September 10, 2026 – The First Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Bogotá in November 2024 marked a global turning point: over 100 governments made public commitments to accelerate action to end violence against children (VAC). Many countries prioritized support for parents and caregivers as a key intervention to prevent violence, reflecting a clear and growing consensus that violence prevention starts early and evolves across childhood and adolescence and that supporting caregivers is one of the most effective ways to reach families at scale.
Momentum continued at the Global Caregiver Forum, hosted in Madrid, Spain, in January 2026, where governments and partners called for universal access to evidence-based parenting support in a first-of-its-kind global convening dedicated to caregiving.
This November, leaders from across the world will gather in Manila, Philippines for the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children. The Global Initiative to Support Parents (GISP) calls on the global community to leverage this important moment in Manila to commit to the universal delivery of parenting support in all contexts.
Why Parenting Support is Critical to Sustainable Development
Evidence-based parenting support is one of the few interventions that can reach families at scale, address the root causes of violence against children, and deliver benefits across sectors. It works in stable settings and within crisis settings alike.
- Parenting support accelerates progress across multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) simultaneously, including health, education, gender equality, violence prevention, poverty reduction, and reduced inequalities through its impact on child development and family well-being (UNICEF, 2025).
- Parenting support promotes positive child development outcomes, including improved health across the lifespan, nutrition, and academic performance at school (Global Initiative to Support Parents, 2022).
- Parenting support advances gender equality by improving maternal health, promoting positive gender-equitable attitudes, and increasing male engagement in parenting (WHO and UNICEF, 2022).
- Parenting support reduces and prevents violence against children and women, including child maltreatment, parental conflict, and intimate partner violence (UNICEF, 2020).
In short, evidence-based parenting programs reduce physical and psychological violence, strengthen positive parenting, and improve caregiver mental health—even in the most dangerous and fragile conditions.
New Evidence and Momentum Since Bogotá
The evidence base for parenting support has strengthened significantly since the First Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Bogotá, reinforcing and expanding upon the multi-generational, cross-sectoral benefits.
- A systematic review of 23 randomized trials in humanitarian settings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) confirmed that parenting interventions reduce physical and psychological violence and improve caregiver mental health even in crisis contexts.
- This evidence was reinforced by broader syntheses that showed parenting is one of the strongest, most consistent evidence-based approaches to reducing child maltreatment globally.
- Large-scale, real-world data from over 120,000 participants across eight African countries—including humanitarian and pandemic-affected settings—demonstrated consistent reductions in violence against adolescent girls and improvements in caregiver mental health, with spillover effects into intimate partner violence against women (IPV) and school-based violence.
- Recent evidence showed how parenting programs can be strengthened to reduce violence against both children and women and to promote gender equality.
- Multi-component parenting and caregiver mental health interventions show gains in children’s cognitive and social-emotional outcomes, though mental health components require stronger investment to produce caregiver-level effects.
Together, this growing evidence base reinforces the need to build on the Bogotá commitments and prioritize parenting support as a key strategy for preventing violence against children.
A Call to Action
The Second Ministerial Conference is a critical milestone—not a reset, but an acceleration by which the Bogotá commitments should be seen as the floor, not the ceiling. By Manila, or through commitments made there, governments should demonstrate that the promises of 2024 have been translated into action: services delivered, budgets committed, systems built.
We, the undersigned organizations, call on governments, donors, and international institutions gathering in Manila for the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children to commit to these actions—with specificity and financing—in every context, including humanitarian and fragile settings. The evidence is clear, the tools exist, and the moment is now.
- Report on the old and recommit to the new: publicly account for Bogotá pledges and make new, costed, time-bound commitments embedded within national systems, across health, education, social protection, and child protection systems. Commitments should be made with financing plans.
- Explicitly include humanitarian contexts in commitments: governments should pledge to ensure continuity of parenting and caregiver support through conflict and crisis, and donors should commit to financing parenting interventions as part of humanitarian response.
- Intentionally identify opportunities to prevent violence against women and promote gender equality within parenting programs: governments should increase coordination across efforts to prevent violence against children and violence against women within families, including within initiatives to support parents.
- Adopt a goal of universal access to parenting support: commit to building the national systems, workforce capacity, and sustained financing needed to reach every family, including those in the hardest and most dangerous places, within a defined decade-long timeframe.
- Strengthen accountability and secure sustained financing: track parenting program coverage, quality, and outcomes as routine national data, and translate promises to support parenting support into action through sustained, saleable financing.
- Endorse the Global Caregiver Forum outcomes and support a UN General Assembly resolution: anchor the caregiving agenda at the highest level of multilateral policy and financing commitments, recognizing caregiver support as a global public good.
Together, through these commitments, we can achieve the promise of parenting support and end violence against children.