Rwanda CDPSC Meeting Summary

To achieve this goal, the National Child Development Agency (NCD) established the Child Development and Protection Sub-Cluster (CDPSC) to strengthen the institutional framework and improve service delivery to children. The CDPSC is comprised of governmental and non-governmental organizations, operating under the National Gender and Family Cluster (NGFC) chaired by the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF). The primary mandate of the CDPSC is to design and implement policies, strategies, and plans related to early childhood development, child rights, and child protection. The CDPSC meetings provide a platform for actors to share plans, lessons, and good practices for integrated ECD and child protection programming. The CDPSC has four main objectives: to ensure joint planning and reporting of actors involved in child-focused interventions, provide strategic guidance to technical working groups, promote information-sharing among members, and disseminate best practices to other partners and the community. The CDPSC is comprised of three technical working groups: nutrition and WASH, ECD, and child protection. The child protection TWG is mandated to coordinate the programming and implementation of all interventions related to the prevention of and response to all forms of violence against children and promotion of children's rights. The CDPSC has made significant progress in FY23, including the development of Terms of Reference (TOR) for structures, co-designing and implementing child protection interventions, mapping of stakeholders, and inaugural TWG meetings. The Nutrition and WASH TWG spearheaded the development of a two-year multi-sectoral plan to reduce stunting in Rwanda, undertook a maternal and child health week, and held a research conference on nutrition. The Early Childhood Development TWG collaborated to launch a biannual ECD Day in three provinces. The Child Protection TWG held its first meeting and passed a resolution to develop a TWG-level activity plan. To ensure sustainability of the CDPSC, Data for Impact (D4I) recommends the following: holding regular TWG meetings, sharing data on progress, standardizing reporting tools, and finalizing and rolling out standard operating procedures for the Child Protection case management system.