2021 Highlights

Terre des Hommes co-chairs the Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts (the Initiative). In 2021, we continued to work as a coalition to advocate for children to be prioritised as the global compacts for migration and refugees are put into practice.
  • In January 2021, we organised a virtual, interactive roundtable about making the Global Compact on Refugees work for children. The event was open to the public and more than 270 people participated, including many government representatives.
  • We communicated key messages from the virtual interactive roundtable event on children throughout the year and in the lead up to the High-Level Official’s Meeting for the review of the Global Compact on Refugees. We published updated guidance A Practical Guide: Protecting and Supporting Children through the Global Compact on Refugees, advocacy towards UN Member States. This provides concrete and up-to-date advice to governments and other stakeholders, showing how to truly put children at the heart of implementing the Global Compact on Refugees.
  • We published a mapping in West Africa of policies and practices insofar as they relate to the Global Compact for Migration with a focus on Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Gambia. It was launched during an interactive virtual workshop with governments, civil society, youth and other stakeholders and outlines the current situation and offers recommendations to governments and the region about good practices to build upon and how the migration compact can be implemented.
  • In East Africa and Asia we organised similar virtual workshops with governments, civil society, youth and other stakeholders to raise the importance of focusing more on children through the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration in advance of the Africa Regional Review Forum.