UNICEF child protection 2022-2025

In 2022, UNICEF child protection (Goal Area 3) reports that they partnered with global, regional, and national partners including governments, civil society organizations, the private sector, and academia in over 150 countries, including in 90 humanitarian situations to address child protection challenges and scale up sustainable evidence-based solutions. To deliver on the child protection results, UNICEF child protection global programme expenses totalled US$876 million, including US$521 million for humanitarian action representing a 13 per cent increase compared to 2021. Humanitarian expenses increased by 23 per cent from 2021 levels. The year 2022 was the first full year of implementation of the new Child Protection Strategy, 20212030, coinciding with the first year of the roll-out of the UNICEF Strategic Plan, 20222025. UNICEF reports that they have scaled up prevention and response programming to address the most significant risk and protective factors. This included strengthening family and parenting support to prevent violence in the home; expanding their work to address online child sexual exploitation and abuse; tackling gender-based violence across humanitarian and development contexts; working towards universal access to birth registration; improving access to justice for children; preventing family separation; and ending grave violations in armed conflicts. Of note is their programmatic shift towards anticipatory planning, especially in relation to child protection and humanitarian action, which was according to the report, critical to effectively supporting the millions of children affected by the war in Ukraine, devastating droughts and food insecurity in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region, floods in Pakistan and many other ongoing humanitarian crises. Examples of Child Protection results 2022 Unicef reports that the strategic push to strengthen Child Protection Systems is paying dividends, including developing national and sub national legal, policy, and governance frameworks; strengthening the number and quality of social service workforces; and improving data, monitoring and reporting systems. Across 109 countries, UNICEF supported 4.7 million children who had experienced violence to receive health, social work, or justice/law enforcement services; a 7% increase from those reached in 2021. Additional progress includes the prioritisation of a disability-inclusive approach to child protection in the new 2022-2030 Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy. New UNICEF CP Systems Strengthening guidance and benchmark measurements are also helping drive strategic action in this area. UNICEF reports that the momentum created by the COVID-19 pandemic in releasing children from detention, and lessons learned through years of engagement with partner countries, have created the necessary space to initiate transformative shifts to ensure children have full access to justice. More children in a growing number of countries can access child-friendly justice services as countries progressively put in place policies, laws, and systems to push forward national justice for children reforms. The number of countries reporting a specialized justice system increased by 29 per cent from 24 in 2021 to 31 in 2022. UNICEFs Reimagine Justice for Children Agenda has been instrumental in providing a cohesive approach to strengthening justice for childrens systems. In 2022, the first year of the agendas roll-out, UNICEF focused its efforts on mainstreaming it into broader United Nations Rule of Law and Access to Justice initiatives and supporting its operationalization at the country level.

The contribution is a global non-earmarked thematic contribution to Goal Area 3, Child Protection of UNICEFs 2022-2025 Strategic Plan (SP), which seeks to ensure that every child, including adolescents, is protected from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. This is in line with the vision of the 2021-2030 UNICEF Child Protection Strategy of a world where all children are free from violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect and harmful practices. The Strategy, in turn, is centered in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and also aims to contribute to the child protection-related Sustainable Development Goals.