BUILDING A CFC

• CFC Conceptual Framework
• Checklist
• Building blocks
• Good practices
• Indicators/Criteria for CFC
• Tools
• Key documents

A Children's Rights Unit or coordinating mechanism: developing permanent structures in local government to ensure priority consideration of children's perspective

The machinery of local government varies from country to country and from city to city. In any setting, building a Child Friendly City demands that children become very visible at the heart of government. One way of seeking to achieve this is to establish a high profile cross-cutting unit or coordinating mechanism. This will need to be given authority at the highest political level - direct links to Mayor's/Leader's office - to pursue implementation of the Children's Strategy, ensuring effective co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation. Such a Unit will not take over the functions of other government departments relating to children; its purpose is to ensure a children's perspective and appropriate priority for children right across government. Unless there are unified agreed aims rooted in the Convention - the purpose of the children's rights strategy outlined above - and effective co-ordination between the many departments which significantly affect children's lives, building a Child Friendly City will be incomplete.

There will also need to be co-ordinating structures between the various central departments and with and between any more local levels of community or neighbourhood government. Too often, children's interests get lost between government departments, and very few of the intractable problems can be solved by the action of one government department alone.

Additionally, it will be important to identify contact points and key officials responsible for ensuring/developing a children's perspective in each department or area of government. This is required both for internal co-ordination across government and also for those externally who need to be able to identify who is responsible for children and their rights.

The focal point on children in local governance should become a centre of innovation and expertise on working collaboratively with children and young people themselves - putting article 12 into practice in its own structure and day-to-day activities.

EXAMPLES

The CFC Secretariat has gathered a number of examples of children's rights institutional framework at both local and national levels of government, and from low-, middle- and high-income nations.

Each example includes the following documents:

• A worksheet describing the project (accessed from the CFC Database)
• Other documents, such as publications, guides, reports and strategies, developed by the project (when available)
• A project review prepared by the CFC Secretariat, based upon in-depth documentation of the project and developed on the basis of a standard research protocol (when available)
• Tools developed by the project (when available)