Agenda 227

About the organization

Agenda 227 is a nonpartisan civil society movement, created in 2021, which today brings together a national network of more than 500 signatory organizations. The movement works to promote, defend, effectively implement, and monitor public policies aimed at children and adolescents, based on the principle of absolute priority in Article 227 of the Constitution and on regulatory frameworks such as the ECA, the Legal Framework for Early Childhood, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the SDGs. The movement’s governance is made up of the Coordination and Articulation Group (GCA), which involves 20 organizations and coalitions, and the Collegiate, of which Infinis is a member, to provide political and strategic direction. The executive secretariat, in turn, is shared between Instituto Alana and ANDI.

In practice, Agenda 227 combines network coordination, advocacy with the Executive and Legislative branches, capacity building for signatories, public communication, and strengthening territorial action, with a presence in all five regions and work in different states and capitals. Funding comes from private foundations and institutes, with no resources from Brazilian state bodies.

Socioeconomic Context

In Brazil, protecting children and adolescents is considered a priority duty of the State, society, and families, but this guideline coexists with structural inequalities that limit its effectiveness. According to UNICEF, in 2023, 55.9% of people aged 0 to 17 lived in multidimensional poverty, with deprivations affecting sanitation, housing, education, and information; this situation weighs more heavily on the North and Northeast, rural areas, and the Black and Indigenous population, showing that rights violations have a strong territorial and racial dimension. Among adolescents aged 13 to 17, IBGE’s PeNSE 2024 shows that this context translates directly into health and violence issues: bullying intensified between 2019 and 2024, 12.7% reported cyberbullying, with greater exposure among girls, and there was an increase in sexual violence, with around 1.1 million adolescents reporting having experienced forced sexual intercourse, generally at age 13 or younger. In health, the survey records improvement in some mental health indicators compared to 2019, but notes that they remain at a high level. In summary, the country combines high material deprivation, persistent exposure to violence, and public responses that are still uneven across the territory, which helps explain why the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents continues to require coordination, state capacity, budget, and effective priority in the implementation of public policies.

Project objective and expected results

Agenda 227 aims to shape the public debate on the rights of children and adolescents to ensure absolute priority in the design and implementation of public policies. Actions are organized around three main pillars: drafting documents with public policy proposals and defining advocacy strategies for action during electoral campaigns at the federal, state, and municipal levels; monitoring targets aimed at guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents; and public communication and mobilization.

Partners

Dialogue with public policies

The project provides for direct and structured dialogue with public authorities at different levels, depending on the year’s electoral cycle, including advocacy actions with the Federal Government and the National Congress, political coordination with state governments, and influence on municipal Multi-Year Plans (via mobilizing organizations in the territories). Based on the drafting of an advocacy document, the movement holds meetings with candidates to prioritize government plans and policies aimed at children and adolescents in areas such as health, nutrition, safety, protection from violence, and education.