Child and youth participation resource guide
Involvement in political decision-making
Policy advocacy and budget analysis
Ad Hoc Working Group for Youth and the MDGs, Youth and the Millennium Development Goals: Challenges and opportunities for implementation, 2005.
This paper discusses the implications of MDG implementation for young people. It provides an overview and examples of youth participation in MDG review and implementation.
Guerra, Eliana, ‘Citizenship Knows No Age: Children’s participation in the governance and municipal budget of Barra Mansa, Brazil’ in Children, Youth and Environments, 15(2), 2002.
This paper describes the development of a children’s participatory budget council in the city of Barra Mansa in Brazil. It provides information on the process and its impact and describes how children learned to represent their peers, prioritize resources and develop projects in the city’s democratic structures.
Haid, Phillip, Elder C. Marques and Jon Brown, Re-focusing the Lens: Assessing the challenge of youth involvement in public policy, OSSSA and IOG, Ottawa, 1999.
Addressed at policy makers, this is the summary of a study of youth influence in Canadian public policy. It presents the reasons for youth involvement in policy making and lessons learned.
Millennium Campaign, Only With Your Voice: Millennium Development Goals youth action guide, Millennium Campaign, Taking It Global and Global Youth Action Network, New York, 2005.
This guide was created by young people to support youth in organizing activities or campaigns in support of the MDGs.
O’Malley, Kate, Children and Young People Participating in PRSP Processes: Lessons from Save the Children’s experiences, Save the Children UK, London, 2004.
This paper summarizes Save the Children UK’s experience in facilitating children’s participation in PRSP processes in Viet Nam, Honduras, Lesotho, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It discusses the effectiveness of different approaches, outlines the learning points and raises questions about the impact and the cost benefits of children and youth participation in PRSPs.
Poudyal Ranjan and Sardar Samina, Change Makers for South Asia: Building New Partnerships: Lessons learnt from the consultations with children, corporate leaders and governments of South Asia, Save the Children (OSCAR), Nepal, 2002.
The Change Makers initiative aims at providing opportunities for children and young people to engage corporate leaders and government representatives in meaningful discussions. This text provides detailed information on the Change Makers initiative and its activities with children.
Rizzini, Irene and Steven J. Klees, ‘Children’s Involvement in the Making of a New Constitution in Brazil’ in Rethinking Childhood: Perspectives on children’s rights, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Issue 24.2, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
This paper outlines the evolution of the child rights movement in Brazil, with special attention to children’s participation in that process. Brazil’s strong child protection legislation marks a significant change in the place of children and adolescents in Brazilian society. The article traces the move from a focus on the correction and control of juvenile delinquency to the provision of social assistance to needy children, to an emphasis on the rights of children and on special protection to safeguard those rights.
Save the Children, Re:action Consultation Toolkit: A practical toolkit for consulting with children and young people on policy issues, Save the Children, UK, 2001.
This toolkit was written for professionals working with children, policy makers, children and youth who want to engage in dialogues on policies concerning them. It aims to encourage children’s participation in policy debates by illustrating consultative approaches on policy issues.
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Making Commitments Matter: A toolkit for young people to evaluate national youth policy, DESA, New York, 2004.
This kit supports youth organizations to assess national youth policies and community-level achievements for young people.
Williams, Emma, Children’s Participation and Policy Change in South Asia, Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP), Working Paper 6, CHIP, London, 2004.
This report examines children’s participation in policy processes by exploring ways in which children may successfully influence policy relating to childhood poverty. It compares five case studies in South Asia: an HIV/AIDS conference in Nepal, a children’s parliament in Sri Lanka, two Indian working children’s unions, and a street children’s movement in Bangladesh. Based on these experiences, it analyses which channels of influence have proven most successful for children attempting to engage with decision makers.
