Forum of Children and Adolescents with the Nicaraguan Presidential Candidates on Investment in this Age Group

Introduction

Children and adolescents have real weight within the country’s total population. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), under-19s accounted for 50.6% of the Nicaraguan population in 2005, the equivalent of some 2.9 million children and adolescents.

At the same time, Nicaragua’s school-age population represents 40.7% of the total population, the equivalent of 2.35 million children and adolescents. This implies that four out of every ten Nicaraguans ought to be incorporated into the education system, attending nursery, primary or secondary school.

So with a population containing a high percentage of children and adolescents compared to the Latin American average and such a large percentage of people of school-going age, Nicaragua should be assigning much more than the regional average in terms of prioritizing investment in children.

There is, however, an uneven distribution of children and adolescents according to the socio-economic level of the household to which they belong. In 2001, children and adolescents under the age of 18 accounted for 47.1% of the total national population (MECOVI-INEC), a figure that climbed to 57% among the population living in the poorest 20% of households (quintile 1) and was well over the Latin American average in all the other quintiles bar the wealthiest one.

As a result, 32.7% of Nicaraguan children and adolescents under the age of 18 are living in the poorest households, 24% correspond to the second poorest quintile and only 9% are located in the quintile corresponding to the wealthiest households.

This situation has crucial repercussions when it comes to evaluating public investment in so far as it defines the possible scope of state responsibility given that the majority of children live in households whose limited capacities do not allow them to guarantee their own rights within an exclusionary market environment.

The 57.1% of children and adolescents located in the poorest two quintiles in 2001 represented 1,400,000 of the national total of 2,452,000 under-18s.

When examined according to age groups, it is evident that there is a predominance of younger children in the poorest segments and older children and adolescents in the wealthier ones. This would probably account for the bulk of the demand for public services, principally health and education.

A significant number of children and adolescents in all of the different regions of Nicaragua are located in households corresponding to the poorest two quintiles. But most of the children and adolescents are in the central rural region and in Managua, although their distribution according to the different economic strata in these two regions differs quite significantly. While 79% (466,000) of the children in the central region are from households from the poorest two quintiles, the same is true of only 29% (155,000) of those from Managua, although it should be noted that these 155,000 poor children and adolescents are concentrated in an urban environment. Over two thirds of the children and adolescents in all of the rural regions are in the poorest two quintiles (66% in the Pacific region, 79% in the central region and 82% in the Caribbean region).

Nicaragua has been making significant advances in the configuration of a legal and institutional framework that promulgates the rights of children and adolescents. There is a visible and growing mobilization of community and social organizations promoting direct actions to improve the conditions for exercising those rights or to influence national or local decisions that affect the possibilities of exercising them.

Process and results for greater investment in children and adolescents:

The issue of investment as a clear expression of political commitment to children and adolescents was highlighted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its Recommendations and Observations to Nicaragua in response to the analysis of the 3rd Report on Compliance with the Rights of Children and Adolescents issued by the both the government and civil society as the state party.

The following steps were taken to ensure advocacy around these recommendations:

Political advocacy: Alliance Group

The Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents was created to carry out political advocacy in favour of greater investment in these age groups. The Group is made up of the Nicaraguan Coordinator of Nongovernmental Organizations Working with Children and Adolescents (CODENI), the National Council for Comprehensive Care and Protection for Children and Adolescents (CONAPINA), the Office of Human Rights Defence Ombudsman (PDDH), International Child Solidarity, TROCAIRE, the Movement of Municipal Commissions for Children and Adolescents, the Network of Child- and Adolescent-friendly Municipal Governments, Plan Nicaragua, Terre des Hommes, CARE, the Central American University’s (UCA’s) Humanities Faculty, the Save the Children Alliance and UNICEF.

The Alliance Group decided to join forces to promote three advocacy actions in 2006, a year that will culminate with presidential elections in Nicaragua.

a.1 A forum on investment in children.

a.2 A forum of children and adolescents with the presidential candidates from the five political forces participating in the electoral contest: the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN), the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), the Alternative for Change (AC) and the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC).

a.3 A Central American forum of Child- and Adolescent-friendly Municipal Governments.

One of the clearest examples of child and adolescent participation was the implementation of the open forum with presidential candidates on August 24, 2006, in which girls and boys got to voice their opinions and requests on what the candidates should do when in government.

The Forum’s general objective:

Contribute to the inclusion on the decision-makers’ agendas of the priorities for children and adolescents with the aim of creating political platforms that express the will to earmark resources in the national budget, which expressly implies greater investment in children and adolescents.

Specific objectives:

  • Help children and adolescents exercise their right to participate, express opinions and petition in relation to compliance with their basic human rights.
  • Facilitate an arena in which the main political forces can listen to and take into account the agendas of children and adolescents so that their human rights can be included as a priority in the different political platforms.

Preparation of the Forum:

a) Organization of the event:

The Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents designated an event coordinating group to monitor the process. The coordinating group consisted of CODENI, the Save the Children Alliance, TROCAIRE, UNICEF, Plan International Nicaragua, PDDH and the UCA’s Humanities Faculty.

