Underlining our commitment to children and young people, wherever they live - Main contents

July is the European Year for Development month for children and young people

Last week, a Conference on the future of financing sustainable development goals took place in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. This Conference - which I am glad was very successful - was one of several key development events that will take place this year: 2015, the European Year for Development, a historic year, and one which will see us defining international development for the next 15 years.

Our children and young people are those that will be most affected by the decisions we make this year, and who in 15 years' time, will be the ones who will set the future direction of development. That's why, during the entire post-2015 development agenda setting and negotiations, we must ensure that children and youth are taken into account in the decisions we make.

I think we can all agree that over the next 15 years, we want to leave them the best possible world. That's why, in the month dedicated to children and youth, I'd like to underline our view that children are central for development. They are great drivers for change in society. Investing in them is critical to breaking the inter-generational cycle of poverty. And for this, the European Commission is investing at least €100 million directly on children's well-being in the next years (2015-2020), in addition to supporting the basic services which affect children, such as education, health, nutrition, water and social protection.

To ensure the well-being of children, the European Commission has fixed three leading priorities: supporting children's access to an identity as a child's first right (for example, making sure that children are registered when they are born); fighting against traditional harmful practices (such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and persecutions based on traditional beliefs); and protecting them from all forms of violence, physical and mental, that can take place in the family, the school or the streets.

In order to further improve our strategies and the implementation of our programmes, we are conducting an external evaluation on the implementation by the EU of the 2007 guidelines for the protection and promotion of the rights of the child (covering the period 2008-2013, with the final report expected in August). I am happy to share with you some first findings. From 2008 to 2013, more than 75% of budget support in the 12 countries visited was relevant to children’s needs and rights. Of all EU support to third countries, 2,427 EU projects have been identified as directly relevant to child rights. This means an amount of €4,414 million, within which 73% of the funds was focussed on health, nutrition, water and education, and 25% earmarked for protection and participation.

Since 2005, when the European Union included “the promotion of child rights” in the European Consensus on Development, to 2014 when the EU UNICEF Child rights toolkit, a practical guide for integrating child rights in development cooperation, was released, the European Union has been a major player in protecting and promoting children and the young, and will continue to be going forward.