The Global Partnership Against Child Exploitation (GPACE) is a secretariat for 1200 organizations which aim to engage and empower youth in particular, on local governance issues and challenges.
Mission and Purpose
The Global Partnership Against Child Exploitation (GPACE) is a secretariat for 1200 organizations throughout the world. GPACE mobilizes funding, coordinates, and builds the capacity of these member organizations. GPACE’s vision is to achieve “an environment where women, youth and children are empowered and participate in issues that affect them and are able to contribute positively to the socio-economic and political development of country.” GPACE strives to respond to these challenges through various projects, where voters are educated on their political rights and how they can hold leaders accountable.
Origins and Development
GPACE was founded in 2018 in response to the various challenges that inhibit its growth and implementation. According to Program Officer Kingsley Banda, voter apathy was, and continues to be one of these challenges. In discussing this issue, Mr. Banda stated that GPACE research found that many young people hold the perspective that “we don’t see the need in showing up [to elections], voting for someone who is not there for us, who actually prioritizes his special interests or political party interests at the expense of development initiatives.” Another major issue inhibiting youth participation is what Mr. Banda termed “the big man theory”. Explaining this, he stated that for young people, the expectation in Malawian society is that “whatever an elderly person has said, you cannot dispute that.” He elaborated, “Young people are just like objects. Things are being made for them, decisions are being made for them but they are not involved. They are not effectively participating. Where they have been involved, it’s like maybe they have just been invited to a meeting but they are not empowered to speak and they are not given affirmative actions to make sure that their views are aired out.” Through the implementation of projects to combat the aforementioned challenges, GPACE has successfully increased its membership.
Organization Structure, Membership, and Funding
GPACE has a overall staff of 21 people. It receives funding from multiple sources, including Unicef, Focusnet, and more.
Specializations, Methods and Tools
To achieve its goals, GPACE implements budget tracking/accountability clubs throughout the world in collaboration with member organizations in their respective countries. Created after the national elections of 2014, these projects were created so that youth can track the expenditure of government officials. As stated by Mr. Banda, “they should be able to track the utilization of the resources because that’s their money...not the government’s.” In order to select participants, GPACE and/or member organizations work with local chiefs to identify capable young people. After this, GPACE trains the young people in how to monitor government spending/budgeting, as well as provides the accountability clubs with the data they need to effectively monitor and evaluate civil sector employees. As Mr. Saka stated, “time and again we are at loggerheads with district councillors because we have presented out something which they have covered [up]...there’s a lot of financial mismanagement.” Regardless, positive changes have been seen as a result of these budget tracking/accountability clubs. For example, we have tried to create an interface or a forum where a member of parliament can meet the citizens and explain things as they are.”
GPACE also fulfills its role as a Secretariat for 1200 organizations across world by organizing an Annual Dissemination Conferences during which all member organizations gather to discuss past and future activities.
Major projects and events
GPACE implements projects in four programmatic areas: Governance and Human Rights, Climate Change and Environmental Management, Health, and Child/Youth Empowerment. For example, with funding from the FOCUSNET Fund), GPACE implements the Citizen Advocacy Program. Here, 37 (20 men and 17 women) from member organizations gained skills on how a citizen can effectively participate in district councils for one month, with the hope of empowering them to “effectively participate in local governance issues from the grassroots level.” Mr. Banda proudly stated that, although it was difficult to establish due to government skepticism, “it was the first of its kind in Malawi”. Mr. Banda believed it was of critical importance due to his belief that “part of empowerment is that these young people should be aware of local governance structures, their laws and the processes and the systems”.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
Want to contribute an analysis of this organization? Help us complete this section!
Publications
Does this organization publish reports, studies, or other media? Help us complete this section!