The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals adopted in 2015, provide an international framework and call to action toward a more equitable, peaceful, resilient, and prosperous societies in 2030. While there are arguments over the value of the SDGs, they undeniably are an essential means of delivering some human rights commitments. They offer a more comprehensive package of actions compared to their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals. One example of this is the apparent inclusion of ‘sustainable development’ and the interest of humanity and the planet into a wide array of goals, targets, and indicators.
A few years from now, countries are scheduled to answer to their commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The trajectory of the SDGs has been disrupted by a global pandemic, making the achievement of the Goals much more challenging, with countries either recovering or continually grappling with the multidimensional impact of COVID-19. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 prepared by the UN Economic and Social Affairs in collaboration with international agencies and individual experts shows an insufficient progress and looks at some of the effects of COVID-19 on specific goals and targets. What is clear, is that the pandemic laid bare and exacerbated existing deep social and economic inequalities. This public health, economic, and social crisis continues to hit harder the most vulnerable groups such as the older people, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, migrants and refugees, those working in the informal sector, women, and children.
In addition, this unprecedented crisis also strengthened the case for raising the alarm on the climate emergency, with children leading other children in the clamor against government inaction against the climate crisis.
Despite the huge fear of the anticipated regressive impact of the pandemic, governments and civil society are still envisioning and working towards building a better post-COVID world. The pandemic presents an opportunity to shift priorities and ways of working, for instance, to improve health, economic, and social protection systems. Most importantly, with a view to building back better from the impacts of the pandemic, the Voluntary National Review (VNR) on the progress towards the implementation of the SDGs also presents an opportunity to tackle crucial aspects of national development such as financing for inclusive recovery for children.
In principle, the VNR aims to facilitate the sharing of experiences, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned, with a view to accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The VNR also seeks to strengthen policies and institutions of governments and to mobilize multi-stakeholder support and partnerships for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. These processes also present civil society with several entry points of engagement with governments and other key actors and opportunities to amplify advocacy messages.
The SDGs and Children’s Rights
Child rights advocates have been recognizing the need to mainstream children’s rights into the broader development and human rights mechanisms and discourse. Children’s rights should not be viewed in isolation as it cuts across other human rights. Looking at children’s rights in this manner is beneficial in strengthening the child rights movement, especially during these times when civic spaces are shrinking, human rights are being increasingly violated, and political contexts are changing. Beyond the narrow focus on ‘children’s issues,’ children’s rights are interlinked with other global platforms and opportunities relevant to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) such as discussions on The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the SDGs, among others. As such is the framework of the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council in 2020. In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Convention, the Council held its annual High-level panel on human rights mainstreaming, focusing in particular on children’s rights.
In addition, UNICEF has done extensive work on mapping the Global Goals and the Articles in the UN CRC presenting the links between all the 17 Goals and the UN CRC in the areas of health, education, and violence. Also, in July 2019, it updated its report on Progress for Every Child in the SDG Era, assessing the performance of countries on the 44 child-related SDG indicators arranged into five dimensions of children’s rights: the rights to survive and thrive, to learn, to be protected from violence, to live in a safe and clean environment, and to have an equal opportunity to succeed. The report cites that data availability and progress across these five dimensions vary. The lack of timely, open, reliable, quality, and disaggregated data remains a major challenge in measuring the true progress of the SDG indicators.
This Webpage
In light of a renewed perspective towards the development during and after the pandemic, Child Rights Coalition Asia has put together this webpage as an online repository of resources on children’s rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. This effort is part of the Coalition’s overall objective to strengthen civil society movements by mainstreaming children’s rights into other development and human rights framework and processes.
If you have relevant resources that can be added to this resource page, please email them to us at secretariat@crcasia.org.
SDG’s Knowledge Platform: It is a website that contains socio-economic development data from sub-national, and national levels from different countries that are affiliated with the United Nations Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). From Objectives, Members, Structure, Stakeholders, and HLPF reviews; the website contains all the information necessary for individual education and research. The website is also full of materials from previous SDG engagements, from the current year all the way to 2013. Visit here.
The World We Want: A Guide to the Goals for Children and Young People is a guidebook presenting the Global Goals for Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a fun and child-friendly format. Download here
Information about violence against children in the 2030 agenda and the SDGs, including key issues, reports, and links to relevant sites: The Goal of SDGs in this particular issue is to reduce the risk of violence in the lives of the children, and provide effective responses for child victims. View here.
