Collecting data & monitoring progress
Presentation & best practices from the CFCI network
Assessing the situation of children, setting objectives and monitoring and evaluating progress as well as reporting on it. Independent accountability, including with children.
A child-friendly city will keep a constant check on the state of its children. Systematically collecting a range of statistics and information on children is fundamental to developing child-centred policies. Disaggregating the data is necessary to highlight discrimination, for example against girls or boys, minority ethnic groups, disabled children and other groups.
City-level processes can link to national efforts of collecting data on children and reporting on it. At the city-level it may be possible to look in more detail at the reality of children’s lives and in particular the lives of those suffering discrimination.
It is important that the exercise of collecting data, monitoring progress and reporting not only looks at available information but also clearly identifies gaps in knowledge which inhibit evidence-based policy-making. To get an accurate assessment, this process must include children and youth. An independent assessment of the process of building a child-friendly city and results should be conducted in the spirit of good governance.
Reporting should be made public and be published in a format that is accessible to not only key policymakers and community leaders but also to the general public and children.
