Leading the Way for Europe's Children
Closing Event of Phase III of the Preparatory Action for a European Child Guarantee
In person and online event
The event took place on 20 April 2023. Watch the event highlights below.
The high-level closing event aims to take stock of progress achieved in testing ECG and pave the way for effective implementation of ECG in European Union and beyond.
This event will provide a unique opportunity for member states to celebrate achievements and share lessons learned and insights from the pilots and thus inspiring member states for an EU wide implementation of the ECG.
Based on the experience of Phase III, the event will aim to showcase how integrated, coordinated policies and practices developed as part of the ECG can reach to the most disadvantaged children and ensure their effective and free access to essential services. It will also provide an opportunity to discuss how the Child Guarantee serves as a vehicle for implementing the recommendations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Background
The Council of the European Union unanimously adopted the Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee on 14 June 2021. Its objective is to prevent and combat social exclusion by guaranteeing effective access of children in need to a set of key services such as early childhood education and care, education and school-based activities, healthy meal every school day, and healthcare. The Recommendation foresees that Member States will develop national action plans until 2030, identify specific groups of children who should benefit from the guarantee, set targets to be achieved, outline corresponding measures, indicate the sources of necessary funding and outline monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
To test the European Child Guarantee in practice, for the 3rd phase of the preparatory action for a European Child Guarantee, in 2020 the Commission partnered with UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECARO) to run pilot projects in seven Member States. Four (Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, and Italy) have been developing and testing for scalability, evidence-based models of services and interventions focused on ensuring access to services for the most disadvantaged children, with a focus on the four target groups: children with disabilities, children in precarious family situations, children residing in institutions and refugee and migrant children. Along with three other Member States (Germany, Lithuania, and Spain) where the focus has been on developing policy deep dives to provide the information and evidence base that governments need for the development of evidence-informed European Child Guarantee National Action Plans.
Key results summary
- 18 models of services, interventions, and mechanisms aiming to enable access to essential services for disadvantaged groups of children, were developed, tested, and integrated within ECG National Action plans, sectoral strategies as well as regional and local plans in 4 countries through participatory and coordinated processes focused on bridging target groups of children to existing programmes and services.
- Since the start of the project over 13,000 children and young adults were reached with services & interventions and over 9,000 adult caregivers were reached with models of services and interventions across all four countries; over 2,700 professionals and decision-makers have been capacitated to provide quality ECG services and interventions.
- 7 countries supported to design comprehensive ECG National Action Plans informed by the deep dive policy analyses, stakeholders' participation and rapid evidence assessment on inter-sectorial collaboration.
- Sharing experience between pilot and with other member states as part of the knowledge sharing platform and series of thematic webinars.
Participation
- Ministers, National Coordinators, and other government and civil society representatives from the 7 pilot countries.
- Past, current and future EU Presidency countries, such as Sweden, Portugal, France, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Belgium; as well as Romania, where UNICEF has been working closely with the government to support the ECG, will be invited to participate.
- All remaining EU Member States and Western Balkan countries will join the online event.
- Children and young people, that have been active in shaping the ECG National Action plans and the implementation of the Phase III of the ECG will be invited to participate and share their voices and views during the event.
- The Chair of the Committee of the Rights of the Child is invited as a keynote speaker to share how the CG can support implementation of Committee recommendations to State parties, thereby reinforcing policy measures for the most vulnerable and excluded children.
- Members of the European Parliament who have been champions of the ECG, are also be invited to attend and address the conference.
Watch the video remarks from the event speakers:
Agenda
20 April 2023
CLOSING HIGH-LEVEL EVENT, Sofia, Bulgaria
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8:30–9:00 |
Arrival of participants and registrationOverview video of the Phase III of the Preparatory Action for a European child Guarantee |
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9:00–10:00 |
Official openingChildren from Youth Groups involved in the ECG Phase III
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10:00–10:30 |
What have we learned from Phase III of the Preparatory Action for a European Child GuaranteeChallenges, opportunities and way ahead
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10:30–11:00 |
Coffee Break |
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11:00–12:30 |
Pilot countries leading the way in reaching the most disadvantaged children
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12:30–13:45 |
Lunch Buffet |
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13:45–14:45 |
How to make the European Child Guarantee fit for childrenChildren’s views and perspectives
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14:45–15:45 |
The role of the sub-national authorities in implementing the European Child Guarantee
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15:45–16:15 |
Coffee Break |
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16:15–17:30 |
What next? Ensuring the goals of the European Child Guarantee are fully met
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17:30–18:00 |
Closing Panel
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