Ending Violence against children: Reflections on reporting in the 2020 Voluntary national reviews: This report was created by the United Nations to focus on the Member States’ reporting on progress toward ending violence against children, and its contribution to accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. According to the data provided in the VNR, while progress towards ending violence against children is being created, there are still a lot of things that need to be done. The 2020 reading of the VNR report led the Member States to come up with the following reflections or to be precise, eight key points to focus on: (1) progress on child protection in the VNRs, (2) line ministries on children’s issues, (3) focusing on the child, (4) data, (5) importance of age, (6) violence and its drivers, (7) from acknowledgment to action, and lastly (8) collaboration. Download here.
2020 VNR CSO call to action – How Civil Society can advance Ending Violence against Children in the Voluntary National Reviews (includes helpful tips for CSOs in engaging the VNR on SDG 16:2): Many countries presenting VNRs are advised to connect with other members and to conduct consultations which must also include the voice of the children so that they can be heard while properly addressing the current issues that the children are facing. Within this VNR, five (5) actions were established to directly target the most important triggers of violence against children, namely, have 1. Participate in VNR consultations, 2. Meet with the government focal point and other key stakeholders, 3. Promote SDG 16.2 and other related Targets to end violence against children to be referenced in VNR reports, 4. Support meaningful and inclusive participation of children, 5. Utilize VNRs to elevate advocacy to end all forms of violence against children. Download here.
World Vision’s guidance on Ensuring Children are not left behind: Supporting countries preparing for Voluntary National Review at the high-level political forum on Sustainable development: This Guide note was created and tailored to provide specific recommendations to Member states on how to approach and add children’s rights, children’s participation, in Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Download here.
#COVIDUnder19: Collective of children, young people, and adult allies
Child-friendly Summary of the United Nations Human Rights Child rights report: This is a child-friendly version of the report submitted by the Office of the High commissioner of Human rights to the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) to address the situation of Children’s rights and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The objective of this report is to share the results with children who contributed to the report and to also empower children to feel confident in understanding the importance of SDGs in advocating for their rights. Download here.
#Covidunder19 Statement and call to action at HLPF 2021: This statement with children and young people calls government, civil society, and the private sector to establish meaningful dialogues, intergenerational partnerships, and peer-to-peer support to ensure that children are involved in monitoring mechanisms such as Voluntary National review reports and civil society reviews. Download here.
Child-focused agencies statement on the 2021 Ministerial Declaration: It is a statement by the United Nations urging the Member states of the United Nations to urgently advance conversations to outline what meaningful and inclusive child and youth participation look like, along with their practical implementation at the national and local levels, while establishing a framework to facilitate proper engagement of children and youth as critical stakeholders. Download here.
Handbook for the preparation of Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) 2021 Edition: This handbook was created for the presentation of Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) from different participating countries. Additionally, the handbook supplements the Secretary-General’s guidelines in a way that it provides elementary buildings blocks and the basic, practical information on the steps countries may take when preparing VNRs. Download here.
Factsheets on each country’s participation in various human rights mechanisms and procedures, groups at risk of being left behind, among other information, as well as guidance on data collection and linking the 2030 Agenda with human rights follow-up processes. This website lists the forty-four countries that participated in the Voluntary National Review in 2021. The goal of this list is to assist the participants in analysis, creating approaches in the VNRs, and identifying gaps and good practices while integrating human rights data.
It also contains the forty-four countries that participated in the Voluntary National Review in 2021. The goal of this list is to assist the participants in analysis, creating approaches in the VNRs, and identifying gaps and good practices while integrating human rights data.
View here.
Voluntary common reporting guidelines for voluntary national reviews at the high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF): The report guidelines contain information that is divided into four parts (Introduction, Guiding Principles, Structure and content of a report for the HLPF, Making presentations at the HLPF), further enabling Member states to create Voluntary National Reviews(VNR) that are meaningful, inclusive, participatory, and transparent throughout the review process at a national and sub-national level. Download here.
A guide to engaging with your government on the sustainable development goals: This guide draws upon the experiences and lessons learned from the Datashift initiative’s engagement with the government and other stakeholders in Kenya and Tanzania. It provides information about some of the main opportunities, challenges, and strategies for civil society engagement with the government on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) accountability. Download here.
Child rights connect position paper on the SDGs. It is a document that contains several key principles concerning the protection of Children’s rights in the implementation of the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development. Download here.
Human rights council resolution on the protection of the rights of the child in the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development: This document contains the entire discussion of the thirty-fourth Human rights General assembly. It was stated within the document that the Convention on Human rights of the Child constitutes the standard in promoting and protecting the rights of the child, bearing in mind the importance of Optional Protocols to the Convention, and calling for their universal ratification and effective implementation. A child rights-based approach to implementing the 2030 Agenda was proposed to promote and protect children, to mobilize and allocate domestic resources, and where necessary, international resources, including for the realization of the rights of the child as an essential element to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Download here.
