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The Global Child Forum is a Swedish non-profit foundation, based in Stockholm, Sweden. The organization was founded by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden in 2009 in order to advance children’s rights in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.[1]
The focus of Global Child Forum is grounded in both the Convention on the Rights of a Child and UNICEF's Children’s Rights and Business Principles and is aimed towards giving business an understanding of how and where their business might impact children.[2]
Global Child Forum was founded in 2009 as World Child and Youth Forum (WCYF). The name was then shorted to Global Child Forum in 2012. Initially, WCYF was intended to be an independent group of decision-makers with the goal of discussing children’s rights and business while using the Royal Palace as a venue.[3] Since then, the organization has expanded to include Regional Forums and conduct its own independent research.[4]
Global Child Forum is best known for its global and regional forums. Each Forum consists of speaker sessions, panel discussions, and breakout Action Labs.[5] Global forums are held at the Royal Palace in Stockholm and bring together top business leaders, political leaders, academics, and civil society representatives to discuss pressing issues related to children’s rights and business.[6] Regional forums are designed to tackle children’s rights issues faced by that particular region with regional leaders in business, politics, academics, and civil society.[7]
To date, five global forums have been held at the Royal Palace. Approximately 300 global leaders in business, politics, civil society and academia have attended each of the forums.[8] Each event has its own theme on issues concerning children’s rights and business. The latest global forum was 11 April 2018 and discussed investing in every child.[9][10] During the 2018 Forum, the Global Child Forum Pledge was launched to encourage action amongst participants post-Forum. [11] Additionally, for the first time, the Forum included child participants, Indonesian child laborers from the It's Time to Talk! report on child labour.[12][13][14]
The regional forum is held every year in a new location. The forums brings together approximately 300 regional leaders in business, politics, civil society and academia to discuss issues concerning children’s rights and business within the context of their region.[15] To date, the Global Child Forum has held four regional forums: one in the Middle East and North Africa,[16] Southern Africa,[17] Southeast Asia[18] and South America.[19][20]
The Global Child Forum conducts independent research and case studies. The benchmark reports, written in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, are developed to be presented at regional forums and evaluate the top 300 publicly traded companies from regions where regional forums are to be held, and assesses their commitment to children’s rights issues.[28][29] Previously, the 2016 benchmark highlighted how the Nordic region lagged below the global average on children’s rights issues.[30][31][32] During the São Paulo Forum in 2017, Global Child Forum presented a report which revealed that South American companies are underperforming overall in addressing children's rights.[33][34][35]
The Global Child Forum also conducts case studies on companies who have scored highly on benchmarks.[36][37][38]
The Children’s Rights and Business Atlas is a risk assessment tool intended to help businesses identify and understand the risk of children’s rights violations and give an indication of the risks to children’s rights in different industries and countries. The Atlas covers 198 countries and territories and 10 industries and was developed in collaboration with UNICEF.[39][1]