Guidance | Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and INSPIRE Strategies

Today, one in four children lives in a country affected by conflict or disaster. Crises tend to last longer and become protracted, increasingly blurring the lines between humanitarian and longer-term development interventions. Preventing and responding to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence against children at all times, is therefore key. This includes addressing risk factors and vulnerabilities for children, supporting and strengthening a multisectoral approach across development and humanitarian actors.

The Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, initially released in 2012 and revised in 2019, and the 2016 INSPIRE seven strategies package to end violence against children both promote similar approaches and principles to ensure that every child can grow up safe and secure. In some contexts, using CPMS and INSPIRE in conjunction offers the potential to strengthen approaches and deliver better results for children affected by humanitarian crises. When appropriate to the context, interventions mentioned in INSPIRE may be used to support implementation of speci c standards in the CPMS. Equally, key actions in the CPMS can provide more detailed guidance for implementing INSPIRE interventions.

The purpose of this note is therefore to clarify the linkages and complementarity between INSPIRE seven strategies for ending violence against children and the 2019 Edition of the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (‘2019 CPMS’); and to provide some practical guidance on how to use INSPIRE and the 2019 CPMS in conjunction for preventing and responding to violence against children in humanitarian settings.