Child- and youth-friendly governance?

Rights and why they matter

Child rights

Child rights are human rights that apply to all individuals under the age of 18. These rights, enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), are designed to ensure that children grow up in a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment.

  • Key areas covered by child rights include:

    • Survival rights: Ensuring access to essential services such as healthcare, nutrition, and adequate living standards.

    • Development rights: Providing opportunities for education, play, leisure, cultural activities, and access to information.

    • Protection rights: Safeguarding children from abuse, neglect, exploitation, and harmful practices.

    • Participation rights: Recognising children’s right to be heard, to express their views freely, and to have a say in matters affecting their lives. Child and youth friendly governance takes place when these rights are institutionalised in a meaningful, safe, and effective manner.

    These rights recognise the unique vulnerabilities and needs of children, emphasising the importance of nurturing their physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development. Child rights are fundamental to ensuring that every child, regardless of their background, can reach their full potential.

    While states are the primary duty-bearers under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, governments alone cannot guarantee these rights. A wide range of stakeholders, including civil society organizations, community groups, academia, businesses, and children themselves, play a vital role. Effective and meaningful implementation of the Convention requires collaboration beyond state actors to truly impact children's lives positively.

Human rights

Upon reaching adulthood, typically at the age of 18, individuals are entitled to the full spectrum of human rights as outlined in the international as reflected in the Covenant on Civic and Political Rights and the Covenant on Social and Economic Rights.

  • This transition reflects the growing autonomy, responsibilities, and capacities of individuals as they mature.

    Key aspects of this transition include:

    • Increased autonomy: Adults have greater autonomy to make decisions regarding their personal, social, and political lives. This includes the right to marry, work, and choose their residence.

    • Continuity and expansion: While many child rights, such as the right to education, protection from violence, freedom of expression and assembly continue into adulthood, they expand to include additional rights relevant to adults, such as the right to work, vote, and participate fully in civic life.

    • Civic and political rights for adults:  As individuals transition into adulthood, they gain full access to civic and political rights, including the right to participate in democratic processes by voting in local, national, and international elections and the right to run for office.

Child participation

Children might not have the right to vote, but they Article 12 in the Convention on the Rights of the Child grants them the right to he heard in decisions impacting their lives. Concretely, Article 12 affirms that every child capable of forming a view:

●      must be assured the right to express that view and

●      have it given due weight in accordance with age and maturity.

In other words, the Convention stresses that it is not enough to give children a voice: the views expressed must be given due weight in the decision-making processes in order for the right to be effective. This right is commonly conceptualised as ‘child participation’

There are broadly speaking three different modes of child participation: consultative, collaborative, and child- and youth-led participation, reflecting the varying levels of ownership by children and young people. In reality, these different modes overlap at times, and are used for different purposes.

Child-friendly governance

Child-friendly governance refers to systems and processes that give children and young people an effective voice in decision-making impacting their lives.  

In other words, it is not enough for children to have the platform and the opportunity to express their view and to have adult decision-makers merely listening to them, but those views must also be acted upon.

Effective  participation

To make child participation and related child-friendly governance systems and processes effective, ethical, and meaningful there must be a genuine commitment to letting children influence the decision-making process. This is well visualised by our Honorary member, Professor Laura Lundy, in her model on meaningful child participation, which is equally relevant to child-friendly governance more broadly.