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Strategic Thinking
Growing Up in Asia: Plan’s Strategic Framework for Fighting Child
Poverty in Asia 2005 - 2015
Amer Jabry
August 2005
This 55-page document from Plan International is a strategic framework
that was developed to provide Plan staff, and all who work with or contribute to
Plan, a single reference that captures the main issues likely to affect
economically poor children in Asia in the next 10 years, and Plan's responses in
the region. It illustrates the scope of interventions needed, overall priorities
and key challenges, but also provides for flexibility and cooperation among
different stakeholders. According to the document, it is not a "plan" with
targets, to be implemented, monitored and evaluated. Rather, staff in Plan
country operations - together with children, their families and communities, and
partner organisations - will decide how to address the issues raised in this
framework in a way that best responds to local needs and opportunities.
This framework is organised into three chapters. The first examines the
magnitude of child poverty in Asia, its micro and macro causes and why it
persists. The second chapter looks in more detail at the key aspects of Asian
child poverty, and what Plan in Asia needs to do over the next 10 years to fight
it effectively. The third chapter looks at the challenges Plan faces over the
next 10 years as an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) operating
in Asia.
According to the report, growing up in Asia over the next ten
years will be a significant challenge for many children. Of the 1.27 billion
children in Asian developing countries, 600 million or almost 50%, will be
severely deprived of some of their basic needs - food, safe water, sanitation,
health services, shelter, education services and information. This is largely
due to a combination of the pressure of population growth on scarce resources;
lack of access to education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation; caste
discrimination and dominance by social elites; as well as weak governance and
corruption. However, another factor of this economic poverty is how children are
treated by the adults and institutions around them. Girls often do not go to
school, not because of the lack of a school, but because of the attitudes of
their parents.
The report highlights the need to transform attitudes to
children and for society to change the way it treats them. It goes on to outline
Plan's child centred community development (CCCD) approach. It is a rights-based
approach in which children, families and communities are active and leading
participants in their own development. This involves:
- children taking part in decisions
that affect them
- community members developing their
skills
- collaborating with groups who share
the same goals
- extending successful solutions to
reach as many communities as possible
- working to change people's attitudes
and behaviour and
- persuading governments to apply more
child-friendly policies
Plan will use the CCCD approach to
tackle different aspects of children’s poverty:
- their lack of resources and access
to essential services which Plan will address through its interventions on
household economic security; child health; water and environmental sanitation;
and education.
- how adults treat children with
emphasis on interventions to protect women, girls and boys, and particularly
children with disabilities working children, trafficked children or children
at risk of being trafficked, children affected by HIV/AIDS and children
affected by conflicts or disasters.
This strategic framework identifies
challenges that Plan in Asia will need to overcome to achieve these aspirations
over the next 10 years. Key among them include: ensuring the involvement of
children in programmes; expanding operations into poorer countries and areas,
and enabling operations in richer areas to evolve and become independent;
raising resources from non-poor Asian citizens; becoming a recognised Asian NGO
and advocating on the fundamental causes of child poverty.
Cost:
Free
Number of pages:89
Publisher: Plan
International
Click here to download the full strategic framework in PDF
format.
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