they sell

them... I was with some other kids and

we got scared…

11-year-old boy, Bangladesh



women, and they have taken clear actions in their communities to stop sexual and

gender-based violence. Many adolescent boys have acknowledge that they changed

their behaviour and are no longer involved in eve-teasing or harassing girls. Trained

youths are working as change agents in their respective communities to protect and

reduce child marriage, sexual abuse and have facilitated group meetings and trainings.

The government in Ethiopia has announced that ending child marriage is one of

its social development targets in the country’s Growth and Transformation Plan.

Laws have been drafted to end child marriage. Save the Children’s partner, the Am-

hara Women Association (AWA) on harmful effects of harmful traditional practices,

has been consistently lobbying for these changes to take place, and are continuing

their advocacy to reach further. SC Sweden has provided trainings to enhance the ca-

pacity of the AWA to end child marriage in 168 districts of the Amhara Regional

State where they are operational. AWA then held a series of sensitization workshops

to a total of 338 local level leaders, ensuring that no child marriage will take place in

their areas. As a result 17,000 child marriages have been cancelled by the resolute ef-

forts of the community and Kebele level leaders. In addition, 192 girls clubs were es-

tablished between 2013 and 2015.

In Latin America, different actions related to Information and Communications

Technology (ICT) have become a priority at local, regional and global level. Partici-

pation of children has been key in all ICT projects in the region. “Just a click away” –

a regional program –promoted safe and responsible use of ICTs and digital citizen-

ships for Latin American young people. Furthermore, in Costa Rica a bill protecting

children from risks associated to ICT has been submitted to the Congress after

strong advocacy by Save the Children’s partner Paniamor. Despite all efforts the law

is still pending approval. However this is the first step and has mobilized the region

to improve legislation around ICT.


Save the Children has experience and knowledge of preventing, protecting and re-

sponding to sexual violence against girls and boys, including addressing child mar-

riage and female genital mutilation, but need to step up our engagement in order to

reach sustainable changes in laws, attitudes and behaviours.

Although a very sensitive topic, some significant results have been made at coun-

try level. It is clear that support to local civil society organisations in conducting con-

textually relevant advocacy and awareness raising as well as the role of local child

protection committees is instrumental in reaching a change in attitude, behaviour and

practice when it comes to sexual violence and abuse. Supporting partners to advocate

for the strengthening of systems and case management addressing sexual violence

has also been an important success factor. Since it is quite sensitive to address sexual

violence it requires thorough strategies, based on existing knowledge, laws and atti-

tudes in our areas of operations, and practical tools that respond to identified gaps



and demands in the specific field context. We also see a need to strengthen the ca-

pacities of staff and partners to work with prevention and response of sexual vio-

lence, and further to ensure that we have enough resources to set up programs in-

cluding appropriate approaches.

Several very practical tools have been developed and well received by country of-

fice staff and partners and field friendly guidelines will be field tested in 2016. The

practical tools have played a prominent role in several advocacy events, and helped to

create visibility on the issue of sexual violence and made Save the Children an organi-

sation to turn to for more information on how sexual violence affects girls and boys.

Our approach to involve men and boys in addressing sexual violence, child marriage

and other harmful traditional practices was successful and have gained interest

among different actors.

We have noted a growing commitment around sexual violence issues within the

organisation, and we see great possibilities for progress in the area of sexual violence

in the coming years. The new Agenda 2030 with its sustainable development goals

(SDGs) and their strong focus on sexual violence, child marriage and female genital

mutilation in the targets 5.2, 5.3 and 16.2 will also help in pushing the sexual violence

agenda forward.


More girls and boys have access to psychosocial support


Understanding the impact of violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect on children’s

physical, cognitive, social and emotional development is a cornerstone in understand-

ing the relevance of different programmatic, capacity building and policy-related en-

gagement of Save the Children. Psychosocial support is a systematic way of support-

ing children’s development and resilience so they can recover from the impact of cri-

sis situations on their psychological, physical, social and emotional well-being.

During this reporting period SC Sweden has mobilized country staff and partners

in order to increase the psychosocial support to children and families, promoting

strengthening of children’s resilience and supporting their healthy development. This

has been done in close collaboration with SC Denmark in both development and

emergency settings. A particular focus has been on bringing the Child Protection Ini-

tiative and Health and Nutrition Initiative together ensuring a common approach to

Save the Children’s psychosocial interventions. Another on acknowledging the im-

portance of service providers meeting the quality standards in their services to chil-

dren and families, and ensuring that children and caregivers know where to seek psy-

chosocial support.

In our application we particularly mentioned an increased focus on building civil

society organisations’ capacities for psychosocial support, which would allow local



partners in humanitarian responses to be able to secure a stronger psychosocial well-

being of children in their establishment of child friendly spaces, community based re-

ferral mechanisms and reporting.



SC Sweden and SC Denmark developed the Psychological First Aid (PFA) Training

Manual for Child Practitioners in 2012–2013, that laid the ground for a strong focus

on, and a greater interest in, psychosocial support across the organisation. Training

on PFA have been cascaded throughout the past years, and a cadre of trained PFA

providers have carried out PFA interventions in different crisis settings.

Together with SC Denmark, SC Sweden has been key in developing programming

guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS). These guidelines

have been developed to assist Save the Children’s field staff and program managers

in implementing MHPSS programs for children. Several consultations with the global

initiative on Health and Nutrition and field visits to the country offices have in-

formed the development of the guidelines and ensured a holistic approach in the

MHPSS interventions.

Last year a MHPSS policy brief was finalized, and endorsed by Save the Children.

It includes up-to-date research on psychosocial distress in children and how it is

linked to a child’s development, and what is required from Save the Children and our

partners to best respond to those needs. It further promotes a clear understanding of

the responsibilities of donors and countries, in both development and humanitarian

contexts, to protect girls and boys from harm and subsequent psychosocial distress.


Save the Children’s country offices do not report on particular psychosocial pro-

grams, rather it is specified as a component under programs focusing on Children

without Appropriate Care, Family Tracing and Reunification, Positive Discipline and

Sexual Violence to ensure a child’s healthy development in the programs they pro-

vide.

In Ethiopia, Save the Children provided case management training to several

CSO partners to prevent and respond to unsafe migration of children in Ethiopia.36

They facilitated trainings in their turn for community members to become part of 16

functional Child Protection Committees. These efforts resulted in an increase in the

number of children surviving trafficking and unsafe migration, and receiving psycho-

social support in the temporary shelters, and is a result of the increased vigilance and

awareness of the child protection committees and key actors who identified and re-

ported the cases.

36 Centre for Development Initiative (CDI), Forum on Sustainable Child Empowerment (FSCE), Hiwot Ethiopia (HE), and Emmanuel Develop-

ment Association (EDA).



In Yemen, due to the current situation with the conflict that started in March 2015

and the escalating needs of children, Save the Children’s partners broadened the

scope of activities and included components of psychosocial support and case man-

agement in the family care centres. Our civil society partners ensured that children

with child protection vulnerability, as a result of the conflict in Aden, are identified

and referred to service providers. The family centres provided psychosocial support

to the identified children including life skills to build up their psychosocial resilience

as well as to give them possibilities for an income. Also during the reporting period,

our partners showed increased ability to implement additional skills, such as case

management and psychosocial support, within existing child protection programs,

partly as a result of the support they received from Save the Children.

In Senegal, provision of psychosocial support activities was included in activities

targeting survivors of sexual violence. Psychosocial support is provided by our part-

ner Unies vers ells within the shelter named “La Maison Rose”. Where additional

case management services was available, the partner organisation also ensured a con-

tinuum of care through referral to a psychologist if needed and through building the

capacity of the local community committees to provide psychosocial support, mainly

for mediation in situations where reintegration might become problematic.

Also in the context of children without appropriate care, six interim care centres

in Togo were supported through Save the Children’s regional program in West Af-

rica to ensure minimum quality standards of services. The training and support pro-

vided to the centres by Save the Children and partners has ensured better services

and introduction of additional activities such as psychosocial support.

In the occupied Palestinian territory, former detainee children regained psy-

chosocial wellbeing and demonstrated positive coping mechanisms. SC supported

YMCA to reintegrate former detainees by providing psychosocial support and devel-

oping their parents’ understanding of psychosocial wellbeing to ensure that they de-

velop abilities to reduce their children’s stress.


During this reporting period we have seen a huge demand for training on Psycholog-

ical First Aid to better meet children and families immediate needs after a crisis; from

staff, partners and communities. At the same time there has been a growing interest

in learning more about how to support children with more severe and long-term

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) needs.

Children who have experienced distress, or are living in very stressful environ-

ments, will most likely show changes in their social, emotional, physical and psycho-

social well-being. Further, many caregivers are also distressed and less well-function-

ing during crisis. In SC Sweden’s child protection work - not least in our work

against the physical and humiliating punishment of children - we see how important

it is to strengthen parents’ and caregivers’ abilities to deal with their own stress be-

fore it affects their relation to the children in their care.



The consequences for children are often serious and may result in lower school at-

tendance or running away from home, or simply withdrawing socially.

Research on MHPSS clearly shows that when children feel that their families are

able to protect them and provide for their physical and emotional needs, their level

of distress most likely is reduced, and their well-being increase.

This is why SC Sweden stresses the importance of improving our understanding

of how a child’s developmental stages are intertwined with the child’s well-being, as

well as integrating psychosocial support into all the sectors were we work.

Additionally, our continued work on strengthening Save the Children’s case man-

agement approach will also be critical to ensure that children with child protection

needs are identified and receive age and culturally appropriate support to enhance

their well-being. In the upcoming programming period, additional efforts to measure

evidence of psychosocial support interventions will be ensured. Currently monitoring

and evaluation tools are being created to measure psychosocial well-being of children

involved in Save the Children’s psychosocial support services.

By providing psychosocial support to children, not least during crisis situations,

we can contribute to less violence, higher school attendance and better learning out-

comes, and healthy development and well-being of children.


More countries institute anti corporal punishment laws and reduce the

occurrence of corporal punishment (from ban to elimination)


SC Sweden has played an instrumental role in advancing the agenda on physical and

humiliating punishment (PHP), and has through its widespread experience and

knowledge positioned Save the Children as one of the leading organisations working

towards the elimination of all forms of physical and humiliating punishment of chil-

dren in all settings including the home. Advocating for legal reform and adequate

policies has in several cases led to reforms banning PHP. SC Sweden has also sup-

ported awareness raising initiatives – also by faith-based organisations and other

opinion leaders and through media and child-led groups – that has led to changes in

people’s attitudes. Together with our civil society partners we have promoted and

carried out trainings in Positive Discipline for both male and female caregivers,

teachers and other people working with children with the aim of changing attitudes

and behaviours. We have further had a strong focus on promoting child participation

in all aspects of programming and increasingly involved boys and men (fathers and

male caregivers) in ending violence and physical and humiliating punishment against

children.

During this period SC Sweden has supported the regional programs in Latin

America, East Africa, West Africa and Asia, as well as in numerous national pro-

grams.





