It has been 16 years since the Council of Europe set up the Programme “Building a Europe for and with Children” to follow-up on its commitment to children and their human rights. Since 2009, European and national activities in this area have been guided by consecutive Strategies for the Rights of the Child.

The High-Level Conference “Beyond the horizon: a new era for the rights of the child”, launched the new “Rome Strategy” (2022-2027), adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 23 February 2022, as a European instrument guiding the Council of Europe, its 46 member States and their international and national partners in delivering on six strategic objectives for protecting and promoting the rights of the child.

The Conference was co-organised by the Council of Europe and the Italian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers and took place in Rome on 7-8 April 2022. It provided an opportunity for high-level representatives of member States and other international organisations to express their commitment to the Strategy and present their visions for the implementation of the rights of the child over the next six years. Participants also included Ombudspersons, civil society representatives and international children’s rights experts, as well as a number of young delegates from different Council of Europe member States who had already contributed to the preparation of the Strategy. For all of them, the Conference was an opportunity to exchange on persistent and topical children’s rights challenges and provided guidance for the delivery of the Strategy by the Council of Europe and its member States.

To allow for substantive and focused exchanges throughout, the Conference  proposed a number of plenary sessions and four thematic sessions, each broken down into two parallel “deep dive conversations”, where participants were invited to enter into a moderated dialogue and jointly elaborated guidance for governmental and intergovernmental action to be taken.

Source: Council of Europe

https://www.coe.int/en/web/children/rome-launching-conference-2022