African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN)

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ANPPCAN
Komo Lane, Off Wood Avenue
P.O. Box 1768 Code 00200 City Square Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: +254 (0)20 3873990/ 3861086/ 3004406
Fax: +254 (0)20 3876502

Email: regional@anppcan.org
Website: http://www.anppcan.org

Dr. Philista Onyango, Regional Director
Mrs. Wambui Njuguna, Director of Programs

Description

ANPPCAN is a pan-African child rights organization concerned with the status and protection of children. It was established in 1986 in Enugu, Nigeria, during the First African Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, which met to discuss child labor in Africa. ANPPCAN has a network of 21 national chapters throughout Africa, with each chapter addressing country-specific child rights violations. At continental level, ANPPCAN engages to address child trafficking, armed conflict and other issues. ANPPCAN has observer status with the African Union and African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. It is also registered as an international NGO and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. ANPPCAN works to accomplish its mission by:

• Providing a forum for the exchange of scientific information on the problems affecting children in Africa.
  
• Carrying out advocacy for children rights.
  
• Encouraging and assisting the creation of national organizations in every African country concerned with the promotion and defense of children rights.
  
• Promoting education as a basic right to children.
  
• Convening and participating in national, continental and international forums geared towards promotion of the rights of children.
  
• Conducting a situation analysis on the state and nature of child abuse and neglect in Africa and publishing the results periodically.
  
• Advising and assisting African governments and the African Union to take action and other means to improve the material and legal conditions of children in Africa.
  
• Offering advice and assistance to organizations working in the field of children rights, especially in prevention and protection against child abuse and neglect.
  
• Generating resources for research and action in the field of prevention and protection against child abuse and neglect.

Track Record

Since its establishment in 1986, ANPPCAN has registered a number of achievements at the national and continental level. Perhaps one of its most celebrated early achievements was the role it played in developing, lobbying and pushing for the ratification and adoption of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The idea of developing the Charter came from an ANPPCAN Conference on Children in Situations of Armed Conflict. It took on the role of not just helping the then OAU develop and rally governments and other organizations around the Charter, but lobbied the then OAU to include it as a priority agenda during the Ordinary Session of the assemblies of Heads of State and Government in 1990. The OAU also accepted recommendations for the establishment and organization of the Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child as well as creating the Day of the African Child that is celebrated on 16 June each year.

ANPPCAN has also played a leading role in the implementation and supporting continental policy, advocacy and social programs addressing child rights and child protection. Achievements in this domain have included creating a platform for addressing the key issues of children involved in armed conflict—which has yielded results across the continent including in Nigeria, Democratic Republic Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Chad.

ANPPCAN has spearheaded the formation of 21 ANPPCAN National Chapters and efforts are underway to initiate some in countries that do not have one. The intention is to develop a strong network with the capacity and the reach needed to respond to the needs of children across the continent. Establishing these context-specific chapters has aided in providing a better response to children issues, and had strengthened collaboration between ANPPCAN, Governments and national and international NGOs.

ANPPCAN’s child labor program provides appropriate development models for combating child labour in Kenya. As at the end of 2006, over 10,000 children had benefited from program interventions since 1997 and aimed at preventing children at risk of dropping out of school to join the worst forms of child labor while providing alternatives to those withdrawn from child labor. The program is currently responding to child workers in fourteen districts in Kenya, namely, Bondo, Busia, Homa-Bay, Kericho, Kiambu, Malindi, Makuyu-Maragwa, Mombasa, Muranga, Mumias-Butere, Nairobi, Siaya Suba and Teso. Other ANPPCAN Chapters have similar programs in their respective countries. The program strategy is predicated on communities taking the lead in the prevention of child labor and in withdrawing children from work.

Since 1997 ANPPCAN has been part of an international movement aimed at supporting over 280 million children worldwide who are forced to work for their survival. The Child Labour program, ANPPCAN’s oldest, has developed a number of tried and tested child protection strategies. The program’s strategy of working with affected schools in Income Generating Activities to support children under situations that would lead to neglect and school drop outs has been one of its most successful interventions, on a global scale. This achievement was recognized when the program was nominated for the Body Shop International Awards.

ANPPCAN played a critical role in the development of and advocacy for the adoption by African governments of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 182 and its accompanying recommendation 190 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. It has also promoted ratification of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. ANPPCAN’s goal of developing capacities of institutions and local communities to protect their own children has bee at the centre of its work, leading to the creation of local child labor committees and child help desks as sustainable community protection structures which also promote ownership. This good practice has been replicated by organizations implementing anti-child labor programs.

