Kenya Alliance for Advancement of Children in partnership with Save the Children implemented a six-year project: – Child Rights Governance (2011-2013) and Child-Friendly Budgets (2014-2016) project that addresses Children’s Rights holistically, with an emphasis on articles 12, 3 and 4 of the UNCRC. The goal of the project was to enhance the realisation of children’s rights through strengthening duty bearer capacity and accountability, as well as child participation.  The project build on the lessons learned in previous sectoral projects (education, child protection, WASH).

The project will directly reached 9600 children (4800 boys, 4800 girls) in five counties i.e. Siaya, Kakamega, Kwale, Mombasa and Wajir – who are members in child rights (CR) clubs in approximately 20 schools or communities per county.  Through policy advocacy and capacity development, Kenyan children country-wide benefited from increasingly effective, child-centered and accountable governing practices.  Other children in the target schools (72000 in total) indirectly benefit through learning from their peers in the child rights clubs. In addition 1,000 adults, including parents, Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and School Management Committee (SMC) members, opinion leaders, Provincial Child Rights Network (PCRN) and Area Advisory Council (AAC) members were targeted directly.

Child Rights Governance project aims at building a society that respects, protects and fulfils children’s rights. It is an effective strategy for impacting on children’s lives at a larger scale, resulting in structural and therefore lasting change. The two main components were:

• Ensuring responsive government performance, transparency of decision-making and robust accountability mechanisms for the realization of children’s rights.
• Supporting an active and well organized civil society in support of children’s rights as an important counterpart and counterbalance to governmental action.

The project outcomes were:-

• Improved capacity & accountability of duty bearers to fulfil child rights in Kenya;
• Kenyan boys and girls influence decisions that affect their lives.