Including Children and Adolescents in Progress for the SDGs: Understanding and Addressing Exclusion among Poor Children

The New School & UNDP Headquarters, New York, 11-12 October 2018

International workshop organised by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty - CROP (ISSC/UiB), Equity for Children / The New School and SOS Children’s Villages. Supported by UNICEF, Save the Children, UNDP, the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty and ChildFund Alliance

Poverty and social exclusion affect children and adolescents in different ways than they do adults. The purpose of the conference is to make a concrete contribution, within the context of the SDGs, to understanding, defining, measuring, and addressing social inclusion among girls and boys living in poverty, in particular relation to:
• Target 10.2 (“… promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all …)
• Target 11.3 (“… enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement …”)
• Target 11.7 (“… provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children …”)
• Target 16.2: (“end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture against children”)

The organisers are especially interested in investigating how knowledge, information, data collection, measurement and monitoring can support strategies and innovations to prevent and effectively address the main drivers of poverty, exclusion and violence against children and adolescents. There will be a particular focus on gathering information about “invisible children”, who are not covered or counted in standard surveys. An effort will be made to conceptualise the issues in different social contexts, explain them in causal terms, and find feasible solutions within the timeframe of the SDGs’ targets to the problems that affect the realization of the rights of an unacceptable number of children globally, including in (mega) cities.

An important task will be to explain the meaning of “inclusion” within the context of the SDGs and to discuss how it could be better defined and measured, in order to evaluate the progress being made towards achieving the targets. In order to Leave No One Behind, the output of this workshop will contribute towards the development of systems for monitoring, participation, accountability and “early warning”, where little or no progress is being made.
The workshop will be held in English, and selected participants will engage actively in presentations and discussions of all the papers. After the workshop, participants should be willing to work on their paper with a view to publication. Participants are responsible for their own travel expenses and insurance. A limited number of travel grants will be available.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: 1 June 2018
The abstract must not exceed 500 words (one page) and must include: the title of the proposed paper, a presentation of the subject, the central argument, the main research questions and/or hypotheses, and key references. A CV no longer than one page must also be submitted, clearly indicating the applicant’s name, title, nationality and contact information, as well as a list of recent publications.

The abstract and CV must be submitted electronically to the CROP Secretariat at the University of Bergen using the following link: https://bit.ly/2GPFKLN

The Academic Selection Committee will notify accepted participants of their selection by 22 June 2018 with guidelines for the format of the final paper to be submitted by 14 September 2018.