Rights based programming for children in conflict-affected areas – Operational Experience from the Middle East Region

This study reviews the operational practices and outcomes of existing development projects that use child rights-based programming in conflict affected areas in Yemen, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), with the aim of assessing the benefits and challenges of using child rights-based programming as the overall approach for development interventions, and how these benefits and challenges can be related to the safety and security in the selected areas. The study was conducted with support from the Nordic Trust Fund of the World Bank Group, and is a contribution to a Middle East and North Africa Regional Study of the World Bank, “Reducing Conflict Risk” (December 2011) which examines how the Bank’s development assistance could contribute to the mitigation of conflict risk in vulnerable countries. By reviewing seven projects self-defined as using child rights-based programming, this study found that the benefits of child rights-based programming in conflict-affected areas outweigh its challenges. Moreover, three of these projects, those that were closest to an ideal model of child rights-based programming developed for this study, had clear outcomes that positively influenced safety and security in the geographical areas of the projects.