Governments working on policy changes can be part of an educational forum to learn from one another, connect to ideas, tools and resources across practice and data to transform child protection systems.
Bring together policymakers, practitioners, researchers, survivors and youth leaders at the annual flagship ISPCAN International Congress to co-create solutions and exchange best practices.
Promote the development and implementation of effective, evidence-based child protection policies grounded in public health principles at local, national, and global levels.
Encourage alignment of data and research with practical applications to inform shareable data-driven solutions and enhance accountability.
Develop context-specific, scalable strategies that address regional challenges and support sustainable, community-led change.
Optimize use of resources and cross-sector collaboration to assist governments in child protection prevention and response.
The ISPCAN Rise Up Policy Forum aims to help countries improve the foundations of child protection by advancing the six pillars of a public health and system-strengthening approach to preventing child abuse and neglect. Together these pillars form the basis of a strong child protection system.
Governments have legal and moral obligations to protect children, yet child abuse and neglect remain widespread and prevention and response systems persistently underfunded.
One reason for this under-investment is that the costs of inaction are often less visible than the immediate costs of child protection services. Those wider costs are spread across children and families, health and education systems, social welfare and justice services, labour markets, public revenues and future generations.
An investment case makes these consequences visible by bringing together evidence on the scale of child abuse and neglect, the costs of inaction, a credible solution, the resources required and the benefits of investment. This brief explains how investment cases are developed and used to inform policy, advocacy, planning and budgeting, and introduces two new ISPCAN tools for generating indicative estimates of the economic costs of child abuse and neglect and the potential benefits of prevention.
Global estimates place the economic cost of violence against children at more than $7 trillion — over 8% of global GDP.
Of 155 countries surveyed, 80% had a national action plan to prevent violence against children — but fewer than one in four had fully funded it.
The value of an investment case lies in the coherence of the complete argument: the proposed solution must respond to the problem identified, its cost must reflect a realistic implementation plan, and estimates of impact must be grounded in credible evidence.
What forms of child abuse and neglect persist, who is most affected, and where are the principal service or system gaps?
What are the human, social, fiscal and economic consequences of failing to act?
What evidence-informed interventions, services and system reforms are required?
What resources are required, over what period, and how affordable is the proposed investment?
What harm could be prevented, what public costs avoided, and what gains in health, education, human capital and wellbeing achieved?
“For less than 1% of the total budget, government can address a problem that affects 4.1 million children and is costing Zambia 9.12% of GDP.”
The final advocacy message from the investment case for strengthening Zambia’s child protection social service workforce — one of the case studies in the brief.
Create a community of learning, sharing and networking
Make child protection a winnable battle for all governments
ISPCAN’s second international Rise Up Policy Forum landed in Melbourne on 27 August 2026, a year on from its bold launch at the 2025 ISPCAN Congress in Vilnius, Lithuania. This time, 350 multisectoral experts — including 69 government delegates, alongside researchers, practitioners, survivors, youth and activists, funders, NGOs and faith leaders from 40 countries — came together for a single, intensive day of exchange.
In the opening plenary, ISPCAN CEO Pragathi Tummala argued that child protection is a “winnable battle” if it shifts from fragmented, reactive responses to a financed, coordinated, prevention-oriented public health system.
Sustainable funding was a priority theme, with four dedicated sessions and the launch of a policy brief, advocacy kit and two new ISPCAN ‘plug-and-play’ tools to help governments build the investment case for prevention.
Spotlight provocations from government, police, faith, funder and research perspectives — from Finland’s Marjo Malja questioning whether “we really want algorithms raising our children,” to INTERPOL’s Mark Beavan naming child protection’s “connection problem” over its knowledge problem, to World Vision’s call to work through faith networks rather than around them.
Across 25 Mastermind sessions built around six public health system-strengthening pillars, participants discussed country case studies, scaled upstream prevention, sustaining child protection during retrenchment, multisectoral coordination, care reform, scaling parenting interventions, the beliefs underpinning child protection systems and so much more.
Participants valued the candid cross-jurisdiction discussion and the connections between government officials.
We hope you will join us in shaping a more coordinated and sustainable future for child protection financing with honest dialogue. As child protection continues to evolve as a global priority, we recognize that sustainable progress depends not only on effective policies, research, and practice, but also on strategic, coordinated, and long-term investment.
During the early development of the Rise Up Policy Forum initiative, funders were identified as an essential pillar of the child protection ecosystem. As the initiative moves from concept to implementation and focuses increasingly on strengthening national child protection systems, there is a unique opportunity to bring together funding and development partners to discuss how investment strategies can better support long-term, sustainable change. Building resilient systems focused more on prevention is the goal.
This roundtable is intended to provide a trusted and informal space for open dialogue among funders. Our hope is that the discussion will explore broader questions around how funding can better support country-led child protection system strengthening to effectively enable sustainable impact. We invite you to share perspectives on emerging priorities, identify common challenges, and explore opportunities for greater coordination across the global child protection landscape.
Please use this online form: Registration of Interest to let us know if you want to be part of this brainstorming conversation. We invite you to also participate in the Rise Up Policy Forum and ISPCAN Congress to contribute to the solutions think tank we are building with research, practice and policy built around systems strengthening in real world scenarios. We plan to host a closed forum, by invitation only for Funders to share the challenges and opportunities that will convene in person at each ISPCAN Congress.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children
UNICEF for every child
World Health Organization
HGFD
ECPAT International - End Child Exploitation
International Association of Family Support Networks
International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC)
Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
SOS Children's Villages International
The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action
To-Zero
Together for girls
World Vision
The INSPIRE Working Group
Save the Children
The Government of Lithuania
Parenting for Lifelong Health
ECDAN
National Commission for the Promotion of the Rights and the Protection of Children and Young People, Portugal
Kids First Australia
International Rescue Committee
Somali Federal Republic Ministry of Family and Human Rights Development
Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, Australia
National Council for Family Affairs, Jordan
Impact Initiative
Victoria State Government
Safe Futures Hub
Violence, Evidence, Guidance, Action (VEGA) Project, McMaster University
Ministry of Health, Namibia
Public Health Wales
National Council on the Administration of Justice, Republic of Kenya
Down to Zero
Australian Childhood Foundation
Department of Special Investigation, Thailand
Dubai Police
Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, Govt of Uganda
“Safety and security don’t just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.”
-Nelson Mandela, First Black South African President + Civil Rights Activist
