Executive Decree No. 13 of October 12, 2026, signed by President José Raúl Mulino Quintero and Social Development Minister Beatriz Carles de Arango, was published in Official Gazette No. 30641-A on October 23, 2026. It adopts the National Implementation Plan for the System of Guarantees and Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents, provided for in Law 285 of 2022 and approved by the system's Board of Directors on December 18, 2025.

Its article 1 adopts the plan in full as an annex to the decree, and article 2 declares its national scope for the public sector, the private sector and organized civil society. The plan starts from a diagnosis based on 2023 census data: 1,232,585 people under 18, 30 % of the population, and 34 % of children and adolescents in multidimensional poverty.

The first phase, 2026-2027, is organized into four pillars: regulatory alignment with Law 285, governance, workforce training and community networks. Its targets include reviewing 60 % of sector regulations, training 80 % of public servants in key institutions and launching four local protection subsystems in Panamá, Panamá Oeste, Colón and the Emberá Wounaan Comarca, where provincial committees and care units will be set up with local governments.

From a fiscal standpoint, the most concrete element concerns the budget. The plan tasks the Ministry of Economy and Finance, together with the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES), the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education (MEDUCA), with mapping the resources allocated to children and designing a budget-tagging model, piloted at the Children's Hospital, MIDES and MEDUCA. If applied, that tool would make it possible to measure how much the State spends on this population. For social organizations, the plan foresees training 25 % of the NGOs recognized by MIDES.

The decree takes effect upon publication, but the plan sets no amounts and creates no budget lines: its execution depends on each institution's action plans and on resources allocated in annual budgets, monitored by the Board of Directors and the system's Inter-institutional Commission. Nexo Capital will follow the execution of the plan's first phase.

Research assisted by Sentinel, with editorial verification of official sources. Discover Legislat.ai