SC Sweden is leading the work on ending Physical and Humiliating Punishment

(PHP) within Save the Children. We have been responsible for the overall strategy,

knowledge management, capacity building, innovation, MEAL, and most of the tech-

nical support to programs on both regional and national level. As the lead – and

practically the only Save the Children member investing in protection against PHP –

the rapidly growing interest from country offices have resulted in an increased de-

mand for capacity building from SC Sweden, quite hard to respond to.

During the reporting period SC Sweden led the development of the global strat-

egy on PHP, including a Menu of Indicators and Advocacy Messages, to assist staff

and partners in developing thorough programs. In collaboration with Professor Joan

Durrant from Manitoba University in Canada, SC Sweden further developed a Posi-

tive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) and Positive Discipline in Everyday

Teaching (PDET) training material and cascaded contextualized trainings in more

than 30 countries. Together with the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punish-

ment of Children and the Churches’ Network for Non-Violence SC Sweden further

developed a manual for working against PHP with religious communities and sup-

ported several countries by building capacity on legal reform work.

A solid network of Save the Children staff and key partners has been trained in

PDEP. This human capital is essential to ensure scale up of the trainings and their

accessibility in the coming years. The immediate effects of the trainings are systemati-

cally measured through pre- and post-training tests and the analysis of those demon-

strate a positive trend, particularly towards changed perceptions of corporal punish-

ment. For example, the analysis of the training data from 2012–2014 demonstrates

that at least 90 percent of the parents agreed that after taking the Positive Discipline

in Everyday Parenting course, they believe more strongly that parents should not use

physical punishment and that they should listen to children and take their opinion

into consideration.

So far these programs have mainly covered work in development settings, but

staff and partners highlighted the need to also have something for families in emer-

gency settings, as they often live under immense strain, that may lead to increased vi-

olence against children. Based on this SC Sweden developed an orientation on physi-

cal and humiliating punishment for frontline workers in emergencies, to help increase

the use of Positive Discipline in all setting where we operate. The training manual

Violent discipline by parents and other adults is the

most common form of violence against children. 3 out

of 4 children experience violent discipline at home



was developed late 2014, and has been used in a number of emergency contexts. SC

Sweden also developed a one day optional orientation on PHP and Positive Disci-

pline to be added to the mandatory training on Child Safe Guarding targeting all field

staff.

In the past few years SC Sweden actively advocated and influenced the new post-

2015 – the Global Development framework 2030. Together with Plan and the UN

Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against children, SC

Sweden produced a report with children’s recommendations for the post-2015

agenda based on numerous child consultations conducted all over the world by vari-

ous actors. As a result of common advocacy efforts, physical and humiliating punish-

ment is now included as a target under the new Sustainable Development Goals

(SDG, goal 16.2), and this opens for many opportunities in the years to come.

As the lead on PHP within Save the Children, SC Sweden has ensured that our

most comprehensive PHP supported program – “Safer Homes and Communities” in

the Philippines – has been evaluated and approved as a “signature program”.

A signature program will serve as a model for other similar programs in the world

and demonstrates how Save the Children, in partnership with others, tackles issues

that threaten children’s ability to survive, thrive and achieve their rights. Save the

Children and civil society partners in the country have developed innovative strate-

gies to reach out to communities with educational information by establishing adult

support groups, nominated by child led groups, to help them facilitate their work.

Use of visual art and drama has been a strong component of the program to raise

awareness and challenge social norms on PHP. The program also provides caregiv-

ers, teachers and Child Protection workers with an innovative approach to non-vio-

lent parenting – Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) and Positive Dis-

cipline in Everyday Teaching (PDET) – based on effective communication and re-

search on healthy child development and child rights.


2013–2015 was an exciting period for legal and policy reforms with 14 new countries

adopting a law to end corporal punishment in all settings. By the end of 2015, 48

states had prohibited all corporal punishment of children, including in the home. At

least 52 more states have expressed a commitment to full prohibition. Our partner-

ship with the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment has been instrumen-

tal in supporting countries to successfully advocate for a ban. It has been recognized

I will feel free when there is no more

corporal punishment

11-year-old girl, Senegal



that SC Sweden’s long-term support to CSO networks in the regions has been im-

portant to accelerate advocacy efforts towards a ban in several of the below men-

tioned countries.

In Latin- and Central America, 6 countries prohibited PHP in all settings in

2013 and 2015 – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru. Three

more countries: Paraguay, Chile and El Salvador, currently have proposals in the pro-

cess of filing or approval by Congress. When Brazil prohibited physical punishment

in all settings in 2014 it was considered by international authorities on human rights

to represent a great step forward, since child related legislation in Brazil has histori-

cally served as an inspiration for other countries, especially in Latin America. Notably

the passing of the law in Brazil – with support from many actors at national and in-

ternational level including our partners Rede Não Bata and Eduque – affected other

countries as well.

Banning and eliminating physical and humiliating punishment has become a prior-

ity for all Save the Children offices in Latin- and Central America.

Peru adopted a law against PHP in all settings in 2015. With support from Save

the Children, our partners Accion por los niños (APN) and Paz y Esperanza were

very active and successful in their advocacy through media, and also directly with the

congress for the adoption of the new legislation. Parallel to legal reform Save the

Children developed training for teachers, health care staff, parents and grassroots or-

ganisations in identifying and reporting physical and humiliating punishment and

other types of violence. The training also provided guidance on Positive Parenting.

Save the Children and our partners supported child-led organisations and adolescents

who acted as spokespersons and who trained their peers to be part of the discus-

sions. This work contributed to public awareness on the issue and facilitated both le-

gal reform advocacy and implementation of the law, once in place.

In many countries yet to have a total ban on corporal punishment, Save the Chil-

dren’s and partners’ advocacy on the negative impact of PHP resulted in commit-

ments by governments and stakeholders to move towards prohibition. This is the

case in for example Gambia and Rwanda that were supported through the regional

program.

Save the Children has worked successfully with civil society to advocate for legal

reform and communication for behavioural change. Over the years civil society has

become more involved in training parents, caregivers and teachers, much thanks to

consistent support from SC Sweden.

In Bangladesh, our partner MAMATA has used culture as an instrument to

demonstrate Positive Discipline techniques. Their continuous advocacy and sensiti-

zation efforts in the urban slums of Chittagong have resulted in a significant number

of parents, caregivers and teachers practicing these techniques. Another direct result

is that the Chittagong City Corporation Authority requested all schools to extend

their support to the project protecting children from PHP in schools. At the same



time a Facilitators’ Pool on Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting has been cre-

ated to carry out training for parents.

In the Philippines, a survey of the results of the trainings showed that 47 percent

of the parents reported that they did not use PHP and that they practiced Positive

Discipline, and 41 percent of the participants’ children reported that they no longer

experienced corporal punishment at home. Given that change of attitudes and be-

haviours, as well as practice takes a long time, these results are quite significant and

will be further enhanced with continuous strengthening of legal frameworks and so-

cial norms prohibiting corporal punishment at home and in school. The feedback

shows that the trainings and trainers’ workshops on PDEP and PDET are valuable

space for exchange of experiences in the delivery of the training and provision of

feedback on the Manitoba methodology. This opportunity is also used to contextual-

ize the training material to the regional realities.

In Sudan, effective advocacy on policies to ban physical and humiliating punish-

ment was initiated in Khartoum State and Positive Discipline was integrated in 12

schools in the suburbs of Khartoum state in 2013. The Khartoum State MoE has al-

located budget to train new staff, and has adopted guidelines that newly recruited

teachers are not allowed to start their assignments unless they are trained on Positive

Discipline. SC Sweden supported its partner CRI with the development of a training

manual on Positive Discipline for teachers. The training was rolled out in 2015 tar-

geting parents and caregivers of children in schools. CRI replicated the approach in

two other states, the Red Sea and the Blue Nile, where 14 trainings were held.

The regional program in Middle East and Europe has provided concrete oppor-

tunities to improve the quality of Positive Discipline in the region through trainings

and capacity building activities by SC Sweden and partners. This contributed to more

efficient Positive Discipline programs that are less dependent of external technical

support. It also provided opportunities to discuss adaptation and contextualization of

Positive Discipline in emergency contexts. Concrete examples of changes in parents’

behaviour include the following statements from parents in oPt: “My child said I

came back from Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting like an angel”; “Despite

the challenges I face with my unemployed husband, Positive Discipline in Everyday

Parenting gave me the space to think about the children”; “For the first time, I am

holding my child with affection”.

Juzoor and PCC in the West Bank and Aisha and PCDCR in Gaza have been

supported by SC Sweden since 2014 with trainings in Positive Discipline in Everyday

Parenting. This has resulted in a decrease in violence and improved relations between

parents and children in 358 households. Save the Children’s partners collected feed-

back in follow up sessions for parents and their children within 2-3 months after

their participation in the PDEP program. Among the feedback: children spend more

time with their families playing and in joint activities; children open up more to their

parents; parents report that they are better at dealing with their children age-appro-



priately; parents are more supportive and less stressed about not using violence; par-

ents are more confident to use dialogue with their children. As Positive Discipline in

Everyday Parenting has been recognized as such an effective program, UNRWA has

declared that they want to use it in their schools.

In Kosovo, the Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting program started in 2013

and the program is the only parenting program that exists, which has given Save the

Children a strong position in Kosovo. The program therefore gained a lot of interest

from parents, teachers, educators and professionals in child protection. Since the in-

troduction in 201, Save the Children has built capacity to roll-out the program in

close collaboration with our partners.

Children’s participation in the work against physical and humiliating punishment

is powerful and they provide a unique source of information about the nature of all

forms of punishment. Since the UN Study on VAC was published in 2006, SC Swe-

den has endeavoured to increase the capacity of colleagues around the world to in-

clude children in PHP programming.

In the Philippines, where SC Sweden has been working with PHP for 10 years,

our civil society partners supported child-led clubs focusing on violence awareness

and some the these clubs have become independent and the children recognized as

important change agents.

In Latin America, Save the Children’s partners, such as Global Infancia in Para-

guay, Rede Nao Bata and Eduqe in Brazil and MMI-LAC Local Chapter in Chile,

together with the child led organisation Consultative Council of Paraguay and other

child-led organisations advocated intensely for a total ban of physical and humiliating

punishment in their respective countries. The participation of children had a direct

impact on the process of banning PHP.


Changing the law is a long-term investment – it’s not costly, but it takes time and

needs capacity on country level. It is not only the progress towards the adoption of a

law we should look at – but also at the progress towards a total ban. To measure pro-

gress step-by-step we need to become better at developing relevant progress indica-

tors. In addition we need to improve in monitoring changes in attitudes and behav-

iour, and we are currently elaborating a plan for this. This work will continue

throughout the next strategic program period.

To eliminate PHP Save the Children has adopted a four pillar approach including:

1) legal and policy reform; 2) awareness raising/education/information to increase

knowledge and change attitudes; 3) training in Positive Discipline to change behav-

iours of parents and professionals; and 4) children’s participation in all components.

We see that a combination of those pillars is the most successful approach and that

an integrated program has the best chances of achieving results in changing social

norms and behaviours. The signature program in the Philippines is one example



where Save the Children §is working with all components and where these compo-

nents are reinforcing each other.

