Transforming Approach from Program to Process

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls repeatedly for transformed approaches to humanitarian work. Taking a community-led approach is a vital step toward implementing a transformational process that supports high levels of sustainability.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the transformational process involved in doing community-led work. Its objectives are to:

• increase awareness of how we as child protection practitioners need to change our own roles and ways of thinking;
• describe how agencies who work on child protection need to reorient themselves;
• reflect on the importance of creating an open, inclusive space within which communities act and make key decisions; and
• emphasize the importance of flexibility, since community-led work does not follow a recipe.