Introduction

Children account for about 50% of Africa 's total population. In   spite of their large number, however, the state of African children has not been adequately researched; even the few research studies conducted so far are found unsystematically buried in virtual data graveyards or have joined the cortège of dead research reports shelved away in dusty official drawers. The resultant lack of documented information has put a formidable barrier to the effective networking and advocacy efforts of child-right actors in the continent.

The African Child Policy Forum, in realization of this need, is working towards creating a platform for the virtual coming together of like-minded child-rights and welfare organisations, initiatives, movements and networks.

As an important step toward the realisation of the above objective, the Forum under its Information Hub project, commissioned consultants to carry out desk studies on organisations working on children in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa . The Forum and its partners believed that the findings of these studies needed to be discussed by and among stakeholders. To that end, t he Forum conducted a stakeholders' meeting on April 1, 2005 at the CRDA in which the findings and the ways forward were discussed and where the ground for a lasting working relationship with the Forum's potential partners was set. The meeting turned out to be a huge success that has indicated outstanding limitations of existing virtual systems worldwide and future directions toward creating an African Children Information Hub that would have an added value in real terms.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------