Stakeholders of BSAF:

The BSAF stakeholders include high level policy makers, elected public representatives, politicians, Government officials, law enforcement, elites, academician, teachers, school-going children, journalist, media, TV viewers and Radio listeners and various segments of the civil society, members, disadvantaged children and national and international agencies.

The 10 years plan:

BSAF considers this ten years plan as extremely important to address the critical issues relating to child rights. In the context of its rapidly changing environment and to develop a systematic approach to expanding/strengthening its overall capacities as well as effective role of the member organizations such a long-term plan is needed of the hour. In view of the dimension and magnitude of problems with regard to development of children and to implement UNCRC a long term plan is essential. This Plan also calls for collaborative effort of the NGOs and private sector to supplement the Government efforts.

Process followed:

This plan document is the outcome of the analysis of the work done by allied agencies and the projectors of what will be done during the next ten years by BSAF network. The planned activities cover four clusters of CRC like survival, development, protection and participation.

The ten years planning exercise was divided into three stages:
    1. Pre-planning;
    2. Planning cum training exercise; and
    3. Review of the planning process.

The planning Schedule contained the following areas;

1. The planning process:
2. Environment scanning;
3. Internal retrieval (organizational diagnosis);
4. Presentation, validation and interpretation of key findings in the environmental scan and internal retrieval activities;
5. Vision, mission, goal review and reformation;
6. Drafting of a ten year plan (2004-2014);
7. Review the relevant secondary sources of information
8. Collection of relevant information from a cross-section of concerned audiences (representing all six administrative divisions of the country) in six workshops held at six different regions;
9. Sharing of findings from the secondary sources of information and from the six divisional children consultation workshops with child rights activists across the country in different meetings and fora; and
10. In order to facilitate the collection of information from secondary sources, BSAF was guided assisted by a number of documents pertaining to management of child-oriented projects in Bangladesh, National and International organizations working in Bangladesh.
11. Validation and approval by the GB & EB;

The rationale of ten years plan:

During the world summit for children in 1990, Head of states and the Heads of governments signed an agreement on a Global agenda for Children. The world summit laid out an agenda for 10 years (1990 – 2000). The Global Agenda had 10 priority areas, and seven major goals to achieve by 2000. The seven major areas were: child health, women’s health and education, nutrition, water and sanitation, basic education and child protection and less on child participation.

The governments were asked to do a mid-decade review. At the end of the five years, governments have to submit a report to the United Nations on what they have done about these commitments. At the end of last year there was a global study on the end decade performance – a look what has worked, what has succeeded, and what has failed. This report is called u` we the Children^. It is a comprehensive report, which talks about what happened in the countries in the world. There were regional meetings also such as Ministerial Conference in the East Asia Pacific region, Beijing meeting, and one held in Kathmandu covering South Asia. All these meetings assessed the progress made by governments in implementation of these goals (on Global Agenda). And there were three sessions of the Preparatory Committee meetings held in New York in 2001-2002, which prepared for the Special session for the children. The UN Special session on Children that was held in New York in May 2002.adopted a new agenda for children for next one decade.

The first significance is that this is the document adopted by all of the 180 nations represented at the General Assembly. Secondly, when compared to the WSC (World Summit for children), WFfC (World Fit for Children) is a much more holistic approach to addressing children’s needs and rights in the 21st century. Third, it is a concrete Plan of Action of governments, which means that there are specific goals and targets to be achieved in a given timeframe. Many conventions are about general principles, but this particular documents focused much more on goals and targets that can be measured. The final significance of WFfC is that it calls for much more broader participants from NGOs, of children, parliamentarians, private sectors, different key players, religious leaders, community leaders and so on. And definitely the involvement of children and the young people is quite prominent in many places in the WFfC.

However, since the WFfC is a document signed by governments, governments hold the primary responsibility for implementation. WFfC also provides a framework for the National Plan of Action (NPA). In many countries, governments are developing NPA while some have already developed them; like Bangladesh. After the Special Session the governments have been asked to revisit these NPAs or to update or revise them. For example, in this region Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Malaysia already had NPAs before the special session. They have been asked to revise and update them in relation to the commitment in the WFfC..

Another important point about the WFfC is that it also links to the Child Rights Convention (CRC) reporting process. When the governments report to the CRC, the first time or every five years, they also have to account for how they implemented the WFfC. Another significance is that the child protection is one major area in the WFfC that was not as explicitly mentioned in the World Summit earlier.

