The Case for Including Children and Youth in Foreign Assistance

March 2, 2023

The Case for Including Children and Youth in Foreign Assistance

Event Series: Children in a World of Challenges Workshop Series

Children in Morocco clapping and wearing USAID baseball hats

The U.S. government envisions a world in which all children thrive within protective, loving families, free from deprivation, violence, and danger. In addition, engaging youth and emerging leaders in development is essential to achieving the most important U.S. foreign policy objectives. The U.S. government and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has outlined its policy commitment to children and youth across a number of laws, strategies, and policies, including in the Global Child Thrive Act; the U.S. government strategy for international assistance, Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity; and USAID’s Youth in Development Policy. This workshop included facilitators from USAID’s Inclusive Development Hub to discuss U.S. government foreign assistance programming for children, youth, and families. The facilitators made the case for targeted support to children and youth through foreign assistance and provide an overview of current policies, programming, and best practices. Facilitators also offered training on child safeguarding as well as positive youth development.

This event is co-sponsored by the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues; Walsh School of Foreign Service; Center for Child and Human Development; Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service; Global Human Development Program; Global Health Institute; and Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. It is part of the Children in a World of Challenges Workshop series.

Image courtesy of Flickr user USAID

Participants

Nicole Calvert

Nicole Calvert is a program analyst for the Children in Adversity team at USAID. Currently, she supports the team through managing interagency collaboration of the U.S. Government Strategy: Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity. Prior to her role at USAID, she worked for a DC-based NGO on the inclusion of children with disabilities in schools and on sustainability efforts for a social enterprise in Vietnam.

Rebecca Levy

Rebecca Levy is the acting U.S. government special advisor on children in adversity, as well as the director of the Inclusive Development Hub within USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI). As special advisor, she leads implementation of the U.S. Government Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity Strategy, focused particularly on promoting early childhood development, ensuring nurturing and protective family care for all children, and preventing violence against children.

Mattito Watson

Mattito Watson is a senior technical advisor with the Children in Adversity Team at USAID. His current work focuses on projects to end violence against children, overseeing USAID’s Digital Strategy to Protect Children and Youth from Digital Harm, and supporting the implementation of the U.S. Government Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity Strategy. Before joining USAID, he served as the senior director for Child Protection at Save the Children. For over 25 years, Watson worked primarily in Africa, where he managed children’s programs in development and emergency settings.