CPWG Quarterly Bulletin - Q1 January-March 2013
Welcome
Welcome to the Q1 bulletin (January-March 2013) of the Global level CPWG (CPWG).
Please do share this with colleagues and partners who might find the information useful, and let us know if you would like to be added to or deleted from our mailing list. We are also happy to share anything that you would like to submit for our Q2edition(early July 2013).
The CPWG coordination team: joiners and leavers
Jean Mège: Jean Mège is a new member of the child protection rapid response team (RRT), provided by UNICEF Programme Division.Jean has a long history of working to support humanitarian responses with Information Management services, including most recently with OCHA and Save the Children. Over the course of 2012Jean provided information management (IM) support to the child protection in emergencies sector at both field and global levels. In collaboration with the rest of the RRT team as well as CPWG member agencies, he will work on developing generic IM tools that can be easily adapted and used at the field level.
Meggi Rombach: After several months supporting the CPWG coordinator as an intern and then a volunteer, Meggi has left us to take up the post of Corporate Fundraising Manager at the ICRC in Geneva. She will be responsible for seeking opportunities toincrease the income from private fundraising streams.This includes developing relationships with an existing file of companies and associations whilst also researching and leading new approaches to corporate supporters in Switzerland and internationally. We owe Meggi huge thanks for her work to pull together our current 3-year workplan, and wish her every success in her new role – it’s a bittersweet fact of life that the good ones get snapped up!
Tina Fischer: After over a year on the Rapid Response Team (seconded by Save the Children Sweden), and many, many missions ( Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Tunisia….) Tina has left the RRT but continues to work as part of the team on a consultancy contract to provide remote technical and knowledge management support to field-based CP coordination groups. Over the coming months she will be supporting a number of activities under the Coordination Objective of the CPWG work plan 2013 - 2015 including updating and maintaining the online Starter Pack, setting up a series of webinars for field-based groups and working with field-based Coordinators to identify and address their support needs. Tina is based in China and will be working with us for 12 days per month until end of November.
Aliocha Salagnac [CB1]
Sabine Rakotomalala:Sabine began on the 8th of April 2013 as Deputy Coordinator of the Child Protection Working Group. After working for the World Health Organization, she has been working since 2003 for Terre des hommes as technical adviser in the areas of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support as well as Child Protection. She has been responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluating projects in countries including Pakistan,Sri Lanka, Mozambique, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Colombia. She has also co-lead a number of inter-agency initiatives such as the IASC Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (in 2008) and the development of Minimum Standards for Child Protection inHumanitarian Action (2011).
New CPWG members
As you may know, the CPWG has members and associates. We are pleased to announce that we have some new joiners to the group as associated institutions:
Canadian International Development Aid (CIDA): CIDA provides CAD $3 million towards implementation of the Minimum Standards for Child Protection. The Canadian government, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has committed a total of CAD $3 million towards the implementation of the Minimum Standards for Child Protection. Canada sees the establishment of these standards as a significant milestone for the humanitarian community. Canada also recognises the important work that lies ahead in terms of implementing the standards and is pleased to be supporting the CPWG in this process.
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC): The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is Switzerland’s international cooperation agency within the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). In collaboration with other federal offices concerned, SDC is responsible for the overall coordination of development activities in the South, cooperation with Eastern Europe, as well as humanitarian aid delivered by the Swiss Confederation. SDC’s Humanitarian Aid is an integral part of Switzerland’s commitment to protect and provide assistance to people affected by armed conflicts and natural disasters worldwide.
The CPWG Rapid Response Team: Field support
Philippines: Hani Mansourian (NRC) was deployed to the Philippines to support the CPWG in carrying out a CP rapid assessment in the areas affected by typhoon Pablo. The assessment was carried out in regions XI and XII and an initial report has been produced. He also provided a brief training to the newly recruited information management officer.
Bangladesh: In conjunction with the CP regional advisor from UNICEF's South Asia regional office, Hani conducted a training of trainers for CP actors in Bangladesh. Following the training, a work plan was developed and agreed upon for the replication of the CPRA training in different regions of the country.
Lebanon and Jordan: Elaine Jepsen (RedR)was on deployment in Beirut between December 2012 and February 2013. She is now in Amman leading a remote assessment for Child Protection issues in Syria.
Mali: Helene Villeneuve (Danish Refugee Council) is on deployment in Bamako since January 2013. She is engaged on strengthening of the coordination mechanisms, interagency strategic and response planning, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and capacity building.
