Child Rights Monitoring System
The evaluation findings are evidence based to the largest extent possible; to enable programme partners to use the findings on the basis of lessons learned to influence decision-making and evidence-based policy formulation. The evidence and recommendations provided by the evaluation are developed for improving UNICEF’s organizational accountability, policy and management decisions, and technical guidance. The findings of the evaluation may also be used to inform and fine-tune the new UNICEF Programme document 2016-2020 and annual Work Plans, particularly where it comes to continuation of support to the Kosovo Institutions in further refining monitoring and reporting framework on children’s rights.
Ensure that the Country Office and national partners have timely and accurate measurement of change in the conditions of disadvantaged and excluded children in the country or region, including monitoring of socio-economic trends and the country's wider policy, economic or institutional context, to facilitate planning and to draw conclusions about the impact of programmes or policies on equity for children.
Strengthen monitoring and evaluation capacities of national, regional and local partners, from the government, the parliament and civil society as well as the independent child rights institutions and mechanisms are enhanced and that stakeholders have at their disposal disaggregated evidence to influence, develop, implement, monitor and evaluate international commitments, national, regional and local policies, allocations of resources and programme implementation models, focusing on child- related disparities and inequities.
Reports to the Committee on the situation of children's rights in their country are submitted by the State within two years of ratification and every five years thereafter. The Committee has adopted guidelines detailing which information States are expected to give in their implementation reports for the Convention and each of the Optional Protocols.
Ensures that UNICEF-supported evaluations (such as joint evaluations of public policies and programmes or impact evaluations of pilots) are strategically selected and conducted in accordance with UN quality standards. Ensures that the results of these evaluations are disseminated in a timely fashion to internal and external stakeholders to inform public programme design and performance and contribute to national and corporate learning.
Ensure that UNICEF contributes to national, regional and international learning on child rights by sharing knowledge, good practices and lessons and by supporting national partners and civil society to share the same with other countries.
UNICEF has contributed to improving the new and fragmented legislative environment of Kosovo by ensuring the incorporation of a child rights’ perspective. The combination of knowledge management, capacity building and advocacy has led to a larger accountability among some of the Kosovo Institutions. Still, only a small part of the public funds is spent to ensure children’s rights are observed and inequity remains an issue. Though the development of the SNAPC and its monitoring framework meant a big step forward, the link to action including budget allocation needs strengthening. UNICEF’s support to MICS was highly successful and MICS has been named a data revolution; it is less sure though, whether such an exercise can be done without UNICEF being present. The support of UNICEF was found relevant with regard to needs of children, the existence (or lack thereof) of Kosovo policies, strategies and frameworks, and UNICEF policies and strategies. Knowledge generation was started by UNICEF itself and slowly moved to supporting others to do it; UNICEF initialised capacity building at the very low level within existing systems and institutions, which helped them to slowly start transitioning to European standards. The consequences of decentralisation still hamper reaching full accountability for CRM among Kosovo Institutions, which is aggravated by inadequate coordination and communication. UNICEF is a relatively small player, but has managed to achieve some remarkable impacts, including better social assistance for vulnerable children, an improvement in the situation of repatriated children and an improvement in advocacy and (current and future) decision-making based on data made available by MICS. Working at the heart of the Kosovo Institutions at central level contributes positively to sustainability; at the local level though, this is hampered because of constraints to possible scale up. As for Inter-ministerial bodies, though their existence is essential.