Introduction

Introduction

Issues

Issues

Action

Action

Impact

Impact

 

Action

© UNICEF/Bosnia and Herzegovina

In collaboration with other United Nations agencies, government and civil society partners, UNICEF supports the design of a monitoring and evaluation framework for the UNDAF (UN Development Assistance Fframework), to ensure that the impact of the UNDAF on children’s rights will be captured and understood.

 

Given that six of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are directly related to children, UNICEF globally has developed the software “DevInfo” to evaluate the MDG indicators assessing the progress and fulfillment of children’s rights. The BIH Evaluation Policy and Planning Unit (EPPU) of the Council of Ministers, responsible for monitoring of the Medium Term Development Plan – PRSP (2004-2007) and the BIH Statistics are trained and solicited to manage the Dev Info and expand its use to entities and municipalities.

 

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is one of the largest household surveys in BIH. The MICS is collecting comprehensive information about living conditions of women and children in households. The actual process itself is co-ordinated by EPPU and entity Ministries of Health with UNICEF’s support.

The Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) methodology for measuring the impact of macroeconomic and social policies on children and families is currently being developed. This methodology will enable policy makers to predict and subsequently mitigate adverse consequences of proposed reforms in BIH. The methodology is to provide tools for quantitative and qualitative analysis and is to ensure the rights based approach to policy development by giving voice to children and communities in the process of policy development. UNICEF supports EPPU in developing this methodology taking as its focus the increase of prices in electricity and their impact of expenditures for children within households and institutions.

 

UNICEF supports the Council for Children to establish policies and procedures for child rights promotion, to perform policy reviews in education, child protection and participation, and to develop a National strategy to combat drug abuse. UNICEF plans to coordinate the efforts of Council for Children, EPPU and BIH Statistics in relation to monitoring status of the government’s treat body obligations, and to prioritize child rights and development in the Mid Term Development Strategy (MTDS) implementation, focusing on child poverty and exclusion. Council for Children is to further promote recommendations of the CRC Committee and is to initiate revision of the BIH State Plan of Action for Children to harmonise it with emerging policies and the MTDS.

 

In 14 communities, UNICEF supports a network of NGOs in promoting children’s rights by introducing information on children rights in elementary schools, through peer education and child rights workshops. The ongoing assessment and analysis of capacities of municipalities to create participatory environment for children and families is to assess the existing gaps and result in plans of action at municipal level developed through PAR and interaction of rights holders and key duty bearers.

 

UNICEF is currently expanding its support to NGOs as monitors of child rights. The training module for monitoring and reporting will be developed in cooperation with national NGOs. Training will include 20 national NGOs from throughout BIH. It will results in the report with qualitative, quantitative and anecdotal data on violations of children’s rights from minimum ten locations in BIH. This report is to include views of children as rights monitors and is to complement existing official reports on children’s rights prepared by the Government.