Bottom-Up Learning About Child Protection Systems: A View of Community-Based Mechanisms From Inter-Agency Research in Sierra Leone/The Columbia Group for Children in Adversity. Expert Consultation Nairobi, September 2011

A contribution from The Columbia Group for Children in Adversity to the Expert Consultation on Strengthening National Child Protection Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (NCPS), held in Nairobi, 28th-30th September 2011. In partnership with Save the Children, the Columbia Group conducted an action research in Sierra Leone on how to strengthen community-based child protection mechanisms by supporting better linkages with national child protection systems. An ethnographic methodology was used to identify and learn about the functioning of existing community-based mechanisms, indigenous or externally facilitated. The research aims to shed light on how to measure the effectiveness of community-based mechanisms and how to build national child protection systems through a bottom-up approach.