Community engagement to strengthen social cohesion and child protection in Chad and Burundi: “Bottom Up” participatory monitoring, planning and action

The two year (2014-2016) Child Protection Social Cohesion initiative draws on both existing literature and in-country fieldwork experience supported by UNICEF, government and local partners. These agencies have been collaborating for a number of years on child protection systems strengthening in conflict affected communities, and had decided to strengthen programmatic linkages between child protection and social cohesion.

The researchers' activities explicitly sought to consolidate baseline information on social cohesion, identifying relevant child protection stakeholders and drivers of conflict. The program also attempted to understand local perceptions on structures and processes contributing to (or hindering) social cohesion and peacebuilding at the community level. It also identified the structural factors that provide the broader context in which social cohesion and child protection efforts take place. Finally the project aimed to implement a monitoring, planning and action strategy to reinforce formal and non-formal protection systems.

Child centred, participatory action research (PAR) and narrative, ethnographic research methods and local monitoring, planning and action using Outcome Mapping (Early, Carden, Smutylo, 2001) and IICRD’s Reflective Action tools, were combined over the two years of the project cycle. The combination of these was designed to leverage local knowledge on the development of, and the actors involved in the creation of social cohesion at the community level was implemented.