The CPWG Rapid Response Team (RRT) is composed of five members, donated to the team by Save the Children Sweden, NRC, DRC, RedR Australia and UNICEF. Team members are available for deployment to support coordination of Child Protection in Emergencies, including joint rapid assessments. The RRT provides ongoing remote support to field based coordination groups on demand, and RRT deployments are based on requests from the field which are reviewed by an interagency steering committee. Contact: Katy Barnett, global level CPWG Coordinator,
Child Protection in Country
Mali, Coordination: The protection cluster was activated in Mali in March 2012. The Child Protection sub-cluster was launched as early as April in Bamako and expanded then to Mopti and more recently to Segou. A strategic technical group is functional since January 2013 and provides orientation nationwide.In light of the above, the major focii of the CP sub-Cluster are the release and reintegration of children formerly associated with armed groups and forces; mine risk education; psychosocial support; IDTR and child protection monitoring case management. For more information, see to the Consolidated Appeal Process for 2013, 16 organizations have presented projects related to Child Protection in all regions. Nevertheless, to date, the Protection Cluster, including child protection component, has received only 14% of requirements of the CAP 2013.In January and February 2013, the Child Protection sub-cluster partners reached a total of 64,689 beneficiaries where 38% of them are children. For more information, see Annex ‘SCPE Mali bénéficiairesjanfeb 2013’.Given the current emergency demands, Helene Villeneuve from the CPWG RRT is on deployment since mid-January. Additional support has been provided remotely by Hani Mansourian and Jean Mege, respectively on rapid assessment and Information Management.For additional information on the activities of the CPSC in Mali consult or write to ‘’
Syria, Remote Assessment: After 24 months, the conflict in Syria is affecting all 14 Governorates and has resulted in the death of reportedly up to 70,000 men, women and children and caused the displacement of millions, including around 1.2 million who have sought refuge in neighboring countries. Just under half of the 4 million in Syria affected by the emergency are children. See CPWG advocacy alert on child protection in Syria here. Restricted access inside Syria means that the international humanitarian response is not able to effectively assess child protection needs and existing child protection structures and capacities of the affected communities. Therefore, under the leadership of the UNICEF Regional Office, the global level CPWG and child protection actors in the region are joining forces to generate credible evidence on the child protection situation inside the country. This will be in the form of a remote assessment. The approximately 475 key informant interviews will be conducted with newly arriving refugees into the surrounding refugee receiving nations and will be led by team leaders from the Global CPWG RRT, WVI Global Technical Team and the UNICEF Regional Office. The assessment findings will enable actors within the humanitarian community within Syria to better respond to the current crisis as well as to potential future crises.Contact: Elaine Jepsen or Laurent Chapuis
Za’atari Refugee Camp, Child Protection and Gender-Based Violence Assessment:In Jordan, the Child Protection and Gender-based Violence in Emergencies Sub-Working Group`s objective is to coordinate prevention and response to Child Protection and Gender-based Violence against children and adults affected by the Syrian crisis living in camps, sites and host communities. Under the umbrella of the sub-working group, an inter-agency assessment was carried out in Za'atri refugee camp. The assessment collected information on access to services/ information, exploitation of women and children, unaccompanied and separated children, children associated with armed forces/groups, GBV including domestic violence, sexual violence and early marriage, safety concerns and disability issues. A similar assessment was also carried out in the host communities and the data is currently being analysed. The inter-agency assessments conducted jointly by child protection and gender-based violence actors provides a good opportunity to highlight key CP and GBV issues and come up with joint recommendations on how to strengthen the protective environment for children and women as they constitute more than 75 % of the Syrian population in Jordan and are considered the most vulnerable.Contact: Gunn-Mariann Aase . See report attached
Central African Republic, Advocacy note: The Global Protection Cluster, in collaboration with the Protection Cluster in the Central African Republic, developed an urgent statement of protection needs in the current crisis. See advocacy note attached
Kenya, Child Protection Rapid Assessment Tool: During this quarter, the CPWG continued to prepare for the upcoming March 4th elections. Key activities included convening a special meeting on the KIRA (Kenya Initial Rapid Assessment) (Feb. 12) to introduce the tool to child protection partners and supporting the Department of Children's Services (DCS) in creating key messages for publication in newspapers prior to the elections.The CPWG in Kenya also adopted the global Child Protection Rapid Assessment (CPRA) tool, which was made 'Kenya-specific' by the newly formed CPRA Task Force comprised of the DCS, UNICEF, UNHRC, Terre des Hommes, World Vision and Save the Children. As a first step towards introducing the tool to CPWG members, the CPRA sponsored an intensive two-day training on the tool (Feb. 26 and 27) for 51 persons that included UN, NGO, as well as all the District Children's Officers from Nairobi County and at least one Volunteer Children's Officer from each district in Nairobi County. The UNICEF supported training was facilitated primarily by individuals from Terre des Hommes and World Vision who had attended the Global CPRA Training of Trainers. In keeping with CPRA activation protocols, the Task Force will be responsible for ensuring that assessment teams are supported logistically and financially. Regarding the CPWG website, the site now includes a new address for the Department of Children’s Services (), an updated list of Department of Children’s Services contacts for each county, and a copy of the CPRA specific tool for Kenya. Also embedded in the website is a hyperlink to the Hot Spot mapping ( which is currently being populated with information collected during the Hot Spot mapping exercise that took place in September 2012.Contact: Annalisa r Stephanie Shanler
The CPWG 2013- 2015 Workplan
The CPWG narrative Workplan 2013 -2015 was finalised in the first few weeks of the year, and is now available on cpwg.net. The first two years of the workplan are costed, and this has been extremely helpful in enabling us to fundraise. As you can see in the table below there is a really good spread of leadership by CPWG members across the themes of the workplan.
