HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. Children and Governance. 2012 India

On July 21-22, 2009, HAQ: Centre for Child Rights organised an International Colloquium on Children and Governance: Holding States Accountable. Participants from Ethiopia, South Africa, UK, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India shared their experiences of monitoring government’s performance in realising child rights and ensuring the participation of children in governance. Against  this backdrop, HAQ, supported by the Unicef India Country Office and Child Rights and You (CRY), organised a colloquium in New Delhi, November 9-11, 2011, to follow up and take forward the discussions initiated in 2009 and linking the same to similar efforts in other parts of the world.   This report synthesises the deliberations at the New Delhi Colloquium. It outlines and summarizes key points emerging from the major themes that were discussed. The report also draws upon other relevant discussions on the issues on governance and children, though they may not necessarily have been raised in the Colloquium. They are nonetheless important in the context of the on-going discussions on children and governance and hence can help build our understanding on this very important subject.