Children’s Conference on the

We kids need to act for what we think is right and good but we can’t do every-thing on our own! Partnership is important because we have big dreams but we need the help of adults to achieve them... if we start having good partnerships with lots of adults, and they believe in the same hopes and dreams we do, we can all make a big difference! (Nicole Clark, 11) As part of the growing recognition that children are contributing citizens in their own right, children are participating in international meetings on issues that affect their lives. In the last decade, a number of large-scale events have been organized with children’s participation. From each of these events, the world learns more about the opportunities and challenges of child participa-tion. In practice, apart from implementing Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, what does child participation mean in high-level conferences with multiple stakeholders? This article analyses the experience of the International Children’