Launched by more than 4,500 children in Delhi, India on October 16, 2006, the NINEISMINE campaign is a participatory children’s advocacy initiative to call for 9% of the Gross domestic product (GDP) to be committed to health and education. This initiative of children, schools communities and organizations across all states and Union Territories of India is being led by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA), a national campaign to hold the government accountable to its promise to end poverty, social exclusion and discrimination – toward meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The purpose of NINEISMINE is to put children from across the country at the center of advocacy effort – speaking in one voice to enable every child to enjoy basic health and quality education as a right. Children from vulnerable situations are provided with platforms both to keep their governments accountable to their promises and occasions that help them influence national and local policy. Children from safe and secure environments have joined in with their deprived peers to extend their creativity, time and voice to press systems and governments to make genuine eradication of poverty and social exclusion a non-negotiable right.