Empowering the Futures: Social Partnerships for Child Welfare and Protection in Indonesia

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a key international agreement aimed at protecting children's rights. However, in 2023, Indonesia's Child Protection Commission (KPAI) recorded 3,883 complaints of child rights violations. This underscores the critical role of NGOs in addressing these issues, including for supporting substantial funding. One of the most accessible and impactful sources of such funding is through the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The implementation of CSR represents a potential action to build multi-stakeholder approach through social partnerships. Therefore, this has led to the emergence of social partnerships, where NGOs implement more targeted interventions with the support of CSR-driven initiatives. This article aims to describe the implementation of social partnerships for child welfare and protection in Indonesia. The concept of social partnerships has gained traction alongside the rapid growth of NGOs and non-profit organizations (NPOs), both in Indonesia and globally. This article focuses on an organization actively pursuing social partnerships in developing programs concerned with child issues—Human Initiative (HI). The research employed a qualitative approach, with data collection conducted in Depok and South Tangerang, focusing on the Human Initiative headquarters. Informants were selected through purposive sampling, involving individuals with insights into the implementation of Human Initiative’s social partnership model. This included both internal stakeholders and external collaborators. Data analysis was based on literature reviews, observations, and in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that the implementation of social partnerships for child welfare and protection at Human Initiative follows a strategic approach to achieving child welfare and protection in Indonesia, including partner selection, partnership design development, partnership institutionalization, and strategic alliance development. Several challenges in implementing social partnership are also discussed.  Unlike traditional philanthropic models, Human Initiative actively develops collaborative partnerships focused on long-term social impact. This study contributes to Human Initiative by highlighting the importance of strengthening the organization’s internal capacity, not only in human resource management but also in key program support systems such as monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management, and inclusive, child rights-based communication strategies.