We have already noted our concern that child rights have disappeared from the Agenda for Change, and the current the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) proposal confirms this concern: hardly any references to children’s rights are found, neither under the geographic nor thematic programmes of the DCI proposed by the European Commission.
The rights of the child are identified as a cross-cutting priority in the EU Development Consensus and in recent years the EU has strengthened its commitment to child rights in the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as in key external policy documents. The proof of the pudding, however, is in the tasting, and if children are missing from the budget, then those commitments will only be empty promises to children.