The Care and Protection of Children in Crisis-Affected Countries (CPC) Learning Network seeks to strengthen and systematize child care and protection through the collaborative action of humanitarian organizations, local institutions, and academic partners. Further, the CPC Learning Network aims to inform practice and policy though the use of evidence-based findings.
In the year and half since its establishment in partnership with number of international and local NGOs, academic institutions, government agencies, and allied networks, the CPC Learning Network has built a cadre of child protection practitioners through its Global Technical Groups and Program Learning Groups, and through events like the Child Protection Action Summit.
The Global Technical Group on Livelihoods and Economic Strengthening is comprised of key members of the CYES Network, and links members of the CPC Learning Network to vital livelihoods expertise.
Some specific goals of the Learning Network are:
- Develop community protection program knowledge. Promote an organized, evidence-based process for examining NGO experience and generating global standards, strategies and practices to guide child care and protection programs.
- Foster organizational collaboration. Facilitate open, inclusive partnerships and collaboration at the global, regional, national and local levels to promote effective, scalable, community-focused care and protection programs.
- Promote effective programming and policies. Identify and disseminate NGO-tested innovations and local experiences to inform program models, and hence influence national, regional and global policy dialogues affecting children and their developmental outcomes in crisis-affected settings.
Please visit the CPC Learning Network at www.cpclearningnetwork.org
Further, you can get in touch with the CPC Learning Network Secretariat, which is seated at Columbia University, through Paul Kellner at pjk2119@columbia.edu or by calling (212) 342-5158.
Jason Wolfe (USAID) and Radha Rajkotia (IRC) are researching and writing an “open paper” aimed at outlining how the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the Value Chain Approach can be used to improve the lives of youth affected by conflict. The open paper approach welcomes community input and feedback throughout the writing process – click here for more information. This post outlines the goals and structure of the paper.
Having decided to write about how sustainable livelihoods approaches and value chain approaches can be integrated for youth in conflict, we are left with a tough and intimidating question - how can sustainable livelihoods approaches and value chains be integrated for youth in conflict? In our discussions about this issue we have thought about the relative merits of each of the approaches individually, and debated whether integration of the two approaches should even be our goal if our ultimate aim is to better serve the economic needs of youth in conflict.
In the end, it seems that the best way to sort through this conundrum is to roll up our sleeves and muddle through it. As we said in our initial posting, we are hoping that the process of writing this paper by engaging with colleagues and interested onlookers will help contribute to a collective resolution of these difficult issues. We want to have voices of the youth development workers and the die-hard economists coming together, if not to make harmony, then at least to make for a productive discussion.
So, below you will find the outline of the paper. It is a basic structure, but one that we hope will allow us to delve into the thick of the issues that we are trying to understand. What is hugely important to us is that we don’t duplicate existing efforts, but instead connect the dots between disparate writing that has already been produced. We want to be thorough and we want to be critical. We want to be able to question what we think we know and also hold our hands up about what we don’t. We want to avoid jargon, but also be thoughtful about the meanings that we commonly attach to the words that we use. Most of all though, we want to move our thinking forward so that we can design and implement better programs and really move towards our development goals.
As always, we welcome comment and response from you and will be happy to hear if you have opinions on this endeavor or suggestions on how to approach it. We also welcome suggestions on existing resources that will help inform this writing project, so please feel free to share them with us.
- Radha & Jason
Open Paper Outline
Section 1: Introduction
This section will serve as the foundation for the paper, providing an overview of each of the development approaches, an historical perspective on their application and an overview of where they sit in relation to other prominent economic strengthening approaches. Given that this is the first section of the paper, it is likely that amendments will be made to it once all of the sections have been completed.
Section 2: What do we know about economic strengthening initiatives for youth in conflict-affected settings?
This section will draw out defining characteristics of both youth and conflict-affected environments so that we can look at generally recognized truths and frequent assumptions or unproven hypotheses as they relate to economic strengthening initiatives. We will look at common development objectives for economic strengthening programs for youth in conflict and will set the objectives that we will aim to use as parameters for our discussion through the remainder of the paper.
Section 3: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach and Value Chains Approach in relation to youth.
Section 4: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach and Value Chains Approach in relation to conflict
These sections look discretely at each of the approaches in relation to youth and conflict, examining in turn what works well and not well for each; what they each emphasize in terms of programming content; and what each of them suggests as important or unimportant in terms of their application. We will aim to ensure that each of these approaches is looked at both individually and in comparison to the other so that we may steadily build up our understanding of the connections or gaps between the two.
Section 5: Livelihoods and Markets for Youth in Conflict
The final section aims to pose recommendations for how programs may concretely draw from the two approaches to design and implement more effective economic strengthening programs for youth in conflict. The underlying assumption for this closing section is that integration of the two approaches is both possible and more effective than using one or the other.
Click here to read previous posts in this series.
Radha Rajkotia (IRC) and Jason Wolfe (USAID/MD) announce the launch of an open paper on economic strengthening approaches for youth in conflict, and invite you to participate in creating it.
A few months ago, we gave a joint presentation to the Washington Network on Children in Armed Conflict to examine the relative merits of applying sustainable livelihoods and value chain approaches to the needs of unemployed youth in conflict-affected environments. We found the discussion and interaction fascinating, and others seemed to be interested in both what we had to say as well as the questions we thought remained to be answered. In the afterglow of this event, the CYES folks somehow talked us into taking our collaboration forward and writing a paper exploring economic approaches for youth in conflict.
Well, once the excitement wore off, we realized we were going to need a lot of help if our paper was going to be accurate, relevant, and useful. We found our dialogue on this topic and the discussion we were able to have with others almost more valuable than any new conclusions we finally agreed to. Short of publicly locking ourselves in a bubble, how could we maintain this kind of transparency and interaction with the audience while writing a paper?
We didn’t have to look far for inspiration. David Roodman of the Center for Global Development recently launched his “open book blog” as an experiment in writing his new book on microfinance. As David noted, “Some books are written by experts wanting to share their expertise. In contrast, I am writing this book in order to become an expert. Writing it is a voyage of discovery.” We couldn’t agree more with our humble task at hand and are in great debt to him for demonstrating how to use this new medium.
So how will this work? We’ll be experimenting with this as we go, but here are the basics. The paper will consist of five main sections, focusing on economic strengthening for youth in conflict. Over the next 12 months, we will periodically upload section drafts in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) formats as a main post in the blog, so that you can comment on the drafts by commenting on these posts. We’ve set up a home page for this project that you can always refer to in order to see all posts. You can also search for or click on the tags for “open paper” to get this information. We will make periodic posts along the way to share our thinking, point out new resources or ideas we’ve found, or ask for your own insights, expertise, and experiences. We sincerely hope you’ll take the opportunity, help point us in the right direction and keep us honest.
In our next post we’ll share our plans for the structure of the open paper, so please be sure to check in again soon. In the meantime, please let us know what you think of this whole initiative and any potential pitfalls we should try to avoid!
- Radha & Jason
Click here for the next post in the Open Paper series.