However, we have also learnt that it is as important to have a contextualized plan

for the four pillars, especially for the legal reform, as the advocacy strategy will de-

pend on various opportunities and challenges.

Even though the number of countries with laws against PHP in increasing, it is

crucial to continue developing the program and to look at effective implementation

strategies. In some countries, like Romania, Save the Children has recently started to

document the impact of the law, something that also is important for advocacy in

other countries. In Sweden, national studies looking at the impact over time have

been extremely useful for other countries in their advocacy for a ban. SC Sweden

wishes to inspire more countries to document the progress and best practices from

the implementation of a law against PHP.

A good opportunity has presented itself in inclusion of physical and humiliating

punishment as a target under SDG 16.2 – this will help to create political will for

change. SC Sweden and other actors need to be able to show and share good pro-

gramming within the framework of the Global Partnership on Violence against Chil-

dren, programming used by pathfinding countries (the Philippines and Sweden are

right now suggested as pathfinders). It is thus important to continuously document

and evaluate progress in each country to provide best practices and lessons learned

that can be shared globally.

Finally, to ensure further scale-up and a preparedness to respond to the growing

interest in Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting/Teaching SC Sweden will, in the

coming years, focus on developing country contextualized exit-plans for handover

and institutionalisation of the programs and trainings to civil society partners, univer-

sities and governments.


More children have access to a comprehensive community based

and/or national child protection system


Governments have the primary responsibility for upholding the rights stipulated in

the Convention on the Rights of the Child within their respective territorial bounda-

ries. A key part of fulfilling this responsibility is to nourish and strengthen child pro-

tection systems that support every child residing in the country. Save the Children

has been investing quite a lot of effort to strengthen systems protecting children at

national, local and community level, and in the context of both development and

emergency. In fact, all country programs should use with this systems approach, that

includes both formal and informal mechanisms.

In the results from 2013–2015 we can see new ways of addressing child protection

risks. Through development of tools and guidelines, pilot projects and scaling up



successful projects SC Sweden has taken important steps in our systems strengthen-

ing approach. Our work on child protection systems represents a scalable approach

to the protection of all children from all forms of violence – an approach that is

complementary to the focus on specific forms of violence, such as physical and hu-

miliating punishment, child marriage and sexual abuse. SC Sweden has been a leading

actor in formulating and moving away from more issue-based responses towards a

more comprehensive systems approach based on the understanding that many chil-

dren face multiple child protection problems, and hence requires a broad approach.

Coordination between different actors has been a critical part of building effective

child protection systems. During this period SC Sweden – in cooperation with sev-

eral partners – aimed at mapping what different actors in the regions have done to

improve the protection of all children without appropriate care. In emergency situa-

tions, the aim has been to ensure that the Minimum Standards for Child Protection

in Humanitarian Action will become a central reference and a guide for all stakehold-

ers, in particular standard 16 on community-based mechanisms.



In November 2012, more than 130 policymakers, academics, practitioners and other

experts committed to child protection systems met in New Delhi for a 4-day global

conference “A better way to protect All children”.37 The aim was to review and con-

solidate what has been learned so far about the development and reform of such sys-

tems.

The conference led to a confirmed decision to continue to work with a child pro-

tection systematic approach and to leave behind the “issue-approach”.

This new approach has globally led to:

► Increased coverage by serving all children;

► Recognition of the interactions of multiple child protection risks as they af-fect many children;

► Reduced fragmentation of programs and policies and therefore increased co-herence;

► Greater focus on prevention instead of an issues approach that tends to focus on response to specific violations;

► A holistic approach that allows the child and her/his problems to be seen from multiple angles;

► Involvement of many professionals who bring different expertise and per-spectives.

37 Save the Children Sweden was an active member in planning this first global conference, which was held together with Unicef, UNHCR

and World Vision.



This renewed thinking is quite visible in the reporting 2013–2015 from the different

regions, when reporting on results in child protection work.


In many countries we can see that the continuous advocacy efforts with govern-

ments, local communities, and other international actors to change the child protec-

tion legislation – which is one of the cornerstones in the child protection system ap-

proach – take time. The improvement in the countries’ legislation is hardly ever the

result from merely the past three years’ efforts, rather from our consistent and long-

term advocacy work.

Save the Children is not working towards just one law covering a child protection

system, rather a set of measures and laws, as well as ensuring that the laws are cover-

ing and responding to the intentions of the UNCRC.

More and more countries have a legislation in place now to ban corporal punish-

ment, the number has risen from 33 in 2013 to 48 in 2015. From now on it is im-

portant to develop a monitoring framework to look at effective implementation of

this legislation.

Civil society organisations are crucial in pushing the system approach to child pro-

tection, of course in collaboration with others, to develop locally owned interven-

tions and services, to improve coordination, to share learning, and to maximize the

collective impact.

In Pakistan, the community-based protection mechanisms constitute an im-

portant part of the overall child protection system as more formal mechanisms do

not always have the personnel or the means to be able to prevent, monitor, report or

respond to protection issues in a timely and efficient manner. In order to formalize

structures Save the Children’s partners Dost Foundation and Rozan worked on com-

munity-based protection mechanisms with the communities, the Child Protection

Committees and School Management Committees, teachers, and the education de-

partment and built 1,424 community members’ capacity in monitoring the child pro-

tection situation in their respective communities and schools and in developing ac-

tion plans for prevention and response.

Child protection systems are certain structures,

functions and capacities that need to be in place to

prevent and respond to violence, abuse, neglect and

exploitation of children. This includes the people, laws,

services, data, and money that are necessary to realize

children’s right to protection



In Bangladesh, civil society organisations were strengthened in their engagement in

various child protection committees at both district and national level resulting in

better advocacy and linkages with the government to work on child protection issues.

Partner organisations formed and strengthened the Community Based Child Protec-

tion Committees that are part of the government system, in line with Children Act

2013 with the support of Save the Children. They are working closely with other gov-

ernment mandated committees, such as the Union Parishads’ Standing Committee

for Children, the Anti-trafficking Committee and the Violence against Women Com-

mittee.

In East Africa, increased awareness and recognition of the importance of child

protection systems has become visible. The East Africa regional program in partner-

ship with ANPPCAN38 Regional have worked towards the implementation of a Re-

gional Strategy on Strengthening National Child Protection Systems covering the pe-

riod 2013–2017, with specific plans developed by seven countries. The intention of

the strategy is to improve services provided to children in the region by strengthen-

ing the pillars of a child protection system, namely: coordination between actors; hu-

man and financial resources; data collection; and laws and policies. A review done in

2015 of the implementation across the region showed that Kenya has made the most

visible progress: the government is proceeding with its Social Protection Programs,

such as cash transfer for orphans and vulnerable children; secondary school presi-

dential bursary; older persons’ cash transfer; and cash transfer; and on a policy level,

the development of a National Plan of Action for Children (2015-2022) as well as

setting up county Child Protection System Guidelines. However the other countries

have not submitted much concrete information on the progress of strengthening

child protection systems. This is a lesson and a point for consideration in the contin-

ued implementation of the strategy in 2016–2017. On an advocacy front, during the

22nd Session of the ACERWC39 in Addis Ababa, the inter-agency initiative on

strengthening National Child Protection Systems presented a statement recommend-

ing a systems approach as well as the use of a systems lens when reviewing reports.

As a result of the presentation, the inter-agency initiative agreed on the need for ca-

pacity building, which was done in 2014 and an inter-agency plan was developed to

support ACERWC and member state reporting on systems strengthening.

Children’s participation and mobilization is further key to an effective child pro-

tection system, to ensure that the system respond well to children’s multiple needs,

but also that it has effective and well evaluated preventative measures in place. At the

end of the day, only a collaborative, empirically driven approach that places chil-

dren’s protection and well-being in the centre will enable us to develop effective

child protection systems.

In Sudan, SC Sweden’s partner, Sabah Association, a pioneer in the field of child

justice and children in contact with the law, introduced the application of the social

38 African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) is a pan-African network that promotes

child rights and child protection in Africa. 39 African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.



probation measures as part of Sudan’s National Child Protection System, in addition

to their ongoing capacity building and technical support to the judges and staff of the

Family and Child Protection Unit and the community leaders. In 2014 a total of 16

children went through the social probation measures.

In West Africa, “Working Children and Youth” in all 4 Save the Children coun-

tries – Niger, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Senegal – has benefited from protection solu-

tions through better services, e.g. alphabetization, health care, play time, listening ser-

vices and solution-oriented activities.

There are a number of factors that actually hinder the protection of children in

West and Central Africa: social views and expectations on children; gender inequality;

and a lack of laws (or implementation thereof) aimed at protecting children definitely

rank high. Children are often marginalized in conservative societies as adults do not

often prioritize children’s needs. To overcome this and to improve protection, the

approach selected by the African Movement of Working Children and Youth (AM-

WCY) has been to strengthen their protection skills as well as their role in strength-

ening child protection systems in their communities. More than 45,000 children in

West Africa have been protected by a system that listens to their problems and needs

and responds with appropriate and personalized solutions. As actors of change, 175

child members of the AMWCY were trained on child protection procedures and this

was considered to be an approach that will both enable them to be part of their own

protection and continue improving the child protection practices.

In Latin America, the preparation of the report “Monitoring the Global Civil Society

Study of Violence” and the state’s implementation of the recommendations of the UN

Study on Violence involved 60 civil society organisations and 600 children and ado-

lescents. These actors have now recognized major gaps in the prevention and re-

sponse to violence against children, and the importance of their role as civil society

to make these violations visible and demand a response from the state. The central

problem of the protection system is in the low and inefficient intra- and intersec-

tional coordination among state agencies for the system of prevention and protection

of violence against children work in due course.


It is quite difficult to measure whether the situation for children has improved thanks

to a strengthened nationwide child protection system, but Save the Children is en-

deavouring to identify progress. Up to date, little consensus exists about what should

be measured in evaluating the effectiveness of such a system. In our global indicator

report we selected a number of criteria to see whether countries are moving in the di-

rection of a strengthened system or not.

In total, 46 policy or legislative changes have taken place in 10 countries, including

significant contributions to implementation changes. There are a number of chal-

lenges in the development of a holistic systematic approach to child protection. One



of them is the lack of implementation of approved legislations or even the lack of

legislation full stop.

Another difficulty is identifying a coordinating body at governmental level that

can coordinate the different programs and activities aimed at improving the protec-

tion of children that at present is handled by parallel structures in different depart-

ments with similar objectives to protect children.

Different social values and expectations of children affect the important compo-

nent of child participation in the child protection systematic approach.

However, it is visible in a great number of reports that the inclusion of the sys-

tematic child protection approach has developed immensely during this period.


Fewer children are separated from their families or caregivers and

more children are reunited through the development of national and

local systems that further children’s right to protection.


Save the Children has a long-standing experience of working with UN bodies, inter-

national, national, and local organisations, as well as with governments to identify

children without appropriate care and reunify those children that have been sepa-

rated from their families. We do this in both development and emergency settings.

We have an ambitious agenda to reform the care systems for children towards family

based care and to move away from institutional care.

