Summary
With initial seed funding, the university-wide Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues launched in September 2021 to foster cross-disciplinary research and dialogue on critical and emerging challenges affecting children around the world, with a particular focus on children in adversity and pathways to resilience.
Working in partnership with university programs and centers as well as external stakeholders, the collaborative has demonstrated that Georgetown can play a niche role in advancing rigorous and strategic attention to the most pressing issues affecting children worldwide, stimulating innovative approaches and collaborative action to support holistic child development, well-being, and protection.
Centering Children and Youth in Research, Policy, and Practice
The enthusiastic response to the collaborative’s work in its first three years has demonstrated that there is a hunger for child-centered dialogue, research, policy, and practice. Washington, DC, abounds with think tanks—but none prioritize a focus on young people. We do.
Why children? Why Georgetown?
Evidence shows that involving children and youth as partners in problem-solving, development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding efforts contributes to economic growth, democratic progress, and social stability. The opposite is also true—when we fail to engage young people in addressing the matters that affect them, our communities and economies stagnate and decline.
While a handful of universities in the United States include a strategic focus on global child rights, programs are most often siloed by sector or department and focus on specific disciplines. Few programs offer opportunities to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers, or regular occasions to engage with the policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders who can address critical issues affecting the world’s most vulnerable children.
Georgetown University is positioned to fill this gap. Washington, DC, is an epicenter of global politics and a hotspot for advocacy and public service. With significant programs in foreign service, international development, global health, public policy, and law, the university is poised to play a catalytic role in influencing how these and other fields engage collaboratively and effectively to promote children’s rights and protection.