Plan of Action is divided into three parts: goals and strategies, mobilizing resources, follow-up action and monitoring. The WFfC contains 21 specific goals. These goals revolve around certain priorities, which are: promoting healthy lives, providing quality education, protecting children from abuse, exploitation and violence and combating HIV/AIDS. In each of those areas, there are two subsections: goals, targets and strategies.

If we look back at the last 10-12 years, particularly after the adoption of convention on the Rights of Children, the issues of children have been very much highlighted. A number of ‘non-issues’ have been converted into powerful political agenda and social agenda, and the voice of children has been heard. We used to say that children are voiceless, but now no one is saying children are voiceless. And the children themselves have challenged the world- “we are not problem for you. We are also solutions. We also have the potentials, we also have ideas. We also have visions. So father, mother, governments, civil society organizations, we also would like to extend our hands with you to resolve our problems. We are only not the future of the world, we are also the present of the world”

In the last ten years, a wonderful door has been opened. That is not only brought us the problems but also shed light on the process. In the World Fit for Children, plan of action, goals, objectives, strategies, planning process, all are included. In last ten years, we are told that we have achieved a lot and we are indeed very much dedicated for the children of the world. But unfortunately there is still a huge problem. If we review the statistics, still 246-million child labour exists in the world. And out of that, 179 million are living and working in the most difficult circumstances and worst forms of child labour. About 100 million eligible children for primary education are out of school; about 60% of them are being girl children. About 10 million children die each year by the preventive diseases. Although we have achieved a commendable progress in the area of health, 150 million children still suffer from malnutrition, about 30 million children are orphaned, 100 million children are victimized of commercial sexual exploitation, 300,000 children are forced to work as child soldiers. About 1 billion or more lack access to adequate sanitation. Half a billion or more children cannot obtain safe drinking water. This situation was, of course, worse ten years before, but it’s a big challenge when the problem still exists in a large volume.

In these situations, what could be the way ahead for the future? Integrating the issues of children in mainstream development program is a very challenging task. In most of the country whenever we talk about the rights of the children within the government system, there is a separate ministry such as women, children and social welfare ministry. And within the ministry, they always segregate responsibilities to one department or other. There is a lack of inter-agency coordination. Therefore children's issue should be tackled in a more holistic approach. This is not a responsibility of one or another ministry. Also in the civil society, working for children is not only the responsibility of those NGOs directly working with children. Realization of child's rights is the responsibility of all because the children are concern of all.

Other point concerns UN as a body, which we know, is composed of other bodies like UNICEF, ILO and others, united in one principle to end worst form of child labour and to protect children's rights. But we would like also to know how this unity reflects on the ground because the NGOs are affected by the different kinds of mandates and framework of implementation to end child labour, child violence and to protect children's rights. May be at the international level there is more clarity on how different UN bodies will work hand in hand to ensure this approaches but on the ground NGOs are quite confused about the different kinds of framework being presented to them.

Bangladesh acceded to the CRC in 1990, and was a participant at the WSC and a signatory to the World Declaration. As follow-up measures to implement the provisions of the CRC and WSC Declaration a National Plan of Action for Children, titled promote, and a Decade Plan of Action for the Girl Child, titled Samata, were launched in 1992. The National Children Policy (NCP), drawn up in the context of CRC, WSC Declaration and SAARC, was adopted in 1994. As a participant, Bangladesh is also committed to the Declarations/ Platform of Action adopted by the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994), The World Social Summit (Copenhagen, March 1995) and the Fourth International Conference on Women (Beijing, September 1995), all of which made reference to measures needed to improve the rights and situation of children.

Bangladesh has made good progress in terms of several aggregate indicators. The ministry of Women and Children Affairs identified six sectors in the 2nd NPA, keeping in view the Bangladesh National Children Policy (NPC), World summit for Children (WSC) and SAARC goals for South Asian Children, based on the provision of CRC. These are as follows:

   Ø Basic Education

   Ø Health & Nutrition

   Ø Water and environmental Sanitation (WES)

   Ø Children in Need of Special Protection (CNSP)

   Ø Social Integration, Participation and Cultural Affairs (SIPCA)

   Ø Information and Communication (I & C)

In the objectives of the National Plan of Action it has been pointed out that “The CRC provisions on Children in need of Special Protection (CNCP) and Social Integration, Participation and Cultural Affairs (SIPCA) are being included in NPA as separate components.