During this period SC Sweden has received increased requests for support to unac-

companied and separated children, for alternative care arrangements, and for family

tracing and reunification – not least due to the many ongoing refugee crises. Through

the Sida CSO appropriation SC Sweden has supported programs in four of the

world’s ten major refugee-hosting countries: Pakistan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Su-

dan.40 More countries were reached, as well as countries in more traditional develop-

ment contexts, such as Bangladesh and India.

In our application we specifically mentioned that we would endeavour to

strengthen the care and protection for children without appropriate care in the occu-

40 The ten major refugee-hosting countries are: Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan Kenya, Uganda, Chad and Sudan.

http://www.unhcr.org/56701b969.html. 7 p.

250 million children are on the move in the world

today, and millions are forcibly displaced.

Many spend their entire childhood far from home

http://www.unhcr.org/56701b969.html



pied Palestinian territories, Yemen, Senegal, Pakistan, and Sudan. In SC Sweden’s re-

gional programs we have worked through our partners and child-led networks to

prevent unsafe migration using awareness-raising and community mobilisation to en-

hance the ability of national and community based child protection systems to better

care for migrating and separated children.

A particular focus has been given to the promotion of a case management ap-

proach, with instrumental contributions from SC Sweden. This approach is a key

component in every child protection system, in all settings, and involves social work

methodologies and community based systems. Most importantly case management is

a method to ensure that the response services provided to the child is individualized

and adapted to his or hers specific needs. These services may include information,

counselling and referrals to other services such as to social workers, doctors, and the

police, as well as assistance with alternative care accommodations, when necessary.



At global level Save the Children Sweden is co-leading the thematic area of Unac-

companied and Separated Children on behalf of other Save the Children members.

In that role we have provided technical support to ensure quality implementation in

the field during emergency responses to a number of countries. We have also assisted

with relevant tools and participation in capacity building activities, such as on the

Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.

SC Sweden has led the development of a quality assurance framework for case

management. The tool defines key programmatic considerations to ensure that pro-

grams for child protection in emergencies are rapidly implemented and guaranteeing

a minimum standard quality. The framework has been developed through a consulta-

tive approach with key stakeholders from countries implementing case management.

The guidelines will be field tested in 2016.

In 2015 a well-visited Africa-wide program learning event on Children without

Appropriate Care took place in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia with contribution from SC

Sweden. 117 participants from 30 countries participated over four days, including key

external partners: African Child Policy Forum, Bethany Global, Better Care Network,

Child Line, Hope and Homes, Kenya Society of Care Leavers and UNICEF. The

event promoted cross-sectoral and inter-agency learning, and aimed at bringing stra-

tegic direction to the work on children without appropriate care, share good practices

and tools, and create inspiration for improved care work. The learning and recom-

mendations have been integrated into Save the Children’s CP Initiative’s forthcoming

strategy, to guide our continued work with children without appropriate care.



Results at Country Level

In 2013, a program was initiated to systematize tracing and reunification of unaccom-

panied and separated children among involved actors by creating cooperative stand-

ard operating procedures and protocols at country and regional level. Since its start

the program has created links to ensure improved coordination of the programs con-

tent and quality, and ensure a better management of the flow of information on un-

accompanied and separated children across borders between South Sudan and coun-

tries of asylum.

This cross-border work on family tracing and reunification (FTR) has been

strengthened, including the roll-out of an Inter-Agency Child Protection Information

Management System in collaboration with UNICEF and other key partners, with

South Sudan as the highlight. The success rate in the reunification of unaccompanied

and separated children in South Sudan has increased quite significantly. This can be

seen as a direct result of SC Sweden’s capacity building of the field teams in the af-

fected countries to better respond to their specific needs, including alternative care.

The aim of this approach was to be better prepared to deliver quality innovative pro-

gramming at scale and build better awareness of and support for quality FTR in the

East Africa region during emergencies and beyond. SC Sweden was instrumental to

bring about the ground-breaking Regional Information Sharing Protocol41 in 2015 in

East Africa.

In 2013–2014 research on Kinship Care was conducted by Save the Children in

11 countries, among those Senegal and Ethiopia on “Understanding and improving

informal alternative care mechanisms to increase the care and protection of children

with a focus on kinship care”. The study involved representatives ranging from local

NGOs to government and including children and caregivers living in kinship care.

The aim of the study was to increase the knowledge on a traditional and well known

form of care and its practice within families and communities, to ultimately improve

the care and protection of children. The outcomes were followed up with concrete

actions and advocacy towards the governments to develop stronger protection sys-

tems and targeted advocacy work geared towards improvement of care practices.

UNICEF in Ethiopia has shown particular interest in the kinship care research and

the country teams are exploring an opportunity to conduct further research on the

informal care system. There are ongoing initiatives on social welfare workforce devel-

opment, integration of this with child sensitive social protection initiatives and ongo-

ing links to UNICEF and the care reform agenda. At a regional level, some of the

recommendations will be taken forward following the recent launch of the Child

Sensitive Social Protection Framework, courtesy of the Child Rights Governance

team in the East and Southern Africa region.

In Ethiopia Save the Children has built the capacity of partners in case manage-

ment to address unsafe migration. This has resulted in increased alertness among the

child protection committees and other key actors that identify and report migrating

41 Improvement and coordination between SC, LWF, UNHCR, UNICEF and WV.



or trafficked children. Subsequently the identified children were provided with psy-

chosocial support, such as communication techniques and referrals, along with in-

terim care while Save the Children’s partners traced their families. This two-folded

approach turned out to be very successful and has had unforeseen positive effects on

the children’s wellbeing with a reduction of both immediate and long-term stress lev-

els and increased resilience.

In Yemen, our partner the Millennium Development Foundation (MDF) ensured

that children affected by the conflict in Aden were identified and referred to service

providers. MDF clearly demonstrated increased case management capacities, partly as

a result of SC Sweden’s support. We adjusted our support to be as relevant as possi-

ble, introducing components of coaching. By the end of 2014, MDF had passed

from incomplete and limited case management procedures to a full system. Their

ability to engage with relevant stakeholders increased tremendously simultaneously.

They are now well set to contribute to further development of the case management

system in the country.

Save the Children’s other partners have been able to further influence the govern-

ment in Yemen to draft a plan in cooperation with civil society to amend the law for

the protection of children in residential care. As a result Save the Children along with

partners, successfully got commitment from Islamic leaders to start discussions on a

family-based care system in Sana’a in Yemen, based on our principles. Our partners

were engaged in the reform of standards for the residential care in Yemen. They

started a dialogue on alternative care with the Ministry of Endowment. Based on the

rules of the Kafalah Islamic law a group of foster families has been assembled that

also can provide family based care for children in emergencies.

In Pakistan, Save the Children’s Child Rights Situation Analysis was used to shed

light on the hardship street children face. This has lead the Pakistani government to

expand initiatives implemented by Save the Children’s partners in Karachi and La-

hore to other regions. The initiatives included psychosocial support from mobile

child protection units to children living in the streets and to children in contact with

the law. Our partner organisations also advocated for the reform of the juvenile act

by building the capacity of governmental authorities.

In Bangladesh, the authorities have become more actively engaged in the repatri-

ation of trafficked children through Save the Children’s lobbying. Bureaucratic pro-

cedures have become simpler and are ensuring that children are rapidly provided

with logistical support to facilitate their repatriation back to their communities of

origin. Save the Children’s partners have provided psychosocial support to these chil-

dren during the repatriation process.

In the Philippines, SC Sweden contributed to the development of national guide-

lines on child friendly spaces that were implemented in 17 districts. The guidelines

set minimum standards for the regional authorities’ rapid establishment of child

friendly spaces and its activities after natural disasters.




Many of the activities implemented during the reporting period has shown an in-

creased need to integrate case management as part of the programmatic approach.

This means that any child protection intervention should have a case management

approach to respond to the vulnerability identified. It is also important that case

management is not dissociated from the specialized programs for at-risk children.

While child protection programs have specific sub-thematic necessities and training

needs, all of them require a case management approach to ensure that children are

provided a holistic support, taking their different needs into consideration.

Overall conclusions made by Save the Children’s country programs and partners

are that child protection systems and referral mechanisms need further strengthening

to better support children without appropriate care. Stronger lobbying is required to

inspire governments to improve laws and administrative procedures for these chil-

dren, and to implement the Guidelines for alternative Care of Children.

Several country offices mention the need to learn more about the migration from

rural to urban settings. Pakistan states that “we need to invest more in social mobili-

zation strategies for the urban context, and understand the dynamics of working in

urban context”. In the occupied Palestinian territory, they reflect on the need to

“work on the establishment of the case management system for children with disabil-

ities”. They also identified the challenge of improving the situation for children with-

out appropriate care: “…no major breakthroughs were achieved at the policy level or

in improving the services and quality for these children”. They see a great need for

in-depth research on how the Shari’a laws affect approaches on institutional care, be-

fore intervening meaningfully at the different levels.

Save the Children Sweden has invested much time in guiding country offices and

empowering partners through direct support provided by our thematic advisors

based in the different regions, and through development of tools to ensure quality

implementation of child protection projects such as case management, family tracing

and reunification and psychosocial support.

Some country offices are still struggling with their partners’ documentation and

monitoring, as for example in Sudan where case studies and lessons learned are rarely

documented and information remains with the employee instead of being a part of

the institutional memory. This is mostly due to high staff turn-over (some work as

volunteers), but it also reflects the difficult conditions of working in a fragile and

complex environment.

Finally, the steady increase in the number of migrating and forcibly displaced chil-

dren and families will affect SC Sweden’s priorities in the coming years, and remain

one of our main focus areas.



Health and Nutrition

Overall description

In its Health and Nutrition program, SC Sweden continued its work to push for the

achievement of MDG 4 and 5 on reduced child mortality and improved maternal

health. The Health and Nutrition program including the global programmes Local to

Global and Global Moments were SC Sweden’s contribution to Save the Children’s

global campaign EveryOne on child survival, with a focus on Mother, Newborn and

Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN). Being the third largest of SC Sweden’s global

programs during the period the program has provided financial and technical support

to Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Yemen, Zambia (Local to Global) and Bangladesh,

Ethiopia, Mexico and Sierra Leone (Global Moments) and 4 advocacy offices.

SC Sweden has also supported country specific Health and Nutrition programs

linked to the MDG 4 and 5 fulfilment in India, Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire to improve

child and maternal health through implementation of service delivery, capacity build-

ing of Frontline Health Workers and awareness and community mobilisation.

Save the Children launched the global campaign, EveryOne, in 2009. EveryOne

combines programme evidence, advocacy and public engagement activities to bring

about lasting changes in policy and practice that will contribute to achieving MDG 4

and 5.

SC Sweden contributed with support to the Global Moments programme within

EveryOne to leverage global and regional opportunities such as G8, World Health

Assembly and UN General Assembly to put child survival issues on the agenda, and

elicit commitments from governments and other actors.

In addition to the Global Moments support which primarily focused on global ad-

vocacy and campaigning opportunities, Save the Children Sweden contributed with

the Local to Global programme, which seeks to secure improvements in delivery on

Children’s Right to Survival and Health by linking community level health issues to

national and global level advocacy, working with partners at all levels to empower

and build their capacity on integration of advocacy, awareness raising and program-

matic work. The purpose of the local to global was to strengthen the local perspec-

tive and partners in Save the Children’s advocacy work.

