Objective: To support humanitarian decision makers to better understand why accountability to children and young people is not optional but essential for principled, accountable and high-quality humanitarian action and how to ensure children and young people are meaningfully included.

Description: The focus of the session would be to raise awareness on what accountability means to children and young people, why under-funding impacts on their education, health, protection and participation, and a call to action for change and a seat at the decision-making table.

The session will reveal findings from a multi-agency and multi-sectoral study. The study analysed 24 published consultations held with children, adolescents and youth in humanitarian settings between 2020 and 2024, together with data from Humanitarian Needs Overviews/Response Plans and the Financial Tracking Service, to determine the degree of alignment between what they prioritise and what is delivered by the humanitarian eco-system.

This was complemented by primary data collection with children and young people in 4 countries (Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, Ukraine) exploring the impact of this (mis-) alignment on children, adolescents and youth, their recommendations for improvement, and how they would like to participate ethically and meaningfully in further humanitarian eco-system decision making.

The study revealed clear trends in the humanitarian needs and priorities voiced by children, adolescents and youth globally, reflecting gender- and age-specific needs related to education, child protection, food security, participation, among others.

The session will also include:

• Results from a sector neutral assessment that was held in Ethiopia by the Education Cluster and CP AoR in-country, which demonstrates how child-focused clusters are filling gaps by consulting with children in ways that illuminate their priorities and provide useful info for other clusters.
• A piece of strategic work that the Ukraine Education Cluster did with their children's SAG around children's priorities.
  See analytical note written by the children.
• Results from a newly updated meta-analysis of children's consultations from 10 JENAs from 2022-25, across three themes: barriers to education, safety in school and on the way to school, and teachers, with critical findings from the teachers analysis and the prevalence of corporal punishment.

In addition to a presentation of the findings, the session will provide illustrative examples of impacts of underfunding, and testimonials from children and young people. There will be discussions on child and youth participation in needs assessments and strong examples
of consultations. The session may include a live polling on accountability challenges, visuals showing sectoral funding gaps, and short artistic contributions from children and young people- poems, drawings, spoken word- on how humanitarian systems
should change.

The expected outcome of the session will be better informed decision makers on why accountability to children and young people is critical and how humanitarian actors can systematically integrate children’s and young people’s voices into decision-making.

The key messages for the event are:

• Children and young people tell us what they need. Response plans reflect some of what they said. Funding
  reflects none of it.
• Without sex and age-disaggregated data in response plans, sector reform commitments to "shift power to affected populations" leave the most vulnerable invisible and unprotected.
• Children's and young people’s needs are intersectoral—protection through education, livelihoods preventing exploitation—yet funding silos prevent the integrated responses sector reform demands.