Programme Interagence pour l'amélioration des conditions des enfants à risque au Sénégal

36.7% of children aged 5-17 (over 1,378,000 children) are working in Senegal. Child labour is common in all of Senegal’s ten regions and in both urban and rural areas. The project will supply strategically focused support to the target rural communities and other partners in their efforts to develop and implement an Area Based Approach (ABA) to eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL). By the end of the project, the target rural communities will have in place effective frameworks for the elimination of the WFCL designed with the participation and consensus of key stakeholders. These frameworks will be compared and analyzed at the end of the project, and its good practices and lessons learned will be shared at national level for possible replication. The project will contribute to mainstreaming the elimination of child labour with the National Program for Local Development and the national strategic framework for poverty reduction such as PRSP (Porverty Reduction Strategy Papers). It will facilitate the acquisition of the necessary human and financial resources for the nation-wide fight against the WFCL by forming strong linkages with local community based development programs and other interventions for poverty reduction, in particular actions that aim to improve education and pre-vocational training opportunities for children at risk. With the project’s support through ABA, at least 3,000 children of target rural communities will be withdrawn or prevented from the WFCL. These children will be enrolled in the formal/informal education system, the pre-vocational training centers, or will be provided with services such as information on the risks associated with child labour, school kits, health and counseling services, school lunch, recreation activities and supplementary lessons. The project will likewise expand opportunities for at least 300 rural families who rely on their children to meet their subsistence needs. In addition, at least 1,000 begging children in the Koranic schools in the target zone will benefit from the interventions planned by the project. They will be provided with services such as school lunch, health care, informal education and pre-vocational training. The awareness raising activities planned in the target region will sensitize community members to the negative consequences of the WFCL, and providing information on means of fighting it will reinforce the effectiveness of direct actions implemented by the project. The birth registration activities also planned by the project will directly benefit children emerging from social exclusion and vulnerable situations by enabling them to receive basic social services such as health care and education. The project also aims to develop collaboration among two UN agencies based on their comparative advantages. UNICEF’s expertise in advocacy, social mobilization and life skills education, and the ILO’s expertise on labour issues, especially child labour, capacity building and community based interventions correspond with the criteria of UNTFHS which promotes inter-agency integration. Cooperation between these agencies, that each has a large capacity and extensive experience in fighting against the exploitation of children, will reinforce the national movement against Child Labour problems.

Project symbol

SEN/07/02/HSF

Admin unit

DWT/CO-Dakar

Start date

01/03/2009

End date

31/03/2014

Total allocation

1783589

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

1783589

Development Partners

United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security

Country/Countries

Senegal

Outcomes

Child Labour