Child Rights Governance Impact Story: Save the Children’s advocacy for investment in children at the UN Human Rights Council

One of the biggest barriers to the realization of children’s rights is the lack of sufficient, equitable and efficient public spending to realize these rights. Almost all countries in the world have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and many countries have reformed their legal and policy framework in line with the Convention.

However, in many cases the adoption of new laws and policies has not been matched with public funding to implement them. Many children, therefore, have rights in theory only – but not in practice.

In 2012, Save the Children’s Child Rights Governance Global Initiative (CRGI) decided to focus a major part of its advocacy work on investment in children with the vision that ‘all children, especially the poorest, benefit from greater public investment and better use of society’s resources in realizing their rights’.

This case study focuses on the process of accomplishing one of the three strategic outcomes of the project: a UN Human Rights Council annual full day meeting on the rights of the child on the theme investment in children.