Jean-Claude Legrand is a renowned expert in child protection and a strong advocate for children’s rights, especially in emergency situations.

Over the last fifteen years, he has provided technical support to almost thirty governments in the development of their strategies for implementing child protection system reforms. His work focused particularly on the decentralization of child protection responsibilities to local actors, including municipalities, regions, social services, medical care, security forces, justice and the education sector. For more than twenty years, Mr. Legrand worked with UNICEF, measuring the quality of their programs which allowed him to make a significant contribution to normative developments at both the national and regional levels particularly when it comes to children in armed conflict.He made major contributions on developing programme guidance on unaccompanied and separated children, on child soldiers and children affected by armed conflict, and on the development of the guidance on child protection systems.

Mr. Legrand holds a bachelor’s degree in Private Law as well as a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in Sociology. He is fluent in French and English and has basic knowledge of Portuguese

Note: Biography from the International Bureau for Children’s Rights