Lessons from Senegal's Database System for Case Management for Child Protection: A Pilot Project on Web‐based and Mobile Technology

This case study on the Database System for Case Management for Child Protection in Senegal focuses on rapid monitoring for immediate use in service delivery and (thus) complements other country studies in this IDS Bulletin. The case provides an exciting initiative with much potential for improving child protection services, as well as additional information generation with the potential for broader monitoring, advocacy and operations research. The challenges centre on the need for clearer definition and agreement of roles and responsibilities between actors at different levels, as well as coming to an agreed balance of the sharing of data on individual cases with data protection, for confidentiality. The key lesson has been the importance of a collaborative process of developing the system with diverse actors in child protection, coupled with an accompanying consultative process of developing an inter‐sectoral national child protection strategy: in other words, a way of establishing common standards together.