A six-question guide was produced for the political forces involved in the elections to elicit their vision, knowledge and investment intentions in relation to children and adolescents. We asked for the guides to be delivered to us no later than August 18, so that they could be presented during the child and adolescent proposal consolidation meeting to be held on August 19. The six questions were as follows:

  • How does your political party define the role of children and adolescents in society?
  • According to your government program, what are the state’s responsibilities towards children and adolescents?
  • In your government, who will assume responsibility for guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents and what approach will they employ?
  • In your opinion, which rights of children and adolescents are the most violated and/or least recognized and therefore need to be addressed with greater urgency by the next government?
  • Which policies and actions in benefit of children and adolescents will your government program prioritize during its five-year term of office?
  • What priority will you give to the issue of investment in children and adolescents and what percentage of the budget will be assigned to education and health?

A meeting was held with the political parties’ campaign managers to inform them of the Forum’s objectives and the importance of participating in this process and to encourage the participation of their presidential candidates.

b) Consultation with children and adolescents

The organizations involved in the Alliance Group carried out a national-level consultation process with over 4,000 children and adolescents to gather their opinions and views. This participatory process was a way of legitimizing the demands and proposals to be presented during the Forum with the presidential candidates.

Methodology

The methodology employed in the consultations with the children and adolescents began with an exercise to build up self-esteem and empowerment in their families, neighbourhoods and country. The idea was to make them feel unique individuals in themselves. Work was also done to help them recognize their capacities and respect different ideas, understanding that having different ideas doesn’t make them different. All of this formed the basis for reinforcing the process of constructing the exercise of citizenry.

Only during this first phase of the methodology was the consultation process directed by an adult facilitator. In the subsequent stage the process was facilitated by the children and adolescents themselves.

The methodology was based on participation on first the individual level, then the group level and finally on the level of dissemination in order to analyze and prioritize their demands and proposals for the candidates.

The base documents for the discussion

The children and adolescents were provided with various documents to study before participating in the consultations. The documents were worked on by the Alliance Group and adapted in reader-friendly versions:

  • The municipal agendas designed by the children and adolescents themselves in 2004 for the municipal mayoral elections.
  • An adapted version of the national budget.
  • The recommendations of the International Committee on the Rights of the Child in response to the third report presented by Nicaragua.

1st Phase: Preparing for the Forum

110 children and adolescents were democratically elected in their municipalities a week before the Forum with the candidates to act as “spokespersons” who would participate in a workshop where they would learn about the results of the consultations carried out across the country in order to disseminate them. They in turn drafted demands and proposals and elected spokespersons to read them out during the Forum with the candidates.

2nd Phase: Implementing the event:

The Forum was held on August 24. Approximately 525 people attended, including 181 adolescents, 312 invitees and 32 representatives of the social communications media.

The Forum was attended by two presidential candidates: Edmundo Jarquín of the MRS and Edén Pastora Gómez of the AC; and two vice-presidential candidates: José Antonio Alvarado of the PLC and Fabricio Cajina of the ALN.

The candidates presided over the event along with Dr. Mayra Luz Pérez, the Rector of the UCA; Luisa Molina, president of CODENI; Dr. Norberto Liwski, vice-president of the International Committee on the Rights of the Child; and four adolescent spokespersons. These spokespersons, selected by the adolescents that participated in the consultations, were 16-year-old Yesenia Munguía, 17-year-old Carlos Avilés, 11-year-old Deyker Arístides Jiménez and 10-year-old Carolina Requena López.

The four adolescent spokespersons were responsible for expressing the demands of children and adolescents. Then the presidential and vice-presidential candidates had the opportunity to present their proposals, with the order determined by the drawing of lots.

Results of the Forum

The results of the Forum are positive. The presidential or vice-presidential candidates from four of the five political forces involved in the electoral contest participated and the children’s spokespersons expressed their demands very clearly and their proposals very forcefully.

However, it was notable that the candidates presented no concrete commitments for children and adolescents and even used their participation in the event to send political messages to their opponents.

The greatest success has been the genuine participation of children throughout the consultation process, both on the municipal and national levels. This was achieved through a process of reflection and analysis on the situations that concern them and their proposals for the kind of Nicaragua they want to see and are demanding.

A communication channel has also been opened between the Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents and the campaign managers of the different political parties represented in the National Assembly. The idea is to monitor with them the first hundred days of the new government, holding a second version of the Forum in which the new President and National Assembly representatives will report on progress made on the proposals produced by this first Forum.

3rd Phase: Devolution – municipal-level political advocacy.

4th Phase:

  • Maintain the links established with the political parties for the Forum. The Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents is responsible for this activity.
  • Monitor the proposals made by the winning presidential candidate. The Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents is responsible for this activity.
  • Hold a Forum after 100 days of the new government to evaluate the promises made. The Alliance Group for Investment in Children and Adolescents is responsible for this activity.