April 2026 – The report from Watchlist’s January 2026 policy annual policy workshop on children and armed conflict (CAAC) was issued as an official UN Security Council document (S/2026/300) at the request of the Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations.
The workshop brought together representatives of UN Member States, including members of the Security Council, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG-CAAC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Department of Peace Operations (DPO), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), civil society organizations, and academia, to discuss priorities for the UN’s CAAC agenda in 2026. This is the 14th such policy workshop organized by Watchlist since 2013. The workshop sought to engage participants in identifying priorities and developing recommendations for concrete, targeted actions to be taken in the coming year within the framework of the CAAC agenda.
The workshop consisted of four closed working sessions dedicated to (1) strategic stocktaking of key challenges and priorities for advancing the CAAC agenda in 2026, (2) centering the lived experiences of children affected by armed conflict to inform protection responses and accountability, (3) the implementation of key normative frameworks for child protection, including the Paris Principles, Vancouver Principles, Safe Schools Declaration, and the EWIPA Political Declaration, and (4) legal, policy, and operational approaches to uphold children’s rights and protection in counterterrorism contexts.
Read the official report of the January 2026 Annual Policy Workshop.
Photo credit: © Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict.
