Opening Doors contributes to UNOHCHR report on children’s rights investment

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Opening Doors campaign leaders have contributed a joint submission (with SOS Children’s Villages International) to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report “Towards a better investment in the rights of the child”. The OHCHR’s report will be launched at the March 2015 session of the Human Rights Council on the occasion of the annual day of discussion on the rights of the child and aims to provide information on the main challenges related to the mobilisation, allocation and spending of resources for children.

Our submission brings attention on the need to change underlying financial frameworks to create incentives for deinstitutionalisation (DI), on how institutional systems cumulate violations of children’s rights, and therefore on the necessity to invest in the transition from a system of institutional care to a system of family-based care and community level services.

A key puzzle piece in building a stronger economic evidence base to support the desired transition is a framework that will allow for the mapping of funding streams that go into the child care system, and to calculate the economic value of the broader social return on investment in deinstitutionalisation.

The social return on investment study, to be carried by Opening Doors campaign leaders, and with funding support from the OAK foundation, is showcased in the paper as an important example of research that can produce such a framework. In relation to this, the submission also formulates recommendations towards both governments and private donors to ensure funding streams support a transition from institutionalised to family-based care.

Eurochild and Hope & Homes for Children are leading the advocacy campaign Opening Doors for Europe’s Children, which aims to strengthen families and end institutional care across Europe. SOS Children’s Villages also contributed to the submission in the context of Care for ME!, their research and advocacy campaign to help realise every child’s right to quality alternative care.

The website of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.