Child friendly laws & policies
Presentation & best practices from the CFCI network
Enacting child-friendly laws and policies. Assessing the impact of these on children.
Local authorities must ensure that all aspects of the legal and policy frameworks, which are under their control, protect and promote children’s rights.
The ability to influence the legal and policy frameworks will depend on the degree of autonomy the local government has in a given policy area. For example, a local government may have autonomy in the area of education but not in health, or may have autonomy over pre-schools but not secondary schools.
In areas where it has no direct control over laws and policies, the local government may still have some flexibility in the way it interprets and implements these. In instances where it has no control over implementation, it can still assess the impact of laws and policies on child rights locally and use the evidence to advocate on behalf of children at the regional and national level.
Laws and policies need to be assessed before, during and after implementation for their impact on children to ensure that they take the best interests of the child into consideration as required by the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. This involves the engagement of government, as well as independent experts and children and youth themselves.
[Please note that inclusion here does not necessarily imply endorsement by UNICEF]
