initiatives on improving parenting. 3. Scale up projects on poverty alleviation. 4. Strengthen child protection systems. 5. Improve access to education especially for girls. 6. Work with elders in the communities about harmful traditional practices. 7. Strengthen strong partnerships and alliances in the regions and share best practices. 5.6. Plenary discussion: During the consideration of the presentation and plenary discussion, the following were highlighted: a. The participants concurred that we have great policies and laws in a lot of the EAC countries but a key issue is the lack of implementation. How can we enhance accountability and implementation of these laws so that we are being effective? It was felt that we should learn from good practice but also learn from what is not working. We need to have the courage to look at what does not work and change these practices. Before we start to look at cross border implementation and harmonization, we need to learn from local initiatives within our countries of how to effectively harmonize laws and ensure implementation. b. One of the points that was raised is for us to reflect on how the INGOs collaborate with local NGOs especially with regard to thematic issues and also in terms of locality specific NGOs. There are many coordination forums that are established but the issue is joining the dots between the various forums and sharing of information and coordination between these forums. We should not be separating emergency and protection forums as they are all looking to protect children. Local CSOs are working in silos but the big INGOs also working in silos – how do they collaborate? Government does not take the initiative to coordinate CSOs to ensure there is no duplication of efforts. EAC also really needs to collaborate nationally to coordinate the efforts. There appears to be a lot being done, but it is not coordinated. c. A question was raised relating to birth registration, in terms of how UNICEF is working with Governments on increasing birth registration as they did in South Sudan? UNICEF is working to raise awareness on the importance of these documents and also enabling access to registration in rural areas. d. A question about how UNHCR address the challenges of early marriage in refugee camps was raised. UNHCR work with CSOs locally and Government to address these issues. It is no different from how it is being addressed outside of the camps. e. Participants pointed out that something that is missing is the data around cross border issues. We need to look at what the real issues are and address these based on actual data. f. Another question was posed about how collaboration between regional bodies and local partners is happening? The EAC shared that they have managed to avoid working in silos by developing an interagency working group which has developed