Twenty years on from the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children’s rights are still not seen as a serious political issue. This Briefing Paper argues that children’s rights should be mainstreamed into broader development policy debates. It outlines how the mainstreaming of children's rights requires an understanding of topics beyond a narrow focus on ‘children’s issues’, such as health and education. The paper provides a framework for the assessment of the visibility of children in policy and programming, as a guide to policy makers and practitioners looking at this area. It concludes that mechanisms are needed urgently, to increase the visibility of children in development policy dialogue, including a high-level international commission on the impacts on children of the 3-F crisis (food, financial and fuel).