Ministers relevant to Finance and budgeting as well so that agreements made are supported with resources. b. There are various special technical committees, but children’s rights issues are lost within these. It is recommended that the AU assign a special technical committee on children’s rights. To start with, there is need for children rights forums at the regional level to bring all stakeholders together including decision makers to advocate for better protection of children’s rights. All stakeholders should lobby for more visibility of children’s rights at domestic level which should result in more investment in services and policy and legislation change for children at the national levels. In Kenya, stakeholders have managed to lobby local government to allocate resources to child protection. The national level sometimes think that child protection is not their mandate but we need to make them realize that it important to allocate resources at all levels. c. It was recommended that there is need to proactively use the media at all the events. For example, there was need for more media presence at this workshop to popularize what is being done and share the key messages. The African Court has trained reporters on issues specific to justice and monitor how they report so maybe we can emulate this and do the same for our work. d. There was also a request to ask the Ministers to have “children’s rights” as a theme of the year for the AU. The AU and the ACERWC should think about how children can participate throughout the year so that it is not just based on one event for example the Day of the African Child. 7.0. Closing Remarks: Dr. Clement Mashamba made closing remarks on behalf of the Chairperson of ACERWC. He thanked everyone for their participation and for the valuable contributions. He requested that everyone continues to provide support especially at the sub regional level to promote children’s rights. He encouraged participants to provide input into the action plan and also help with implementation of it. Dr. Mashamba also thanked the presenters for their informative presentations and willingness to accept critical feedback and questions. Mrs. Generose Minani, made closing remarks on behalf of the EAC Secretariat. She shared her gratitude that this workshop took place as they feel the children’s agenda is especially important for the EAC. The EAC’s commitment to children is evident from the progress made in the implementation of the EAC Child Policy that also shows their commitment to Agenda 2040. Ms. Minani noted that “If we don’t address this agenda, we will kill the whole region. If we don’t care for our children we will not have good leader’s tomorrow. We need to have good collaboration to push this agenda. There is a lot of commitment but there are disparities as well so let’s work together to address these and promote good practice”. She called upon participants to address the aspirations and priorities in the agenda and the policy and asked that in future meetings there should be