New partnership to improve the lives of children
GovChat and UNICEF commit to developing systems for real-time monitoring of children’s wellbeing and enhancing their access to social services.
PRETORIA, 4 August 2020 – UNICEF South Africa and GovChat, a national citizen engagement platform, have announced a new partnership between the two organisations to further advance child survival, development, protection, youth engagement and social policy initiatives.
Through GovChat’s online civic engagement platforms, the partnership is committed to developing systems for real-time monitoring of children’s wellbeing and to enhance children’s access to social services. By garnering citizen sentiment and undertaking data collection and analysis, the GovChat platform will support the intensification of UNICEF South Africa’s evidence-based advocacy and awareness. In addition, the partnership will provide important information on children’s rights throughout their lifecycle while identifying various duty bearers to deliver services to children.
“UNICEF is pleased to partner with GovChat to advance children’s rights – especially at this critical time as the country faces the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Muriel Mafico, UNICEF Deputy Representative.
CEO of GovChat, Mr Eldrid Jordaan, notes that “for GovChat, working with UNICEF is expected to be a very important journey for us as we maximise our digital engagement platform to advance children and their rights”.
The new partnership has identified the next steps with both parties expressing a keenness to explore and leverage a social compact with government and the corporate sector for an accelerated investment in prevention and early intervention services for the most marginalised children. As UNICEF South Africa Deputy Representative Muriel Mafico reiterates, “When children face critical circumstances, strategic partnerships are key to ensuring that no child is left behind”.
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About UNICEF
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in over 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special efforts on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children everywhere.
Working with a range of partners, UNICEF has had a presence in South Africa since the end of apartheid and continues to work towards bettering the lives of all children in the country.
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About GovChat
GovChat is South Africa’s largest civic engagement platform accessible online, on any mobile handset and feature phones. We’ve enabled Government to speak to citizens directly at no cost, while receiving service delivery related messaging in return. Visit govchat.org/ to find out more.
