Beyond the Buzzword: Building effective government–civil society partnerships to prevent violence against children
Presented By:
The first Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Bogotá marked an important milestone in building global political commitment to prevention of violence against children. As attention turns to Manila 2026, there is growing recognition that scaling evidence-informed interventions depends on investment as well as strong multi-sectoral collaboration between governments, civil society, donors and multilateral agencies. Yet partnerships are often treated as a buzzword rather than the hard, long-term work that enables resourcing, implementation, coordination and accountability.
Grounded in the experience of Civil Society Organisation (CSO)-government partnerships in the Global South, the session will move beyond theory to demonstrate how these partnerships influence investment, implementation, policy uptake, and the scaling of evidence-informed interventions to prevent violence against children.
Expected session outcomes:
- A shared understanding of why effective government–civil society partnerships are essential for scaling-up efforts to prevent violence against children
- A set of emerging lessons that can inform CSO-government partnerships and preparations for the 2026 Ministerial Conference in Manila.
- Participants will leave with connections and a deeper understanding of each other’s violence prevention efforts.
What child protection challenge(s) does the session address:
- Limited multisectoral coordination: Despite growing global commitments, many countries still struggle to translate political will into coordinated, well-resourced action across government, civil society, and other development partners. Even when effective interventions exist, they are often not implemented at scale due to gaps in resourcing, institutional alignment, and sustained collaboration.
- Relational barriers: The session will speak to the persistent challenge of trust deficits between government and civil society, which can undermine partnership effectiveness and weaken implementation and accountability.
- Gaps between global commitments and local action: delivering on commitments, such as those emerging from the Bogotá Ministerial Conference, depends on getting multisectoral coordination right, and that is often where obstacles and barriers arise.
Speakers
Gugu Xaba, CEO, Save the Children South Africa
Prossy Jonker Nakanjako, Co-Director, VAC Prevention Team, Raising Voices
Velisubuhle Buti, Director, National Treasury, South Africa
Senzekile Bengu, Researcher, Institute for Security Studies
Jody van der Heyde, Researcher, Institute for Security Studies
Carmen Abdoll, Senior Researcher, Cornerstone Economic Research
Session Aims
- To elevate the importance of healthy and effective government-civil society partnerships in scaling evidence-informed interventions to prevent violence against children.
- To learn from practical experiences of multi-sectoral collaboration in the Global South, both successes and failures, that shape partnership effectiveness.
- Identify enablers and barriers, structural and relational, to scaling evidence-informed interventions to prevent violence against children, in preparation for the 2026 Ministerial Conference in Manila.
Session Format
This workshop will demonstrate the interactive VPF dialogical methodology, which prioritises active listening, building empathy, and collective sense-making. Participants will sit in a circle, share knowledge, and engage in a reflective conversation on the challenges that stand in the way of multisectoral collaboration, with limited PowerPoint presentations.
The flow will be as follows:
- 10 minutes of framing by the speakers.
- 20 minutes discussion unpacking experiences on multisectoral collaboration, reflecting on the questions above.
- 20 minutes report back and collective sensemaking
- 10 minutes for summaries and closing.
Participants will leave with deeper insights into the current challenges governments and civil society face that hinder collaboration, as well as ideas for overcoming them. They will also leave having experienced how workshop dialogue can be done differently and will have a clear understanding of the role that CSOs play in supporting states in scaling interventions to prevent VAC.