Prevention and Response to Child Recruitment and Use: A Programming framework in the Middle East and Eastern Europe Region

This framework supplements existing Save the Children tools and literature on CAAFAG programming by focusing on addressing child recruitment and use (prevention and response) within a broader programmatic lens of adolescents’ wellbeing in the MEEE region, applying a longer-term nexus approach that spans humanitarian, recovery and peacebuilding efforts.5The framework is a child-centred, multi-sectoral approach which seeks to reflect the voices of adolescent boys and girls in relation to what they have told us is important for their own wellbeing and which has a strong emphasis on community-based and locally-driven approaches and partnerships. The five-year timeline is deliberately ambitious, based on the growing global numbers of protracted and recurring conflict (evidenced also in the Middle East region) and the potential for re-recruitment within that. The framework recognises that whilst challenges remain with securing longer-term funding, it is critical that all funding contributes towards this longer-term vision. Objective of the Framework: To provide a suite of multi-sectoral, multi-level activities that contribute to prevention and response to child recruitment and use throughout a period of five years, within a framework that strengthens our measurement of change in adolescents’ wellbeing overall.