National action plans provide a blueprint that governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society can use to coordinate action and track results. Good evaluation needs to be built in from the start to help ministries and agencies realign activities in real time and commit to its ongoing progress. In this event, which is part of the 2021 Learning Exchange Series, national action plans (and their evaluation) will be explored in more depth.

The 2021 Learning Exchange Series is a series of six webinars with the objective of connecting pathfinding countries with each other and with other global knowledge expertise in order to capture experiences and solutions from the field and to encourage ongoing exchange of information.

The objective of the webinar is to inform participants through experts on the subject on diversion options for Sri Lanka and lesson child protection actors can learn from best practices globally.

Speakers include:

• Dr Julia Sloth-Nielsen, Professor, Department of Public Law and Jurisprudence, University of the Western Cape and Professor of Children's Rights in the Developing World, University of Leiden
• Dr Michael Feehan, UNODC (Sri Lanka)
• Mr Suhada Gamalath, President's Council, Chairperson of the National Authority for the Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Sri Lanka
• Dr Hemamal Jayawardena, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF

Effective solutions to end violence against children will require researchers, practitioners, and leaders to come together to take stock of what we know, bridge gaps across the field, and influence change through the use and generation of VAC evidence. To this end, the UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti is holding a series of events for the 2021 Solutions Summit Series Together to #ENDviolence.

The first evidence event, Evidence Matters: Taking stock of the evidence on preventing and responding to violence against children, aims to share information and advance understanding of the growing body of evidence on violence against children (VAC) prevention and response and provide a forum for interactive dialogue and knowledge-exchange on evidence gaps.

Part I, The power of now: Taking stock of the evidence on VAC prevention and response and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead - What do we know and how robust is that knowledge?

Speakers:

• Catherine Ward, Professor, Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town
• Ramya Subrahmanian, Chief, Child Rights and Protection, UNICEF Innocenti
• Shanaaz Mathews, Director, Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town

Part II, The path forward: Critical reflections on evidence gaps, uptake and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead - So, what, and what’s next? Building on evidence for uptake

Speakers:

• Dipak Naker, Co-Director, Raising Voices
• Berit Kieselbach, Technical Officer, Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization
• Matodzi Amisi, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Security Studies
• Enrique Chaux, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of the Andes

Event contacts:

• Ramya Subrahmanian, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti (rsubrahmanian@unicef.org)
• Manahil Siddiqi, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti (msiddiqi@unicef.org)

The second event in the series will focus on the intersections between violence against children and violence against women.

While the first event in this series, Evidence Matters: Taking stock of the evidence on preventing and responding to violence against children, focuses on the growing body of evidence on violence against children prevention and response, this second event will focus on the intersections between violence against children and violence against women.

This event aims to share evidence and foster discussion on intersections between violence against women and violence against children, highlighting opportunities for greater collaboration to build knowledge and translate it into policy and programs. Participants will be updated on the findings of recent evidence reviews on violence against children and violence against women. They will also interact with a diverse group of panelists to share perspectives on how to address gaps in evidence that can strengthen efforts to address violence against children and violence against women at scale.

Event contacts:

• Alessandra Guedes, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti (aguedes@unicef.org)
• Floriza Gennari, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti (fgennari@unicef.org)

#ENDviolence and The Lutheran World Federation partnership

This event will showcase LWF’s global work towards ending violence against children through 90 minutes of interactive dialogue, children’s testimonies, and presentations of LWF child violence prevention country initiatives from a number of LWF country programs and member churches including Argentina, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Colombia, El Salvador, Jordan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sweden, Uganda and Uruguay.

Featuring:  

• Opening remarks by Dr Howard Taylor, Executive Director of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children; Dr Martin Junge, General Secretary The Lutheran World Federation;
• Dr Najat Maalla M'jid, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children;
• Archbishop of Sweden Dr Antje Jackelen;
• #ENDViolence Board Member Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, World Council of Churches, Acting General Secretary;
• Two videos on LWF World Service Country Operations and LWF Member Churches work to end violence against children;
• Messages from children from LWF operations around the globe;
• Statements by church leaders and LWF World Service Country Representatives;
• Official launch of Pledges by Dr Martin Junge and Dr Howard Taylor; 
• Closing voices of children around the globe.

This event will be moderated by Chey Mattner, Head of Operations at The Lutheran World Federation.

Learn more.