[child-rights] Questionnaire on Follow-Up to the UN Special Session on Children

12 December 2002 CRIN Special Session on Children - Issue 48 Contents
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- CHILD RIGHTS CAUCUS: Questionnaire on Follow-Up to the UN Special Session 
on Children [call for information]

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Email CRIN at info@crin.org to contribute information, such as regional 
preparations, publications, events and other activities concerning the 
Special Session on Children. Please note that we are unable to respond to 
requests addressed to crin_specialsession@domeus.co.uk

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- CHILD RIGHTS CAUCUS: Questionnaire on Follow-Up to the UN Special Session 
on Children [call for information]

At the UN Special Session, members of the Child Rights Caucus expressed a 
strong desire to be actively involved in the process of follow-up to the 
Special Session at national level. The Caucus is particularly interested in 
ensuring that the follow-up process be used to advance implementation of 
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and that the views of NGOs and 
children are fully represented.

To support this work, the Caucus Co-ordinating Group circulated a
briefing paper in July providing suggestions as to how NGOs could
involve themselves in the follow-up process (this was recently
circulated in French and Spanish as well). More recently, a second
briefing paper has been circulated that shows how the commitments made in 
'A World Fit for Children'  (the Outcome Document) can be linked to the 
articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

After six months of the follow-up process, the Co-ordinating Group feels 
that it is now time to take stock of what has happened so far around the 
world.  For that reason the Caucus would like to ask for your co-operation 
in collecting information on what your experience of the follow-up process 
at country level. This information will hopefully be able:

- To assemble a global overview of the extent to which governments are 
following up on the commitments they made in New York in May
- To see how many countries have started or completed the process of 
developing a National Plan of Action for Children
- To determine how many countries have chosen an alternative process for 
implementation of their commitments e.g. linking them to the preparation of 
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers [PRSPs]
- To assess the extent to which civil society organisations and/or
children have been involved in the follow-up process, what obstacles they 
have faced and what has helped.
- To collect examples of good practice in NGO and/or children's
involvement in the follow-up process that could be shared with others
- To identify any action that could be taken by the Child Rights Caucus 
either to support  NGOs in this process or to press for greater 
accountability by governments for the promises they made in May.

In order to do this, YOUR help is needed in responding to a questionnaire 
that has been prepared by the Caucus. This questionnaire is as short as 
possible and will hopefully not require a great deal of work on your 
behalf.  International NGOs are encouraged to circulate the questionnaire 
to their country or field offices, to help reach the broadest number of 
sources possible.

The questionnaire is available in word and pdf format at:
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=3125&flag=report

Please send your responses to:
Human Rights Watch at sommerd@hrw.org
No later than JANUARY 8, 2003.  Once answers to these questions are 
received a short report based on your responses will be prepared  and 
shared with other Caucus members.

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The CRIN Special Session on Children is an electronic mailing list of the 
Child Rights Information Network (CRIN).  CRIN does not accredit, validate 
or substantiate any information posted by the members to the CRIN Special 
Session on Children.  The validity and accuracy of any information is the 
responsibility of the orginator.


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