The domain of children and their well-being is one of the important areas of cooperation identified by the OIC Member countries for joint Islamic action under the OIC-2025 Programme of Action. This is because of the fact that OIC Member countries are home to the youngest demographic distribution in the world with over one-third of the population below the age of 15. This underlines the huge demand for health care, schooling, food, recreation, and social protection and welfare services for infants and young children.

In order to address such issues pertaining to children in a timely and efficient manner, the OIC Member countries have held five sessions of the Islamic Conference of Ministers in Charge of Childhood. The OIC Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) also adopted the ‘Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam’ (OCRCI) in 2005 to provide a legal framework, based on tenets of Islamic principles and ethos, to define the claims, rights, and obligations of the child, family, society, and the State. More recently, the OIC Member countries discussed the Guideline Framework towards a Strategic Plan for Child Welfare and Well-Being in the Islamic World during the First Ministerial Conference on Social Development held in 2019.

Since 2005, SESRIC has been providing a comprehensive analysis of the state of children in the OIC Member countries by investigating the latest data and trends on children’s well-being, health, nutrition, education, food security and social protection. The reports of SESRIC pertaining to children served as the technical background document for the discontinued Islamic Conference of Ministers in Charge of Childhood and will now continue this role with the biennial Ministerial Conference on Social Development. The various reports look into the latest comparable data and trends on child health and well-being, child nutrition and food security, basic education, schooling, child protection, and welfare. The research of SESRIC provides salient information to frame policies and initiatives to make sure that children’s situation is improved.