Turning dialogue into action for children at Maputo symposium
“I make a simple request: that the dialogues translate into evidence, into policies, and into concrete changes in the lives of children.”
Maputo, Mozambique - “I make a simple request: that the dialogues translate into evidence, into policies, and into concrete changes in the lives of children.”
With these words, UNICEF Representative in Mozambique Mary Louise Eagleton opened UNICEF’s participation in the VII Luso-Brazilian Symposium and II Luso-Afro-Brazilian Symposium on Childhood Studies, held in Maputo from 8 to 10 September.
The symposium brought together researchers, policymakers and practitioners to exchange evidence and experience on issues affecting children. UNICEF stressed the importance of strengthening collaboration between academia, decision-makers and those working directly with communities so that research can inform effective policies, programmes and services for children.
UNICEF also called for greater investment in research across critical areas including education, health, nutrition, child protection, birth registration and climate justice. This includes better understanding what changes behaviours, which approaches can shift harmful social norms, and what makes essential services genuinely accessible to children and families who are most often left behind.
As part of the symposium, UNICEF presented lessons from its Social and Behaviour Change work in Nampula and Zambézia provinces, focusing on efforts to build communities free from child marriage. The presentation examined how social and gender norms influence decisions about marriage, education and the roles expected of girls, boys, parents and other community members.
Drawing on experience from both provinces, UNICEF highlighted how community dialogue, critical reflection, negotiation and visible leadership can help create new and more protective social expectations. Adolescent girls, traditional and religious leaders, and men and boys all have important roles to play in making alternatives to child marriage visible and strengthening collective responsibility for gender equality and child protection.
The discussion also pointed to important questions for future research, including how to measure when a social norm has genuinely changed, which groups can accelerate transformation, how long it takes for new expectations to become established, and how to prevent harmful norms from re-emerging during periods of crisis.
The symposium reinforced a central message: evidence matters most when it moves beyond discussion and contributes to practical changes that improve the lives and protect the rights of children.
