Peer-reviewed article
A Tracer Study on Child Participation in Child Councillor Programmes Aimed towards Development of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative
Amelia Binti Alias, Nurfaradilla Mohamad Nasri, Mohd Mahzan Awang ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how well young people were able to participate as child councillors in Malaysia's Child Friendly Cities Initiative programmes. Using Lundy's framework for meaningful participation, researchers tracked ten former child councillors through focus groups. The study found that adults leading these programmes did not fully understand what meaningful child participation means. The findings suggest that better training and awareness-raising is needed to help adults share power with children in decision-making.
Key points
- Adult understanding of meaningful child participation remains weak in the programmes studied
- Power dynamics between children and adults were not adequately addressed
- The study used Lundy's model focusing on spaces, voice, audience, and influence
- Ten former child councillors participated in focus group discussions
- More effort is needed to educate responsible adults through participatory methods
Limitations
The study is based on a small sample of ten young people from one city in Malaysia, so findings may not be generalizable to other contexts. The report does not provide details on whether the programmes had any measurable impact on actual policy or city decisions involving children.
Abstract
The Child Friendly Cities Initiative introduced by UNICEF aims to help local governments realise child rights by utilising the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as its foundation. Using Lundy's model of child participation, which focuses on spaces, voice, audience, and influence, this study assesses young people's participation as child councillors in two programmes in one city in Malaysia. Ten young people who were former child councillors in one state in Malaysia participated in this study. This study employed thematic analysis in analysing the data obtained using focus groups. Based on the data presented, it was clear that adult (the responsible party) understanding of meaningful child participation is still weak. This study offers substantial contributions to the limited body of literature on child participation in Malaysia by focusing on the difficulties of former child councillors in engaging in meaningful participation. Thus, more efforts (for example, by using participatory methods) are needed to educate the responsible party on the importance of addressing the power dynamic between children and adults so that children can participate effectively in decision-making processes.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
Problem
Limited meaningful child participation in local governance and city decision-making processes
- Intervention
- Child Councillor Programmes as part of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative, using Lundy's model of participation
- Population
- Ten young people who served as child councillors in Malaysia
Key finding
Adult understanding of meaningful child participation is weak