How Children and Young People Influence Policy‐Makers: Lessons from Nicaragua

Abstract

This article describes a participatory research project, which explored four case studies of children and young people's successful political advocacy in Nicaragua. The analysis combined a human rights‐based approach and a human development approach, and included concepts of multiple settings and levels, interrelated participation spaces, children and young people's citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, democracy, advocacy and empowerment. The main problems faced by children and young people seeking to influence policy‐makers were identified as adultism, dependency and lack of accountability. The research identified pre‐conditions, participation spaces and ways of organising for effective advocacy, and facilitation methods that had proved effective. It concludes that children and young people who achieve effective advocacy are generally self‐empowered, but can count on effective adult support and facilitation. They work through coordination with the authorities and not by clashing with them, but need to ensure effective follow up if they want politicians to keep their promises.

Promoting participation at a time of social and political turmoil: what is the impact of children’s and young people’s city councils?

“…Halsey, Murfield, Harland, and Lord (2006) emphasise the connection with social, personal and emotional as well as civic competence. Shier, Méndez, Centeno, Arróliga, and González (2014) suggest that students learn to work together, plan and organise. The work of Fleming (2013) is also relevant in that he suggests that councillors do not in practice always encourage young people's participation in local authority structures despite official rhetoric to the contrary.…”

Consultations with Children and Young People and Their Impact on Policy in Ireland

“…Various patterns of children's participation are evident in public policymaking with Shier et al (2014) outlining that, in the case of children and young people influencing public policy, 'influence' occurs in many ways, such as:…”

“…In this regard, Nir and Perry-Hazan (2016) refer to 'framed participation' which grants children decision-making power, but constrains this power to within confined boundaries where adults determine the scope of participation. This requires us to question who controls the space, who sets the agenda, who decides who to invite, who con-trols the resources and above all, who decides what children and young people are allowed to do and what is prohibited (Shier et al, 2014). Further related to power issues, adultism or discrimination based on stereotype has been well documented in descriptions of participatory initiatives with children (Sinclair, 2004).…”

“…Exclusion of children who come from disempowered or minority families, younger children, those less academically and socially successful, and 'ordinary children' (Collins, Augsberger, & Gecker, 2016;Nairn, Sligo, & Freeman, 2006;Perry-Hazan, 2016) is another potential problem with participatory initiatives. Other barriers include institutional and procedural constraints (Adu-Gyamfi, 2013;Faulkner, 2009); and difficulty in guaranteeing the accountability of the participation process (Shier et al, 2014). Finally, Cele and van der Burgt (2015), discussing children's participation in physical planning in Sweden, point out that participants in their study comprising local planners, landscape architects, and researchers equated participation with consultation projects, but, few knew how to actually integrate the results of these methods into planning practice.…”

“…Assessing the impact of children's participation, then, is an important step in including children in the policy conversation. Yet, the field of participatory policymaking is marked by a lack of evaluation, effective monitoring and follow-up on the impact of children's views on decisions (Shier et al, 2014).…”