Child Rights Connect is a registered Swiss association. Its organs are the General Assembly, the Executive Committee, the International Secretariat and the Working Groups.
International Secretariat
Child Rights Connect’s International Secretariat is a multi-disciplinary team, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. It carries out the network’s day-to-day activities, providing a solid and expert base for everything that the network undertakes.
Five year Strategic Plans
External evaluations of our work
With the support of our core donors, particularly the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), we regularly conduct external evaluations of our work, which assess the relevance, coherence, efficiency and effectiveness of our actions as well as the sustained impact of the results attained towards the realisation of children’s rights. The evaluations fulfill a strong learning objective as recommendations help to inform our current and future work.
“From small beginnings Child Rights Connect has become a highly respected organisation – as one interviewee noted ‘if Child Rights Connect did not exist, it would have to be invented’. The focus on the Human Rights Council as well as the CRC Committee has the potential to lead to a long-term positive impact on children’s rights…”
– Evaluation of the work of Child Rights Connect, 2015
“Without Child Rights Connect’s presence, the global civil society’s advocacy and influence on children’s rights and child rights mainstreaming would be hampered”.
“It is clear that Child Rights Connect has managed to influence institutional systems and practices of actors of central importance from a child rights perspective”.
“The establishment of the Children’s Advisory Team serves as a role model for other organisations”.
– Evaluation of the work of Child Rights Connect, 2022
Executive Committee
This committee has legal, policy and management responsibility for the network. It meets quarterly to provide the network with strategic direction and to supervise the work of the Secretariat and the thematic Working Groups. It is accountable to the General Assembly.
Patrons
The Child Rights Connect Children’s Advisory Team
Child Rights Connect’s Children’s Advisory Team (CAT) is a permanent structure within the organisation. It is a global Team of child advisors that are empowered as human rights defenders to shape and take forward activities on children’s rights, in line with our 2020-2024 Strategic Plan.
General Assembly
This is where our member organisations come together each year to approve the network’s plans and activities and elect people to various key roles. Specific actions at the General Assembly include:
- Approving the strategies, plans and activity reports of the Executive Committee, the Secretariat and the thematic Working Groups
- Approving the budget, auditor and audited accounts
- Approving new members’ applications
- Electing the Executive Committee and President of the network.
Our Policies
Child Rights Connect is committed to realizing children’s rights around the globe. We acknowledge our duty to be as effective and efficient as possible, as well as to be transparent, accountable, and responsive to all our stakeholders, including children. Our top priority is to be and act as a child safe organisation.
Our organisational policies support and promote transparency and accountability at all levels of our organisation, including within our network, and help meet the expectations and rights of all our stakeholders, particularly of children.
Our key policies apply to members of our Network and Executive Committee (Board) and we ask them to sign that they have read and understand their related responsibilities, and commit to comply with these policies.
Our History
The landmarks for child rights includes key milestones in relation to the UN and CRC Committee’s work, child participation and Child Rights Connect
Since 1983, we have influenced major child rights developments such as the drafting of the UN treaties on child rights.
We continue to play a central role in key children’s rights developments at international level, including the drafting of all the UN treaties on children’s rights. Our Secretariat is considered a leading expert on the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Child Rights Connect was initially set up in 1983 as the Ad Hoc NGO Group for the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Its initial mandate was to influence the drafting of the CRC, the first and most comprehensive international human rights treaty for children. Since then, we have worked to connect UN human rights systems to the daily realities of children’s lives.
To reflect our work, which now extends beyond the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we changed our name to Child Rights Connect in 2013. As a network, Child Rights Connect has members at national, regional, and international levels, including other networks and child-led organisations. We work closely with national NGOs and coalitions, UN agencies and experts, States, and children themselves, to advance children’s rights around the world.
Based in Geneva, Switzerland, we have a unique working relationship with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. We also have special ECOSOC consultative status at the United Nations, meaning that we are fully recognised to take part in United Nations deliberations.
Testimonials
“In 2016, our strategic partnership with Child Rights Connect reached an even higher level, opening strategic awareness about children’s human rights throughout the work of the United Nations human rights system.”
“Child Rights Connect is a very valuable partner of the Committee. They facilitate our interaction with children and with civil society, which helps us to get additional first-hand information from the ground.“
“Child Rights Connect is our key partner to link children’s rights defenders from around the world. In 2016 we jointly tackled the new simplified reporting procedures. We are looking forward to continuing this discussion with a focus on the participation of children themselves.”
“Thank you very much for all the support by Child rights connect team for us to attend the CRC pre-session. It was a wonderful opportunity for all of us to be there for the session and present children’s realities in Sri Lanka to the committee directly. The post de-brief was really helpful to identify the way forward and will share the SWOT analysis with other CSOs soon.”
“We would like to thank you all for the support that you gave to the Lesotho CSOs delegation that attended the 78th UN-CRC Pre-session in Geneva, beginning of this month. The Pre-session went really well and it was a great opportunity for the Lesotho child rights CSOs to learn more about the importance of implementing the UN-CRC and reporting on its implementation. Even though the time was very limited, the team was able to address most of the questions and issues raised by the Committee and made a commitment to provide additional information as required by the Committee.”
“Child Rights Connect facilitated a dynamic and high quality workshop on how to advocate for issues related to childhood statelessness at the UN level. It was highly useful for our members and partners to understand the links between their issues and children’s rights.”
“Our participation in the review of Mauritius by the Children’s Rights Committee had a positive effect on the follow-up. NGOs and the state cooperated in concrete actions. As a collective we have more weight, we are united for the same cause, and this is in the best interest of children in Mauritius.”
“The support we have received in the whole process has been excellent and we would be happy to repeat the same experience with other countries”