At global level SC Sweden’s Health and Nutrition program aimed to contribute to

Save the Children’s overall goal and global programme outcomes for the EveryOne

Campaign.

Overall Goal: By 2015 Save the Children will have catalysed a breakthrough in

policy and practice that dramatically accelerates sustainable progress towards MDGs

4 and 5.



Program Outcomes

► By 2015 Save the Children will have catalysed a breakthrough in policy and practice that dramatically accelerates sustainable progress towards MDGs 4 and 5, through improved Duty Bearers’ accountability, at national and inter-national level, for the delivery of strengthened policy, legal and budget com-mitments for children’s right to survival and health.

► Children under-five have increased access to quality child health care and health education services especially in marginalised communities

► Mothers and new-borns have increased access to quality mother and new-born health services (ANC, PNC, SRH, delivery) especially in marginalised communities.

► Children under five have access to quality nutrition services and education especially in marginalised communities.

► Pregnant and lactating women access quality nutritional services especially in marginalised communities



As a result of health interventions and advocacy work, Save the Children and part-

ners have contributed to child survival with improved political, legal and budgetary

commitments and increased accountability, where local communities and civil society

have been empowered to demand quality services at all levels. In the following sec-

tion, results are highlighted, that are representative to the comprehensive “Local to

global” advocacy approach, which have been SC Sweden’s main contribution with

this program. The linkages to the global level strengthened our partners and enabled

them to be more strategic and effective in advocacy at local and national level. In ad-

dition to that the linkages to local and national levels including our local partners

gave a strong added value to the advocacy being done at global level and thus

strengthen outcomes on all levels.42

The adoption of the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) in 2014 by the World

Health was a result of joint advocacy efforts at global and national level and the com-

mon understanding of lack of progress in newborn survival. Save the Children’s ad-

vocacy office in Geneva and partners in India and Afghanistan contributed to shape

ENAP through written input to the draft and active participation in consultation

processes at international and national level. The adoption of ENAP catalysed na-

tional action to improve newborn health across, with e.g. India and Afghanistan

adopting national action plans which SC and partners contributed to.

42 Examples of Save the Children EveryOne campaign advocacy success stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4hnQnd4ss0



At a regional level, Save the Children and SC Sweden supported partners contributed

to significant commitments to improve children’s health, including the Africa’s Re-

newed Initiative for Stunting Elimination (ARISE) programme plan launched in

2014, with the aim to reduce child stunting to 10 percent and underweight to 5 per-

cent by 2025. This intervention was aligned with initiatives taken at national level in-

cluding in Zambia, where trainings were conducted with the All Parliamentary Party

Caucus on Nutrition members in pre- and post-budget analysis and budget tracking,

together with the Scale up Nutrition Alliance (SUN alliance), to increase accountabil-

ity and strengthen Parliamentarians’ capacity to advocate for increased funding for

the implementation of national nutrition plans.

Save the Children worked to secure governments’ commitments to the Global

Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents Health 2016-2030 (EWEC),

adopted at the UNGA in 2015. Partners and Save the Children in e.g. Zambia and

India together with the advocacy offices all contributed to build political support

from Member States and other stakeholders. In Addis Ababa, Save the Children

brought together AU member state officials from Ministries in charge of Health

through multi-stakeholder consultations, where progress on child and maternal mor-

tality reduction was highlighted as well as remaining gaps, including adolescent

health, and to ensure support for the development of the strategy. In parallel SC Ge-

neva worked closely with the WHO before the World Health Assembly preparing

joint messaging. Both India and Zambia participated in the Global Call to Action

Summit in India in August 2015, in support of the EWEC and the participation of

Zambia’s Minister of Community Development was facilitated by Save the Children.

As an outcome the government of Zambia committed to accelerate efforts through

scaling up implementation of integrated community case management of common

diseases for women and children and through improved access to health services.


In Afghanistan, one of the main result was the successful advocacy towards the gov-

ernment and donors to secure funding for Basic Public Health Services (BPHS). The

country office and partners coordinated the messaging with the advocacy offices, es-

pecially the Brussels office as EU is one of the main donors in Afghanistan, and Save

the Children conducted a funding gap analysis to provide data-based advocacy at the

London Conference on Afghanistan in 2014. As a result, a specific plan for nutrition

was developed by the Public Nutrition Department under the BPHS umbrella. The

advocacy that took place by the partner Youth Health and Development Organiza-

tion at national and provincial level contributed to changing the opinions of key gov-

ernment stakeholders to support the BPHS and increase accountability.

In Yemen, Save the Children and the Children’s parliament have contributed to

the inclusion of children’s rights within the new Constitution, including provisions

on child marriage, child trafficking, child labour, health, nutrition, and children’s right

to express and participate. The Children’s Parliament in Yemen is a very active voice



for children’s rights and Save the Children contributed to strengthening their capacity

to do advocacy towards decision makers, including participating at global events.

Save the Children has supported the establishment of a children’s media network,

with trainings on how to conduct campaigns and develop radio messages, which has

been crucial to raise awareness around child rights in the context of emergency.

When the armed conflict broke out, Save the Children trained 20 children on how to

conduct needs assessment with displaced children involving 105 participants between

the age of 12 and 18, including developing recommendations based on the findings

in the assessment, which shows what devastating impact the conflict has had on the

health sector.

One of the main results in India is an increased commitment and investment in

health by the government, which SC India and the child-led Nine is Mine campaign

contributed to. In advance to the annual budget announcement in 2013, 5,000 chil-

dren called for increased engagement in child survival and investments in health. As

an outcome, the national health budget has since increased from 1.02 percent to 2.5

percent of GDP in the 2013–2017 period. The collaboration with the Nine is Mine

campaign has continued, demanding better healthcare facilities for women and chil-

dren.

The capacity building of communities by local partners was essential to also in-

crease the expenditure of the new health budget and improve the overall health sys-

tem performance at local level through improved community based accountability

and health sector governance. A total of 474 village/ward health sanitation and nutri-

tion committees and 80 multi-stakeholder Village Planning and Monitoring Commit-

tees have been formed or restructured and empowered through capacity building on

MNCHN services and mobilisation. Furthermore, social audits and public hearings

have been conducted for the delivery of quality, affordable and equitable safe deliv-

ery services. More than 50 percent of community support groups have used commu-

nity scorecards to rank health and nutrition services meant for children.

In Zambia Save the Children together with partners WiLDAF, ZINGO, CHAZ,

and SADAIDS, just to mention a few, have contributed to the improved MNCH ser-

vices in Lufwanyama district through advocacy, community mobilisation and the ca-

pacity building of Frontline Health Workers.

Save the Children has trained partners and other key stakeholders in advocacy and

community mobilisation and as a result CSO-coalitions have supported the govern-

ment to develop harmonised guidelines on national level through the active participa-

tion in the Technical Working Group for Child Health, which was established under

the Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health in 2013. New

commitments have also been made by the government, such as increased allocation

for capacity building for health working and organising trainings in e.g. Emergency

Maternal Obstetric Neonatal care and Kangaroo Mother care. Capacity building and

training of Frontline Health Workers and other key actors such as traditional leaders

and healers has also been key for improvement of services



In Ethiopia, one of the main outcomes was the launch of the National Harmful Tra-

ditional Practices (HTP) strategy which our partner Amhara Women’s Association

(AWA) contributed to by creating an informal multi-stakeholder advocacy group in

the Amhara region including MPs, religious and community leaders, community-

based organisations and the media. AWA and another of our partners, the Organiza-

tion for the Development of Women and Children in Ethiopia, also strengthened the

capacity of local child marriage committees as they were key in ensuring the evidence

was disseminated to community leaders, working closely together with the Children’s

Parliament on this issue. Parliamentarians and local CSOs took part in trainings, as

did elders and community members. As a result 4,000 child marriages have been can-

celled since 2013 in the Amhara region. The fact that girls have been encouraged to

report potential arranged marriages by using an anonymous suggestion box at school,

has significantly increased reporting around child marriage.


Major outcomes can be seen across our Health and Nutrition contribution, with a

special emphasis on increased accountability through the advocacy at local, national

and global levels. Focus has been on maternal, newborn and child health services and

nutrition. The priorities have varied at country level due to their specific contexts and

at the regional and global levels based on global processes and opportunities.

The coordination at global level with linkages to regional and national levels, was

vital for the overall contribution from Save the Children, including our ability to lev-

erage global platform and processes for national outcomes. It ensures aligned and

consistent messaging, where key global moments can be used to leverage commit-

ments and outcomes at local and national level advocacy. One such example is our

advocacy towards the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution on Child, Early and

Forced Marriages, where SC Geneva relied on learnings from previous processes, es-

pecially the UNGA resolution and the African Union Commmuniqué on child mar-

riage, as well as intelligence gathered at the other advocacy offices. Furthermore, our

messaging relied on the evidence, experience and recommendations from our coun-

try offices and partners such as in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Another example is the

work on the development of the BPHS package in Afghanistan. Going forward,

these linkages should be further strengthened and stronger coordination between

global advocacy offices and country offices are recommended to ensure that key op-

portunities are taken advantage of and to explore and share experiences on novel

means of effective advocacy.

SC Sweden’s contribution to EveryOne through the Local to Global programme

was instrumental through our focus on local partners, the strengthening of their ca-

pacity and emphasis on advocacy as a method for greater accountability at all levels

alongside campaigning, community awareness and mobilisation. The Local to Global

approached also influenced the way EveryOne was rolled out beyond SC Sweden’s

own contribution.



The collaboration with and empowerment of partner organisations, networks and co-

alitions were noted as keys to success in advocacy across all countries, as it ensures

that we can reach all levels of governance and the public. This includes working with

children and adolescents to facilitate their meaningful participation and influence and

empower them to become agents of change. Participatory planning is key also with

communities, marginalised groups and religious groups to ensure we are working in a

rights based and equitable manner. In more conservative or traditional areas, engage-

ment of appropriate gatekeepers such as religious leaders or elders is crucial to

achieve change in norms, behaviour and power dynamics, such as working with the

traditional leaders in Zambia on the issue of child marriage.

Partner capacity building is key for the success of the programme, its sustainability

and reach and OCD plans should ideally be developed at the start of the project pe-

riod and followed up on throughout the project period. Entering into partnership en-

sures closer collaboration to meet the jointly identified objectives including mutual

learning. Strong relationships with key stakeholders including government needs to

be maintained and invested in for long term results. Investing in capacity building at

local, national and global level serves to sharing of best practices and learnings, cam-

paign tactics, challenges and solutions.

