For every child
Health, Education, Equality, Protection
ADVANCE HUMANITY
For every child
Under the Convention, governments at all levels, including city governments, are required to ensure that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in all actions concerning children. No government can know whether this principle is being fulfilled without there being a rigorous process in place to assess the impact of law, policy and practice on children.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child has promoted the concept of child impact assessment at a national level. There has been considerable international and national discussion of the concept, but very few states have yet implemented the process. It is, of course, not easy. The non-discrimination process means that the impact of laws and policies on all children needs to be assessed, with particular attention to groups of children who are traditionally marginalised. Some laws and policies will only impact, or impact significantly, on certain groups or ages of children. Laws or policies should be assessed for their potential impact, in advance of being implemented. This needs to happen as early as possible in the process of policy formulation to enable it to influence decision-making. As possible models, there are many good examples among governments, including city governments, of working systems of environmental impact assessment, and some of gender impact assessment.
Once new policy or laws are implemented, there should be continuing assessment of the actual impact on children. And while city government needs to build these processes into policy development, it is also important that there should be independent child impact assessment, by NGOs and, where they exist, by independent human rights institutions for children. These innovative bodies, whose definition requires that they are established with legislative powers, should be empowered to act effectively as champions and watchdogs for children. Children's direct involvement in the process of impact assessment will be essential as children are often the only people who can accurately determine the impact of law or policy on their lives.
The CFC Secretariat has gathered a number of examples of child impact assessment and evaluation at both local and national levels of government, and from low-, middle- and high-income nations.
Each example includes the following documents:
