Abstract: Investment cases serve to support rights-based arguments on child protection by demonstrating the pervasive burdens of child abuse and neglect, estimating the significant economic costs of inaction, and promoting prevention as a strategic investment with large positive returns. This session will introduce the investment case approach and provide an overview of its application and current evidence, using country case-study examples. The session will then do a deeper dive into key elements of the investment case by presenting two high level models: one which demonstrates the economic costs associated with child abuse and neglect when observed through a human capital lens; and a second which highlights the human capital returns that potentially accrue from investment in prevention. ISPCAN has worked with Cornerstone to develop 2 innovative new tools to help us make the finance case (the cost of inaction and the return on investment) to drive political will. ISPCAN has gone further to develop an advocacy toolkit that is allows anyone to start to build political will across sectors. While this will not replace a full investment case study for a nation, these pilot tools aim to bring forward the need to prioritize this issue, and to give anyone from any resource environment a way to begin to make the case.
Presentation: Building the investment case for ending violence against children: An overview, case study examples, and introduction to two new ISPCAN tools (quickly estimates a rough cost for violence in your nation, and the return on investment for funding prevention).
Handouts:
Reference Docs:

Susan Musonda, Chief Policy Planner, Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, Government of the Republic of Zambia (tbc)
By the end of the session, participants will:


| Time | Session |
| 5 min | Introduction: Opening and introductory Mentimeter |
| 25 min | Presentation: Building the investment case for ending VAC/CAN |
| 10 min | Practical demonstration: Cost of VAC/CAN Tool |
| 10 min | Practical demonstration: ROI Tool |
| 10 min | Closing: Feedback, next steps and closing Mentimeter |
• Introduction to two new 'plug and play' tools enabling order-of-magnitude estimations of cost of violence and the return on investment.
• Advocacy brief on the investment case approach.