Innovative approaches to advocacy where used throughout the project, which en-

abled us to raise children’s voices and helped mobilise communities and governments

around health and children’s rights, such as the Children’s Parliament in Yemen and

the work with developing a Media Network in Yemen, as well as collaboration on

two live radio shows (44 episodes in total) called “Every One” and “A daily life of a

displaced person”. The experiences from working with child participation in advo-

cacy at local but also national and global levels are something SCI is bringing into the

next global campaign. In India, Save the Children teamed up with a theatre actor and

a director to produce the play “I will not cry” on the issue of child survival, and has

run 14 shows during the project period in different areas of India and has managed

to reach out to both decision makers including government representatives and the

wider public. In Zambia, Save the Children collaborated with Radio Ichengelo, which

reaches more than 2.3 million people, and broadcasted eleven radio programmes in-

volving community groups and Neighbourhood Health Committees that Save the

Children has worked with in Lufwanyama district. The use of radio has been success-

ful in terms of mobilising new actors, namely men, where an increased engagement

and participation by men can be seen.

Education

Save the Children Sweden has, during this reporting period, continued its work with

education as a part of Save the Children’s priority area: the Right to Education. The

major part of SC Sweden’s education portfolio has been funded by other donors,



such as the IKEA foundation, and the education program as designed in the Sida-ap-

plication included education programs in Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire and Yemen.

However, as reported in 2014, SC Sweden decided to phase out the Sida CSO-frame

financed part of the Afghanistan country program one year earlier than planned due

to major problems and set backs at partner level. And since, the budget initially sub-

mitted for the period to Sida was cut, the education program in Yemen was never in-

itiated. This section of the report will thus focus on the program implemented in in

Côte d’Ivoire, focusing on basic education. Globally, funds allocated for the educa-

tion program has also been used for thematic development and technical assistance.


In Côte d’Ivoire the project was implemented in the Tonpki region (Man), a moun-

tain area, which was severely affected by the 2010–2011 post-election crisis. Schools

and education material were destroyed or damaged, and students and teacher trauma-

tized, and some displaced. The project aimed at improved access to a quality educa-

tion in a safe and protective environment for children affected by the crisis. The pro-

ject was implemented together with civil society organisations, primarily Action for

the Development and Family Protection (ADFP).

Global Program Outcome

All children have access to a good quality basic education – especially

those who are excluded and marginalised or living in conflict affected

fragile states.


At global level the program has contributed to:

► Technical support to Save the Children’s country programs on education in Côte d’Ivoire, but also in other countries;

► Mobilization of knowledge, experience and learning on inclusive education for the benefit of SC Sweden’s education programs globally

► The development of Save the Children’s work to define and measure Quality Learning Environment (QLE) and to use this tool for assessing and monitor-ing progress towards a better learning environment for all children.


The results in Côte d’Ivoire can be seen in two areas:

First, in community mobilization for children’s right to education: Social cohesion

in this war stricken area where clashes continued long after the civil war ended, par-

ticipation and mobilization of communities towards achieving a better education for

children.



Several different strategies and interventions were implemented to reach this re-

sult. Partner organisations were first trained on children’s rights to education, how to

support and train teachers, and how to assess and support schools in improving chil-

dren’s literacy. There was also organisation capacity development of partner organi-

sation based on their self-assessment of strengths and needs. ADPF work closely

with communities to jointly identify problems in schools. These problem analyses

were then used in shaping and planning interventions and to solicit community mem-

bers’ support, willingness and resources for the project.

The implementation areas in Tonkpi have suffered violent clashes and exacer-

bated tension between communities. The project worked in a close dialogue with

several communities and their leaders and managed to establish both trust and a joint

focus on keeping the schools open, supporting rehabilitation of school facilities and a

better education for children. Community members contributed with material, trans-

portation and manpower. There was also awareness raising campaigns in targeted

communities on all children’s rights to education.

The second area is improved access and learning: Girls and boys have improved ac-

cess to education, teachers use more child-friendly learning methodologies and there

is a better learning environment in targeted schools.

The problem analyses carried out by the communities have defined that many

schools needed rehabilitation, lacked latrines, water points and canteens that caused

high drop out and absence rates. The project supported improvements of school fa-

cilities. Also, teachers, principals and school management committees were trained to

improve teaching techniques and to ensure that all adults in the school understood

children’s right to protection. Positive discipline was introduced as an alternative to

physical and humiliating punishment, initiatives to improve the learning environment

in school were also taken and a particular emphasis was put on supporting particular

marginalized groups of children to access, participate and learn in schools. Children

were supported to start Children’s Clubs/Councils in schools that would give them

strengthened capacity to exercise their rights and become strong citizens, able to con-

tribute positively and develop their local communities.


The project in Côte d’Ivoire defined two lessons to be learned. The first was that it is

crucial to work closely with the education authorities at the regional level in order to

have a larger impact on the quality learning environment in the whole region. Save

An extra year of quality schooling lifts a country’s

annual economic growth by 1 percent



the Children is well respected by the Ministry of Education. Piloted initiatives are of-

ten brought to scale and advocacy efforts effective in changing national education

policy.

Secondly, that large scale awareness raising campaigns on the right to education

did not have as good impact as expected. Thus the project instead used the approach

of giving an intensive training to a smaller group (20–25 people) who would then

spread the message to about 30–40 people each.

A key challenge reported by several country offices is weak systems to collect data

on children with disabilities who are in schools and out of schools. Consequently, ed-

ucation planning is seldom taking into account the rights and needs of this group of

children. To strengthen governments at local and national levels on Education Man-

agement Information System (EMIS), SC Sweden has entered into a cooperation

with the Community Systems Foundation (CFS), a USA based organisation special-

ized in community based EMIS. In coming year CFS and SC Sweden will work to-

gether to strengthen EMIS in a few countries where we have education programs as

a contribution to SDG 4 on achieving inclusive and equitable quality education for all

children.

Preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction

Overall description

As reported in 2014, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change adaptation was an

area where SC Sweden initially planned for a greater Sida funded program portfolio

with pilot projects in several countries. However, as a result of SC Sweden gaining a

strategic partnership agreement with Sida HUM and the scaling of up the humanitar-

ian work, SC Sweden have rather tried to link its efforts for DRR to the humanitarian

interventions funded by e.g. the UN and Sida rather than scaling up this work within

the Sida CSO-funded countries since the budget for this priority was lacking in the

Sida CSO grant

This section of the report will thus focus solely on the Sida-CSO-funded pro-

grams in Sudan and Bangladesh where Save the Children have worked in partnership

with the following civil society organisations: Uttaran and SEEP (Social and Eco-

nomic Enhancement Program) in Bangladesh and Al Masar, and the Gender Peace

Building Centre in Sudan.

Save the Children’s partners have received capacity building on child-centred

DRR/CCA planning with emphasis on children and community participation with

the aim of giving space for children and their communities to conduct assessments of

risks in their environments and to plan accordingly.



Global Programme Outcome

Strengthened community resilience and preparedness to man-made

and natural disasters


In Sudan and Bangladesh we have worked in partnership with strategically selected

civil society organisations that are rights based, with expertise in gender awareness as

well as human rights, and with a focus on reducing poverty and enhancing empower-

ment of children and their communities in different regions of the countries as fol-

lows: Uttaran in Khulna and Satkhira and SEEP (Social and Economic Enhancement

Program) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In Sudan, SC Sweden has worked in partnership

with Al Masar, and the Gender Peace Building Centre who covers North and West

Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Khartoum.

Save the Children’s partners have received capacity building on child-centred

DRR/CCA planning with emphasis on children and community participation with

the aim of giving space for children and their communities to conduct assessments of

risks in their environments and to plan accordingly.

Results

By investing in their capacity Save the Children have not only attained more knowl-

edgeable organisations but also an increased ownership among partners in regards to

the programs as well as to future programming. Moreover Save the Children learned

that the partners’ ability to independently interact with children and their communi-

ties as well as with relevant authorities and institutions have improved. An expected

result of the programs was that the engagement of children and youths in disaster

risk reduction and climate adaptation change initiatives increased.

In Sudan, the ability of Save the Children’s to carry out trainings to communities

and to map and consult with children as well as to conduct baseline assessments of

hazards and disasters have been enhanced. As a result of our partners’ awareness

training the Sudanese State Ministry of Education has committed and confirmed to

adopt DRR awareness raising sessions to be part of the students’ activities in schools

during the school morning assembly.

In Bangladesh, an evaluation found the program to be highly relevant also at the

national level. Its design and implementation was found to be a direct response to

Bangladesh’s vulnerability to disasters and climate change and the specific impact on

children. It was also found to be highly relevant as it had proven to increase both

communities’ and local governments’ understanding of the process of addressing

risks through better risk assessment and planning processes. As a result of the pro-

gram the families in the target areas have obtained their own household plans,

schools have safety plans and communities their own risk reduction action plans. The



evaluation similarly found that the plans where perceived as useful and appreciated

by the communities.

The evaluation also discovered that the program’s intention to address child abuse

and sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) was successful. The evaluation indi-

cates that child abuse has been reduced with 18 percent during the program’s

lifespan. Interviews with youth and students confirmed that they have increased their

understanding of the linkage between disaster, climate changes and SGBV with 23

percent.

Lessons learned

Challenges encountered during the process in the two countries has been occasioned

by political tensions and violence in certain target areas. In Bangladesh some activi-

ties were postponed but yet implemented within the program period. In Sudan the

program implementation has been challenging in areas with ethnic tensions. An addi-

tional challenge in Sudan was that the concept of DRR/CCA programming was new

with a consequent a lack of program experience.

Child centred programming on DRR/CCA are areas where SC Sweden finds a

natural link between humanitarian and long-term development work in communities

primarily in Sudan and Bangladesh. The learnings from these programs together with

current pilot programming funded by other donors is expected to feed into the new

SC Sweden strategy. The main lessons learned from the program in the two coun-

tries are the necessity to increase the support to a stronger and more strategic en-

gagement between civil society partners and the government on different levels, ad-

dressing both policy makers and service deliverers. A greater coordination between

the program and government authorities on the key interventions areas during the

design phase of the project is another example of how the program can improve.


Risk Management

As part of the process to develop the strategic directions and programs for the pe-

riod 2013–2015, SC Sweden developed a risk matrix to assess and list overall pro-

gram risks as well as risks related to specific outcomes in the global thematic pro-

grams. The management strategies, including mitigation actions at various level of

our global organisation, were also described.

In the global results analysis linked to the specific thematic outcomes we have

tried to highlight some of the challenges identified and risks mitigated in the actual

operations by Save the Children’s country and regional offices.

This section intends to complement the information by giving an overview on

how risk management has evolved within our organisation between 2013 and 2015 as

well as briefly summarizing the mitigation strategies used by SC Sweden as a re-

sponse to the major operational risk identified.

Save the Children considers risk to be inherent in our operations and a certain

level of risk has to be accepted. It is crucial that both our self- and risk assessments

are accurate so the risks can managed in an informed and constructive manner. Dur-

ing the reporting period a solid risk management system has been established by Save

the Children including policies, procedures and guidelines. The senior leadership

teams at all levels of our operations e.g. SCI in London, Save the Children Sweden in

Stockholm, regional offices and country offices are responsible for ensuring that risk

management is embedded into everyday business, decision-making and strategic

planning. Every quarter (sometimes every week in highly volatile situations and coun-

tries) the leadership teams identify which risks the organisation will try to mitigate.

This has become part of Save the Children Sweden’s regular planning and monitor-

ing cycle on a four-monthly basis.

