Policy advocacy and partnership for children’s rights

UNICEF in action

© UNICEF/HQ97-0308/Shehzad Noorani

BANGLADESH: The embroidered edge of her dress in his mouth, a boy holds his mother's hand as he stands in front of her in the village of Bhaluka, Mymensingh district.

ROSA’s Social Policy Cluster, formed in 2005, is responsible for advocacy regarding social policy.  It works with partners at the regional and global levels, such as the South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and sister agencies in the UN system, to identify social policy gaps, and provides support for country-based and regional initiatives. The Social Policy Cluster is currently providing advocacy support to the SAARC Secretariat for the SAARC Decade on the Rights of the Child.

The Cluster convened a workshop in Kathmandu in May 2006, in conjunction with the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), to mainstream child rights and instil a rights-based approach into development thinking, and to contribute to processes that ensure more equitable social outcomes.

Click here to go to the workshop webpage  where you can learn more about the need for transformative social policy in South Asia, and access video clips and participants’ presentations as well as an analytical report of the workshop.

As a follow-up to the workshop, the Cluster together with UNICEF country offices will commission an analysis, review and examination of social policy interventions in South Asia that make special efforts to ensure that socially excluded groups have access to social services that are meant to be universal. Such research will provide insights into mechanisms that effectively address social exclusion and identify social, financial, or political obstacles that must be overcome so that these efforts can increase universal access to basic social services.

The Cluster works with the UNICEF Department of Public Policy, the Innocenti Research Centre and the UNICEF Country Offices in South Asia, as well as with a network of social policy advisors and social policy advocates across UNICEF and UN entities such as UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP),  UN Development Programe (UNDP),   UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), UN Department for Economic and Social Development (UNDESA)   etc. The purpose is to raise awareness about the situation of children in South Asia and advocate for change as an authoritative and trustworthy voice.