Every child has the right to grow up safe, cared for, and protected.Yet across many parts of the world, child protection and care systems are under growing strain. Funding cuts, fragmented systems, and mounting political and humanitarian pressures are weakening efforts to prevent violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect — including harmful practices such as child marriage. These pressures are also reducing the ability of services to support families, protect children effectively, and prevent unnecessary family separation and institutionalisation.

At stake is a shared societal responsibility: to ensure that children are safe, supported, and able to grow up in nurturing families and communities. This initiative approaches these challenges through a localisation lens, placing national leadership and public responsibility at the centre of child protection and care. It explores what effective protection and care require in practice, and how stronger leadership, better coordination, and greater public trust can be built around this agenda.

Reimagining a Better Future for Children is a joint learning and action initiative led by the HDPI Child Protection Reference Group (CPRG), working in partnership with networks, governments, and international agencies. Global in scope and time-bound in design, the initiative seeks to support practical progress rather than produce abstract recommendations.

The child protection reference group acts as a facilitator rather than a prescriber, recognising that lasting change in child protection and care grows from shared reflection and collective action. Phase I (ending December 2025) focused on global listening and dialogue. Phase II (January–July 2026) shifts toward deeper engagement with national and local actors, combining dialogue, country-level inquiry, and shared learning to strengthen child protection and care where they are most fragile, including in humanitarian settings.