In the day to day operations in our countries and regions the risk analysis has

been strengthened with new tools and a guidance for risk assessment at the oppor-

tunity and proposal stage of a project, which Save the Children Sweden as a member

can feed into the risk assessments through our common award management system.

Our revised Partnership Assessment Tool of local civil society organisations in-

corporates a risk assessment and a guide for decision-making. The new tool includes

a score of the responses that informs decisions on whether and how to work with

the prospective partner, and provides input into a risk mitigation plan when weak-

nesses are identified. It reflects Save the Children’s expanded focus on risk mitigation

by adding risk considerations to decisions of new partnerships, and risk mitigation

measures into partner agreements and partner management plans.

RISK MANAGEMENT


Operational risks – Save the Children Sweden

Risk identified Mitigation Actions taken

Staff turnover in country offices

and in SC Sweden with exper-

tise on OCD, CP and CRG.

The majority of the employment contracts have been trans-

formed from short-term to open-ended. The teams in the

thematic and humanitarian sections have been reduced in

size to create proximity to line management for the staff.

An employee survey with a comprehensive follow up and

action plan was undertaken.

Weak implementation by part-

ners.

Actively planned and financed OCD components that in-

clude assessment, capacity plan and follow-up. Improved

Partner Assessment Tool.

New staff lack awareness and

capacity of working with civil

society. Save the Children har-

bours different views of the key

values in partnership.

Active communication to outline Sida requirement as well

as SC Sweden’s priorities on OCD and partnership

throughout the whole program period in e.g. kick-off meet-

ings, monitoring visits, results workshops etc. Emphasizing

the role and importance of OCD and partner cooperation

as well as CSO’s role in civil society as part of pluralism.

Partnership framework finalized and approved, work-

shops/capacity building of country offices on SC Sweden’s

approach to partnership completed.

Partner satisfaction survey conducted in all SC Sweden’s

core countries.

SC Sweden leads Save the Children’s Partnership Working

Group. Further development of programming formats that

includes and safeguard SC Sweden’s partnership perspec-

tives for the coming program period.

Several countries included in

this application have a high cor-

ruption rating, according to

Transparency International,

which indicates a higher risk to

planned activities.

Active involvement, through the SC Sweden’s Internal Au-

dit in revision and strengthening of global anti-fraud systems

and procedures. Roll out of anti-corruption trainings to

SC Sweden’s staff at HO.

Further delay in Sudan’s transi-

tion to SCI. SC Sweden needs

to maintain operational capacity

to run an office in a high com-

plex country. This risks deviat-

ing focus and resources from

fully transitioned operating

model. There are also additional

reputational and financial risks,

if SC Sweden is unable to de-

liver programs in Sudan accord-

ing to the expectations of other

SC members and their donors.

Regular meetings with the country office’s Senior Manage-

ment Team to discuss implementation of programs, existing

and pipeline funding, and operational and management is-

sues.

Visits to monitor the implementation of programs and pro-

vision of technical assistance.

Implementation of the agreed harmonization plan.

Development of agreements to reflect the “outsourcing” of

management to the East Africa regional office and increased

engagement by other SC members in the financial and tech-

nical support to Sudan Country Program.


Cross cutting themes & aid effectiveness

Following the transition Save the Children worked on developing the policies, stand-

ards and guidance under its Quality Framework to steer programs, ensure quality and

aid effectiveness. SC Sweden, apart from providing thematic expertise and contribu-

tions towards the global thematic programs, has focused on increased quality,

knowledge sharing and development of the cross cutting areas, such as partnerships,

gender, child participation and child rights programming. Progress in child participa-

tion and child rights programming has been described in the section about Child

Rights Governance whereas this chapter intends to describe SC Sweden’s work and

development regarding partnerships, gender, conflict, environmental sustainability,

and corruption and fraud.

Regardless of in which area or under which theme SC Sweden is working we al-

ways aim at creating and sharing knowledge and collect evidence from practice and

results. SC Sweden is managing the Resource Centre, a digital library with over 6,000

publications on child rights. The Resource Centre is recognized as an important re-

source on child rights and has doubled the number of visitors in the past years to

18,000 visitors per month. SC Sweden sees the centre as an increasingly important

part of the knowledge management of Save the Children and is aiming at making it

the go-to-place for all publications from the global themes. So far the focus has been

on child protection and child rights governance. Publications on health and nutrition,

child poverty, and education are now being added to mirror the breadth of Save the

Children’s work and strengthen our global position.

Civil Society Space and Quality Partnerships

We are living in a rapidly changing world, with increasing political instability, where

children’s rights and human democratic values are questioned, thus exposing children

to increased risks of violence, abuse and neglect. Deeply worrying is the fact that

over 90 countries43 during the last decade have implemented new laws restricting the

freedom of civil society in some form. This has affected some programs more than

others and makes our work even more important.

As a rights based organisation SC Sweden firmly believes that it is our obligation

to act for people’s freedom of speech, and their right to assembly and organisation.

Apart from supporting civil society coordination and activities by partners to defend

civil society space, especially in our CRG programs, SC Sweden has been pushing the

shrinking space agenda within Save the Children as the main initiator and contributor

to a programming guidance on shrinking space, as well as a policy positon paper and

a guidance note for country directors. The three documents have been adopted by

43 Civil Society: The Clampdown is Real Global Trends 2009–2010. CIVICUS (2010). 4 p.

CROSS-CUTTING THEMES AND AID EFFECTIVENESS


Save the Children and creates a good foundation for a more systematic work to de-

fend and promote civil society space. However, the complexity for a global child or-

ganisation such as Save the Children to effectively address the topic of civil society

space should not be underestimated. Although substantial steps have been taken

there are admittedly still room for improvements. One main challenge for the organi-

sation is how to manage and balance the inherent risks involved in defending civil so-

ciety as it may jeopardize other core-line work of Save the Children.

A specific challenge for SC Sweden’s efforts to improve civil society partnerships

and safeguard aid effectiveness principles is that the operational platform, including

partner agreements, are managed by Save the Children International (and not directly

by SC Sweden itself). SC Sweden has adapted a two-folded strategy; one focusing on

pushing the partnership agenda within the global organisation and improving its

overall partnership systems and the other focusing on improving and ensuring the

quality of the partnerships in the specific SC Sweden funded programs.

Within Save the Children, SC Sweden is leading the Partnership Working Group

(PWG) that consists of members, representatives from SCI centre and from various

regional and country offices. Partly prompted by a Global Assurance 2014 audit that

found weaknesses in the partnership management systems of several country offices,

a global partnership framework was initiated and developed by the PWG and then

approved by Save the Children in 2015. The framework’s purpose is to ensure a

shared understanding of what partnership and partnering mean across Save the Chil-

dren. It aims to leverage the global capacity to bring consistency to the way Save the

Children enter into and manage partnerships, so that they contribute to Save the

Children’s global strategy breakthroughs, manage risks, and foster shared ownership.

The global partnership framework focuses on aid effectiveness as one of its three

core dimensions. The framework monitors and guides the country offices on how to

develop their partnership management systems to safeguard basic aid effectiveness

principles, such as ownership, alignment, harmonization, capacity building, and mu-

tual accountability. The implementation of the framework is currently ongoing and

will contribute to the strengthening of partnerships and aid effectiveness in not only

programs funded by SC Sweden, but in all Save the Children’s programs.

Several actions and efforts have also been undertaken to improve partnerships

and aid effectiveness in SC Sweden funded programs. During the period, SC Sweden

e.g. implemented a special project to improve the consistency and quality of the sup-

port to organisational capacity development (OCD) in our programs with very good

results. Instruction on OCD support was developed by SC Sweden and then rolled

out through a series of regional and country workshops were both partners and Save

the Children staff from approximately 10 country programs participated. At the same

time a tool was developed for SC Sweden’s staff to more effectively monitor and fol-

low up the quality of the OCD support.



SC Sweden has also developed its overall programming formats and instructions so

that it provides a direction that is much more clearly aligned with the aid effective-

ness principles and has also contributed with systematic technical advisory support to

country offices (including by arranging several global and regional partnership ex-

change meetings), to improve their work on joint ownership, alignment and mutual

accountability in the programs. Specific core funding modalities have been developed

and tested with good learning results in Palestine, meanwhile more flexible program-

matic support modalities have been accomplished in a various other places. The con-

clusion from the partnership survey conducted in 2015 was that the management of

partners is improving successively within Save the Children and that partner’s gener-

ally conceive Save the Children as a relatively flexible funding partner.

Gender equality

In June 2014, Save the Children launched its Principles of Gender Equality as part of

the organisation’s Program Quality Framework. Following this a Gender Equality

Program Guidance and Toolkit was produced to support the country programs and

partners in the implementation of the principles. The principles require that Save the

Children and our partners are able to identify and meet the unique needs of girls and

boys (gender sensitive programming) and challenge the root causes of gender ine-

quality wherever possible (gender transformative programming). SC Sweden has

been an active and productive member of the organisation’s Gender Equality Work-

ing Group and SC Sweden’s specific contribution is the gender transformative ap-

proach emphasising the importance of looking at both girls and boys in gender anal-

yses and always include a masculinity perspective. During the period SC Sweden has

observed an increased focus on gender equality within the global movement and the

new global campaign on inequality is one example, where the situation of the girl

child will be specifically highlighted.

As of 2015 the toolkit including a Gender Marker Tool is used to assess applica-

tions and reports for Sida funded humanitarian and development programs.

Throughout the results analysis for 2013–2015, 18 reports were scored using the gen-

der marker tool.

Only 11 percent of the reported programs were scored as “Gender Transforma-

tive” according to Save the Children’s Gender Equality Essential Standard. However,

67 percent of the countries/regions include gender analysis in the assessment and

context analysis and 83 percent have ensured disaggregated data on sex and age. In

the budget analysis only 11 percent identified financial resources for the advance-

ment of gender equality but when asked whether the country office had other re-

sources such as a gender focal points or partners working on gender issues it was

found that 33 percent had either or both.

To summarize, the majority of the countries/regions have a degree of gender

awareness which provides Save the Children with a good starting point. However,



the consistency in gender work needs to improve with increased incorporation of

gender into context analyses followed by concrete activities and indicators.

Finally, when looking at the reported results from the period there are many posi-

tive examples of achievements to be highlighted, such as the increased engagement

of men and boys working on masculinities and harmful traditional practices in East

Asia. A Gender and Child Rights Study in the East Africa regional program supplied

insights into ways of discriminating children which led to the creation of the Gender

and Child Rights Framework that is now guiding CSOs and governments in their in-

corporation of a systematic gender perspective in legal and policy frameworks affect-

ing children. Another example is the work done in Peru where civil society organisa-

tions are trained in how to use the above-mentioned guidance and toolkit, which has

led Save the Children’s partners to incorporate this into their project and program cy-

cles.

