GMC-hosted international expert meeting brings about innovative ideas for child rights

Barcelona, 4th June 2010 - The two-day experts’ brainstorming session held on 1-2 June at the Global Movement for Children Secretariat in Barcelona produced a number of interesting ideas regarding children’s rights. The participants concluded that monitoring compliance to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Millennium Declaration is a missing link and a challenge for the children’s rights-concerned community to act upon.

They admitted there is a need for a reliable tool to measure dissonance between the reality and the demands of the Convention. Exposing that dissonance to the public and developing a comprehensive tool to measure it are essential to pressure policy makers to implement solutions alleviating the hardship of children in developing countries. Experts agreed that a solid and trusted measuring tool would allow conveying clear and simple messages to society on complex issues affecting children’s well-being. It would also enable to hold governments accountable more effectively.

Both child-rights experts and the rest of academics pointed to the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the framework for the future index. They concurred the index should focus on four key areas: survival, development, protection, and participation, with equity as an element underpinning the mentioned areas; an element that has been left out or overlooked in other reference indices and in the child-relevant Millennium Development Goals.

At the end of the meeting participants agreed to individually elaborate on the issues discussed and to present their findings at the next gathering scheduled for October