ANPPCAN has been instrumental in lobbying governments to ratify conventions on children while encouraging education of children through its slogan ‘Adults to Work and Children to School'. ANPPCAN has also lobbied governments to provide universal compulsory primary education.

Several studies have been carried out and disseminated via various ANPPCAN-convened conferences. Key among these was the Conference on Human Trafficking in Eastern and Horn of Africa, resulting in recognition of the need for increased networking, information sharing and in-depth research among organizations working to combat human trafficking. Others include A Situational Analysis of Sexual Exploitation of Children in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region; Awareness and Views Regarding Child Abuse and Child Rights in selected communities in Kenya (2000); a Study on Street Children in Kenya (1991) and a report on Children in Situations of Armed Conflict (1987). All these have contributed significantly to the available body of knowledge on children issues and formed the basis of programming needs in some areas.

Since 2001, ANPPCAN has partnered with Fredskorpset of Norway, which has provided support to the capacity building of its Chapters through an Exchange of Personnel program that builds the capacity of young people within ANPPCAN. More than 15 ANPPCAN Chapters have participated in a staff exchange program that has so far benefited 45 people. The program, in its fifth phase, provides the opportunity for staff members aged between 22 and 35 years to live and work in other African countries where ANPPCAN has offices to learn and share experiences. It is both a staff mentoring program which has led to identification, exchange and replication of experiences and best practices among the participating chapters. The program greatly improved the visibility of ANPPCAN in Africa, while issues that require regional interventions (such as children in armed conflict and child trafficking) have also been identified and regional forums convened to address them. This has in some cases led to development of regional programs such as the just-initiated Regional Program on Prevention of Child Trafficking.

ANPPCAN’s work in promoting the rights of children in Africa was recognized in 2004 when the organization received the 2004 Kellogg Child Development Award, one of the Hannah Neil World of Children International Awards whereby individuals and organizations are honored for making a difference in the lives of children. In 2006, the African Union crowned ANPPCAN the Children's Champion in Africa.

Challenges

ANPPCAN is heavily donor dependent, with many Chapters deriving up to 85 percent of their funding from external funders. While some chapters have built a strong financial base due to long-term programs, shifting donor interests, their funding cycles, focus and demands are perceived to have affected the creativity, innovation, duration and scalability of most programs. ANPPCAN’s Nairobi headquarters has seen a decline of 38.4 percent in its grants over the past three years due to similar donor shifts. In part, this trend is due the stated preference of many donors to fund country-specific projects and a general reluctance to support regional networks. Stronger Chapters have also found it difficult to scale up their interventions as donor funding is often specific, time-bound and sometimes based on indicators that may not fully address the root causes of child abuse and neglect.

ANPPCAN’s 2002-2006 Strategic Plan, the latest available, estimated an operational budget of nearly US$2 million for 3 years. Its main funders include World University Services UK, Misereor Germany, the ILO’s International Program on Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), the Bernard van Leer Foundation, OXFAM UK & Ireland, Caritas Neerlandica, International Development Research centre (IDRC), UNICEF, UK Government and Christian Aid. Past supporters have included the Government of the Netherlands, European Union, Children at Risk (Netherlands), Stichting Kinderpostgeles Nederland, and the Ford Foundation.

Staffing constitutes a second challenge. Institutionally, the Regional Office and the majority of Chapters have been severely weakened by project funding that is not only short term, but ties recruitment, motivation and retention of staff to specific levels and projects. In the Regional Office this has led to an inability to recruit and retain technical and professional international staff capable of overseeing and providing support across the continent. In Zambia and Tanzania, for example, the Chapters are almost entirely dependent on small grants from the Exchange Program, since existing project funding is not configured to build institutional capacity. Stronger Chapters such as Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia also face challenges of staff retention, particularly in relation to administrative staff and those recruited against short term projects.

A third challenge is the inability to transition projects. Many projects are initially supported either on a pilot basis or in phases. While this is intended to safeguard the quality of outcome, in many cases the phases are never completed and the scale up resources needed are not made available.

Opportunities

Aside from previous support from the Ford Foundation, ANPPCAN has not as yet been able to attract support from private foundations, which could be instrumental in helping reconfigure and strengthen its network of national chapters, building sustainable institutional capacity and ensuring longer-term and more predictable support. Indeed, the involvement of foundations could be pivotal in ensuring the future of an organization that is addressing issues of critical importance to Africa’s future that are not attracting sufficient attention from national governments or intergovernmental organizations.