Conflict Sensitivity

The “How-to Guide on Conflict Sensitivity” produced by the Conflict Sensitivity

Consortium (of which Save the Children is a member) and a humanitarian needs as-

sessment tool which incorporates aspects of conflict sensitivity have been used to

guide the programs during the period. Upon request, country and regional programs

have also been supported by Save the Children’s Regional Analyst function estab-

lished in 2013/14. This function is driven and coordinated by SC Sweden with sup-

port from Sida Humanitarian funding. The role has been pivotal in integrating con-

textual analysis, including conflict analysis, within humanitarian programs in West

and Central Africa, East and Southern Africa, and the Middle East and Eurasia re-

gions where the analysts are based. Resulting analyses have informed strategic plan-

ning processes that in turn have benefitted the development programs within af-

fected countries.

As an interesting development, in 2014 the country program in Myanmar began

piloting conflict sensitive and peacebuilding approaches including the establishment

of a Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding Manager. Whilst not related to the Save

the Children Sweden’s programs in the country the learnings from the program will

inform our work on conflict sensitivity in a broad sense. In Sudan, conflict sensitivity

assessments were undertaken by the Regional Analyst to assess the efficacy of pro-

grams looking at governance and peacebuilding in the context of the rapidly chang-

ing political situation.

During the reporting period Save the Children’s programs operated in a range of

conflict contexts spanning all out wars with extreme levels of violence such as

Yemen to contexts of local intercommunal tensions. In the proposal and reporting

templates sent to regional and country programs funded by Sida CSO funds all pro-

grams were requested to make a brief analysis on how the programs have both posi-

tive and negative effects on conflicts in the area of intervention.



Save the Children’s programs have generally responded in the two following ways:

► Minimising negative consequences.

Many programs have sought to minimise the negative impact of programs by employing participatory approaches whereby state authorities and communi-ties are involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of programs. This builds local ownership and thereby reduces the potential for conflicts arising as a direct result of Save the Children’s interventions. Programs that have employed this approach include India, Pakistan and Senegal. An inter-esting approach taken by the program in Yemen is to align the child rights approach with Islamic frames of reference thereby gaining acceptance for an approach that might otherwise be seen to challenge social norms.

► Active Peacebuilding.

In some countries Save the Children programs have actively sought to reduce intercommunal tensions. Examples include Côte d’Ivoire where Save the Children has brought together community leaders from opposing communi-ties to work together on the project’s activities, Kosovo where Save the Chil-dren has actively worked to break down barriers between Romani, Ashkali and Kosovo Egyptians (RAE) and non-RAE children, and Lebanon where Save the Children’s partners have conducted peacebuilding activities bringing together children from different communities.

Despite the limited integration of conflict sensitivity within Save the Children’s poli-

cies and processes many programs exhibit good practice. This often stems from good

program cycle management including participatory approaches that gain acceptance

within communities for program objectives. However, there are also more proactive

approaches that seek to actively contribute to enhancing peace in addition to mini-

mising the negative effects of programs.

Environment and climate

Environment and climate change has been integrated as a cross-cutting theme in pro-

gram planning and results analysis. Both country and regional offices were initially re-

quested to analyse the impact of environmental/climate change on the project/pro-

gram and the impact of the project/program on the environment.

Below follows a short summary and analysis of the reports SC Sweden has re-

ceived from the Sida supported programs regarding the projects’ effects on the envi-

ronment.

The programs are generally taking the project’s impact on the environment into

account by using local and biodegradable material, minimizing transports, awareness

and capacity building.

One third of the Save the Children’s country/regional offices have responded that

they perceive their project as having minor climate and environmental effects. Exam-



ples on concrete actions, such as saving copying paper and using digital documenta-

tion, recycling etc. are mentioned as efforts of minimizing the organisation’s carbon

footprint. Other offices acknowledge their partners’ consideration of the environ-

mental impact of the project. Several country offices have also provided examples of

situations where the children themselves have brought up the need for concrete ac-

tion. Advocacy work led by children/youth as e.g. in Southern Africa and the Philip-

pines shows that children, when having a platform to speak, raise environmental de-

terioration as an important child rights issue. In the Philippines, children stress the

harmful practices of mining and logging as underlying causes of e.g. hunger, sickness,

school dropout and conflict. The level of quality of the analyses reported by the

country- and regional offices shows the need of more trainings and discussions on

the subject.

Internally SC Sweden has concluded that analysis in application and reports for

Humanitarian interventions, many of them being implemented in Sida CSO coun-

tries, to a greater extent take this dimension into consideration. Thus the knowledge

and capacity to make informed analysis at country and regional level is not neces-

sarily missing in the programs but the relation between environmental degradation

and climate change to an emergency setting is seen as more direct. The program for

the West and Central Africa region conclude that the Child Rights Situation Analysis

increasingly needs to include aspects related to climate and how this can affect chil-

dren’s lives to ensure this is also integrated to development programs. During the

forth-coming strategy period SC Sweden will continue to mainstream the environ-

mental and climate aspects in all our humanitarian and development programs. How-

ever, to really have an impact we have also concluded that we need to resource our

ambitions with dedicated staff and invest in training and awareness raising for our

own staff, the country and regional program staff and partners.

Anti-corruption and Fraud

Save the Children take any allegation or suspicion of fraudulent, dishonest or corrupt

behaviour extremely seriously and operate a zero tolerance policy. During the period

2013–2015, Save the Children has experienced an increase in the number of reported

cases of suspected fraud. In 2015, 329 cases of suspected fraud were reported within

Save the Children (compared to 184 for 2014 and 115 for 2013). These figures repre-

sent continued progress towards a successful fraud management strategy, where spe-

cific objectives have been to roll out fraud awareness training and promote improved

fraud reporting in order to ensure that all suspected cases are reported in accordance

with Save the Children International’s policy that any suspicion of fraud, bribery or

corruption must be reported immediately. Save the Children expects that reported

and proved cased of fraud will rise further as awareness continues to grow and as de-

tection and reporting continue to improve.



Following the establishment of Save the Children International in 2012 a Fraud Man-

agement Team was set up within the organisation. In 2015 the team was strength-

ened by the recruitment of regionally based Fraud Specialists, who work with the

team to mitigate risk through policies and programs focusing on prevention, deter-

rence and response. The team has delivered training and practice to the whole organ-

isation and support country and program office staff in response and investigation

processes. In 2015 65 percent of Save the Children’s staff attended mandatory aware-

ness training.

Save the Children Sweden, through its internal audit function, has a close dialogue

with the Fraud Management Team. In 2015 efforts were made to further develop

and clarify reporting requirements and establish an effective reporting protocol to

make sure that members and donors are rapidly informed and kept up to date. Dur-

ing the period, SC Sweden has developed a routine for reporting suspected cases to

Sida and has launched a training concept, a number of films, for our own staff.


Agreement Specific Requirements

Partner percentage

Sida requested SC Sweden to report on whether the requirement of having 66 per-

cent of the funds on country and regional level transferred to local partners has been

met in 2015.

The result from 2015 shows that the major part of the allocated funds at country

and regional level (68 percent) was transferred to local partners. The percentage of

funds transferred to local partner organisations during the period has varied between

66.8 percent and 69.6 percent. SC Sweden is satisfied with this result which is well

above Sida’s requirement but has also initiated a process of analysing and discussing

the results with the country programs and partners to understand if a formal demand

for a high partner percentage requirement is the best strategy to reach sustainable re-

sults in regards of civil society strengthening at national/local level. During the re-

sults workshops and further consultations it has become clear that the partner per-

centage as a goal in itself may hamper program quality and efficiency.

Save the Children is working in increasingly complex and challenging contexts and

civil society organisations are often operating in fragile states or in contexts where

their operational space is shrinking. In these countries, organisations have not been

able or allowed to develop properly and are often struggling to mobilise their constit-

uencies and to safeguard their own existence. Yet it is in these contexts that Save the

Children is most needed and where civil society space and children’s rights are most

important to protect. Although our partner organisations might be strong advocates

for children’s rights their operational capacity is often weak. Applying a strict and

high requirement on the level of funding to partners leaves only limited amounts for

Save the Children to support in OCD and in capacity building around our thematic

areas of Child Protection and CRG. Rather than developing our support to the

weaker organisations in most need of our partnership the requirement risks leading

us to the already well established partners with strong systems and ability to absorb

funding without further support and dialogue.

During this program period SC Sweden has, in some cases been able to comple-

ment the Sida CSO award with other, more flexible funding to fill in some gaps. This

way partners and Save the Children could invest in training and other capacity build-

ing efforts and also boost operational aspects, such as program management, MEAL

and logistics. As this kind of funding is decreasing in the future, very high levels to

partners is becoming even more demanding and SC Sweden would have to make a

retake in regards of what would be the optimal partner level balancing the overall re-

quirement and need of transferring funds to support civil society at local level with

the need for having adequate resources to develop these partnerships and strengthen

civil society organisations program for the benefit of children’s rights.

Please refer to Annex 3 with the detailed partner percentage analysis for 2015.

AGREEMENT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS


Long term agreements with partner organisations

Multi-year framework agreements such as the Sida CSO appropriation is fundamen-

tal for SC Sweden’s long-term planning and provide predictability to all parties in-

volved. Long-term partner agreements with local civil society partners has been com-

municated as a basic requirement for the Sida funds transferred to country and re-

gional offices in all agreements (Fund Summaries). Exceptions is only accepted under

special circumstances and a written motivation of each case has to be submitted to

SC Sweden.

Local partner organisations during the report period, including information about

the lengths of the partner agreements and motivations to exceptions has been listed

in Annex 4. Due to late start up in 2013 of country and regional programs and ongo-

ing partner assessments, some country offices did not initially sign agreements until

end of 2013. However, the list show a positive development where most of the initial

short term agreements have been either amended or replaced by longer term agree-

ments. Throughout 2014 and even 2015, new partners have been added while other

partners have been phased out. There are different reasons for this, but in e.g. Paki-

stan, Sudan and Lebanon the changing political situation in the country have implied

change of strategy and partnerships. Through the global Partnership Working Group

SC Sweden is lobbying for setting the long-term perspective as a standard for partner

agreements.

Risk analysis audit coverage

Sida requests SC Sweden to annually submit a report on the annual risk assessment

and audit coverage analysis of its international implementations. The 2015 analysis

shows a total audit coverage of 59 percent, and 66 percent if Global Assurance audits

are included. If partner audits are included in the calculation, the external audit cov-

erage may reach up to 69 percent if all Save the Children’s partner expenses are au-

dited, and up to 73 percent including Global Assurance audits. Please refer to Annex

5 for a detailed summary.


Financial report

2015 year’s financial report is enclosed in Annex 1 and consist of the following re-

ports:

1. Financial report 2015

2. Budget vs Outcome 2015

3. Own contribution 2015

The BvA has been structured in accordance with Sida’s approval 2014-08-11 of a re-

vised budget format (removal of thematic columns) and the revised budget for 2015

approved by Sida on 2015-04-23.


Annexes

Annex 1 Financial Report

Annex 2 Follow up of SBA 2015

Annex 3 Partner percentage

Annex 4 List of partner organisations

Annex 5 Audit coverage follow up

Annex 6 Global Indicators Analysis

Annex 7 Synthesis report completed evaluations


Save the Children Sweden

107 88 Stockholm

Telephone: +46 8-698 90 00

www.raddabarnen.se

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