By Isang Awah and Maggie Marx

The First Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence against Children in Bogotá was not just an event—it was a pivotal moment for global child protection. With  130 governments represented and 120 concrete commitments made, we stand at a critical juncture where rhetoric must now transform into meaningful action.

Our Global Parenting Initiative’s advocacy team together with other parenting support advocates from around the world, achieved significant milestones. Forty-nine countries included ‘Parent and caregiver support’ in their national pledges—a testament to our persistent work in highlighting the crucial role of supportive, nurturing environments in preventing violence against children.

Looking at countries where GPI is actively conducting research, the pledges are promising:

• South Africa committed to implementing evidence-based parenting programs in 52 districts by 2027
• Uganda plans to implement the National Standards for Parenting Programs and the National Parenting Training Manual and Facilitators Guide in at least 50 districts by 2030.
• Philippines committed to strengthening parent and caregiver support through various means to at least 352,400 poor households
• Ukraine aims to expand resilience services and develop training for foster parents
• Pakistan pledged to support approximately 28 million parents and caregivers to practice positive, non-violent discipline through nationwide parenting interventions with an explicit focus on addressing the social and gender norms that underpin violenceTanzania intends to dramatically scale up positive parenting groups from 3,963 to 24,638 by 2029

However, as Professor Shanaaz Mathews and Lucie Jamieson compellingly argued in their recent opinion piece, pledges alone are insufficient. The deep-rooted patriarchal norms that perpetuate violence against women and children require sustained, systematic intervention.

Our immediate focus must be on developing a robust implementation and accountability framework. With other partners in the Global Initiative to Support Parents, we are already mapping out strategies to:

• Analyse each country’s specific pledge
• Develop tailored support mechanisms
• Create tracking methods to monitor progress
• Engage directly with governments to provide technical assistance

The intersectionality of violence against women and children cannot be overstated. Our interventions must challenge entrenched social norms, promote gender equity, and create holistic support systems that break intergenerational cycles of violence.

The Global Ministerial Conference was not an endpoint, but a beginning. Our work to transform these pledges into tangible protections for the world’s most vulnerable has only just commenced.