Progress on the CPWG Workplan 2013-2015
Objective 1A: Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS) Introduction and Implementation
After finalising the Minimum Standards and the global launch last year, 2013 is focused on awareness raising and support for practical application.Guidance is being developed groups organising launches of the Standards. This launch pack will be available in April 2013. The East Africa region is already planning their launch with the support of World Vision International in April 2013. A list of other planned launches will be available on cpwg.net/minimum-standards. Guidance for the development of contextualisation workshops will be available in June 2013. The workshops will allow countries to take priority Standards and make them context specific to have a practical understanding and work plan to apply the Standards. UNICEF in Latin America has kindly translated the CPMS in Spanish while UNHCR undertook the Arabic translations. Both translations, as well as a French translation, will be available between June and August 2013. An additional translation into Korean is being done by Save the Children Korea.Trainings on the Minimum Standards were held for CIDA and partners in Canada in January and March. Trainings are planned by the Child Protection Sub-Cluster in Mali for later this year. Contact: Minja Peuschel or Susan Wisniewski
Objective 1B: Improve the standard of programming improved in line with CPMS
1B.1 Unaccompanied and Separated Children (UASC): A new interagency UASC toolkit has been finalised. The InterAgency Working Group is now working on a handbook and training materials for the pilot implementation in Dakar. The Rapid UASC registration form and guidance note have been finalised.Contact: Mathilde Bienvenu .
1B.2 Case Management: Work led by IRC on developing case management guidance and training has begun, with strong links to the interagency group working on case management in the East Africa region. Contact: Annalisa Brusati
1B.3 Worst forms of Child Labour: A literature review of learning on addressing the Worst Forms of Child Labour in emergencies is ongoing.Contact:Sophie de Coninck
1B.4 Community Based Child Protection: The team has conducted various modules of Child Friendly Spaces. They have been tested in the Philippines. CFS research report for Ethiopia has been completed and uploaded on CPWG.net. CFS researchin Uganda is ongoing and a learning event is scheduled for April 2013.Contact: Saji Thomas or Heather McLeod
1B.5 Disaster Risk Reduction:A webinar was held as part of the Asia Pacific Community of Practice on DRR in Nepal and Pakistan, which had good participation and good outputs in terms of sharing good practice.The pilot project on integrating DRR and CP is due to start next month in Pakistan. Funding arrangements are currently being finalised, but the project has been presented in the CPWG in Pakistan and a country-specific concept note and plan for the project has been drawn up. It will be lead by Plan Pakistan. UNICEF Nepal has also expressed interest in participating in the pilot process as part of some of their ongoing work. Plan and Save the Children co-authored a paper for the Protect Our Future campaign on child protection, conflict, disasters and fragility, which includes specific recommendations on integrating CP and DRR in the post-2015 agenda.See paper hereContact: Janis Ridsdel
1B.6 Child Protection Systems in Emergencies: Nothing to report on.
1B.7 Inclusion: Following a review of our sector’s performance on the gender marker, the CPWG developed a short communication tool on the importance of gender in child protection in emergencies programming, which might be useful for field based child protection practitioners and coordination groups. See gender / CPIE paper here.Countries where child protection agencies are struggling to achieve a score of 2 across the board are encouraged to contact the CPWG for advice, training materials and other support. A gender advisor from within UNICEF is currently collecting lessons learned on how to improve gender marker scores for child protection projects. Contact: Nurten Yilmaz
Save the Children and Handicap international are currently seeking funding for a proposed piece of work which stems from the development of the Minimum Standard on the Protection of Excluded Children, and the recognition that there is limited guidance on how to protect children with disabilities, who are often amongst the most vulnerable, yet excluded from both CP programming and humanitarian assistance more generally.The project period is for 2 years, and links with aspects of the CPWG work plan on the roll out of the MS and capacity building.Contact: Katharine Williamson