Putting child rights and participatory monitoring and evaluation with children into practice: some examples in Indonesia, Nepal South Africa, and the U.K.

This paper presents a range of initiatives the authors are involved in within the field of children's rights and participation. It begins by defining the rights based approach and needs based approach to development and goes on to give details of three projects. The first project is PLAN International Indonesia's training and capacity strengthening for its field staff aimed at promoting a shift towards addressing child rights in its programmes and projects. The paper outlines the tangible benefits for the children and the impact on their lives, for example in family relationships.|The second project is a DFID Innovations Fund research one looking at the ways in which the impacts of development projects on children are addressed in monitoring and evaluation systems, with pilot projects in Nepal and South Africa. It discusses the use of organisational mapping in both these pilot projects and the findings to come out of them|The final case study is about the monitoring and evaluation of the Saying Power Scheme in the UK. Rather than happening at the end of the projects, the monitoring and evaluation process runs parallel to it. The article describes the confidence lines and ôHö method used and concludes with challenges the projects faced