A/68/267 for engagement with the United Nations. Similarly, she established contact with commanders of the Free Syrian Army, as well as with representatives of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North to discuss ways of addressing grave violations, including the recruitment and use of children. 27. As at July 2013, dialogue had been successfully conducted with 21 parties, resulting in 18 action plans with armed forces and groups. III. Advocacy and mainstreaming 28. During the first year of her mandate, the Special Representative, building on the work of her predecessor, pursued a four-pronged approach to addressing the plight of conflict-affected children: she has worked with Governments to strengthen their efforts to stop and prevent violations, focused her advocacy to protect the most vulnerable children in some of the worst conflict areas, has continued to work closely with United Nations partners to strengthen child protection capacity in the field and has continued to advocate for ending impunity for violations against children. 29. The Special Representative undertook four field visits to take stock of the situation of children affected by armed conflict and to elicit commitments from parties to end grave violations against children. When possible, she has seized the opportunity of political and peacemaking processes to advance the children and armed conflict agenda, and in particular to advocate for the development and implementation of action plans. 30. The Special Representative has also engaged with countries in which progress on the implementation of action plans has been slow, in an effort to revitalize their engagement and jointly identify country-specific strategies for accelerating implementation. She intends to use this approach in other situations to accelerate global compliance by government forces with the prohibition on the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. In this regard, in view of the significant number of commitments by parties to conflict and the need for timely follow-up, she has highlighted to donors the importance of sustained funding for the implementation of action plans. 31. With large-scale displacement, porous borders and cross-border arms trafficking fuelling the regional spillover of conflict, the Special Representative has also endeavoured to raise awareness regarding the regional dimension of certain conflict situations and has interacted with regional actors to ensure that children’s issues are included in their peacemaking efforts. 32. By further reaching out to Member States and building strong partnerships with regional organizations, the Special Representative intends to continue to use existing policy instruments and agendas to mainstream the issue of children and armed conflict in the United Nations system. A. Field visits 33. The Special Representative undertook field visits to Yemen (November), the Syrian Arab Republic (December) and Chad (May), as well as a regional visit to 6/18 13-41862