Child poverty newsletter

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2024 wrapped

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Text: Ending child poverty - Year in summary

Visual featuring a girl and a woman along with text: As we step into 2025, our commitment to ending child poverty and creating a world where every child thrives is stronger than ever. Let’s also take the opportunity to reflect on key 2024 highlights from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty and its member organizations.

Global Child Benefits Tracker launch: Save the Children, ILO, and UNICEF launched the Global Child Benefits Tracker, an online platform to monitor children’s access to benefits, a key policy tool for tackling child poverty, and advocate with governments and donors to close these gaps.
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP): On 17 October, we marked IDEP with a commemoration at the United Nations Headquarters, co-organized by the International Movement ATD Fourth World, UN DESA, the International Committee for October 17, and the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations. This IDEP social media campaign focused on dispelling child poverty and social protection myths.
Three Global Coalition to End Child Poverty webinars:
- The New Poor – the changing profiles of children in poverty explored the profiles of children who have been driven deeper into poverty due to various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. The webinar showcased recent research from Bangladesh, Georgia, and Uganda.
- Child Poverty in High-Income Countries highlighted that over 69 million children in 40 of the world’s wealthiest countries still live in poverty and presented effective policies that have helped to reduce child poverty in those countries, with presentations from the US and Poland.
- Restoring Dignity: Tackling Shame and Stigma in Social Protection for Children and Families was organized for IDEP and brought together activists, academics, and practitioners to discuss how to design social protection programmes that uphold dignity and reduce stigma.
Bristol Poverty Institute – the impact of the pandemic on dimensions of poverty: An event by the Bristol Poverty Institute explored how the pandemic has impacted different dimensions of poverty and discussed ways to improve the lives of those suffering from poverty, including children, and address issues of social justice.
Summit of the Future: This summit resulted in a Pact for the Future, an action-oriented document aimed at bolstering global cooperation and adapting to current challenges.
High-Level Dialogue at UNGA: On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, government leaders, high-level guests, and UN Representatives joined the African Union, the European Union and UNICEF, for a high-level dialogue on proven policy solutions for children, including child benefits, to accelerate progress on the SDGs.
High-Level Event in Ethiopia: The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) and the University of New Brunswick (UNB) organized a high-level event in Ethiopia, bringing together experts to discuss and promote action against child poverty in Africa and beyond.
Poverty Unpacked podcast: Episode #38 of the Poverty Unpacked podcast revealed the scale and impact of poverty premiums and how they affect one in four families in the UK.
Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2024: This year’s MPI revealed that over half of the people living in multidimensional poverty are children. The report also explored how conflict exacerbates child poverty, with children in conflict-affected areas facing higher deprivations.
Notable child poverty analysis:

Check out our previous newsletter issues for many more updates on child poverty.

Launch of the Uganda National Coalition to End Child Poverty

On 5 November 2024, the Uganda National Coalition to End Child Poverty was launched. The first national chapter of the coalition draws membership from the Government of Uganda, Development Partners and Civil Society including the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Economic Policy Research Centre UNICEF, Save the Children, Child Fund and AfriChild. The coalition seeks to network, raise awareness, advocate, and take action to ensure survival, development, protection and participation of children as anchored in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children. Learn more.

A teenage girl carries a boy with a disability and a bag in a rural area.

G20 Rio Summit ends – recognizing the importance of tackling child poverty

The G20´s final Leader's declaration recognized children as among the most vulnerable to poverty, hunger and malnutrition and includes commitments to end child labour and to fight gender inequality that harms women and girls. The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty was officially launched during the Leader’s Summit on 18 November 2024 ‘to support and accelerate efforts to eradicate hunger, malnutrition, and poverty (SDGs 1 and 2) while reducing inequalities (SDG 10). Several members of the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty have joined the Alliance and issued Statements of Commitment in support of the Alliance´s objective, including BRAC, OECD, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, UNICEF, and World Vision International.

The recent report Breaking the Cycle: Tackling Child Poverty and Inequities, commissioned by the G20 Development Working Group and launched during the Summit, highlights child poverty and inequities. It provides insights into how some groups of children (based on gender, race, ethnicity/caste, and disability) are disproportionately affected and emphasizes the policies that are effective in tackling these inequities and supporting the most vulnerable children. Check out also this blog post for more.

A collage of photos from an event featuring panelists, speakers and #HOPE

HOPE by UNICEF: Shining a light on child poverty in France and around the world

In France, HOPE by UNICEF Forum highlighted prevention and the fight against child poverty. The forum explored various topics, including the impact of climate change and multiple crises on poverty, the role of social protection in fighting poverty, multidimensional poverty in France and developing countries, and the involvement of cities and territories. Find out more (in French).

Conference participants listening to a presentation

Symposium on Child Poverty and Sustainable Development: A conversation with global child rights experts

African Child Policy Forum (ACPF), in collaboration with GlobalChild, organized a symposium on child poverty and sustainable development on 23 October 2024 in Addis Ababa. The event brought together scholars and policy practitioners to discuss the linkage of child poverty with sustainable development. It aimed to broaden understanding of the impact of child poverty on overall socio-economic development among policy practitioners and share experiences of countries that have succeeded in reducing it. Find out more.

A group of conference participants posing in front of a landmark mosque.

GNRC Forum: A Global Call to Action for Children’s Wellbeing

Arigatou International and the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities hosted a global forum in Abu Dhabi from November 19-21, focusing on children’s wellbeing. The event featured over 50 children from 20+ countries, all advocating for a safe, secure, and sustainable world for children. Learn more.

Photo of a happy man, woman and two children.

Young Lives Ethiopia’s New Wave of Research

Young Lives Ethiopia is set to launch a sixth wave of qualitative longitudinal research, which aims to uncover how young people’s lives are changing in response to a series of overlapping crises: COVID-19, conflicts, escalating climate change, severe drought, and rising inflation. The research seeks to explore how these challenges have affected the health and well-being of young Ethiopians and their children. Read more or listen to Young Lives Country Director Alula Pankhurst’s new podcast.

Three women posing for a picture in front of a blue backdrop.

Bringing children’s realities to the EU: Eurochild report sparks constructive conversations in EU Institutions

On 2-3 December, H.E. Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Eurochild, met with key EU stakeholders in Brussels to present the findings and recommendations of Eurochild’s flagship report, Children's Realities in Europe: Progress & Gaps. The publication compiles information gathered from 57 Eurochild members in 31 countries across Europe and provides an overview of children’s realities in these countries. Learn more.

Urbanization and child-sensitive social protection

The urbanization of poverty and related challenges faced by children living in slums requires governments to step up social protection provision in urban areas. This advocacy note provides a snapshot of the global literature on urban social protection and the existing coverage data, which shows how the urban poor are not well covered by either social assistance or social insurance schemes. The note also highlights policy innovations for addressing child poverty equitably in all contexts. Read more.

Early childhood development and climate change - First years first priority

Climate change can have severe impacts on young children and their caregivers, especially if they live in situations of poverty, insecurity, crisis, or emergency. This #FirstYearsFirstPriority campaign scoping paper examines the right of all children to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental right, and underscores the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on very young children, who are often invisible in policy and decision-making processes. Check out this new blog post on early childhood development.

A child looking through binoculars next to a woman, a girl and a man.

Navigating the Future: Four scenarios assessing child well-being in the twenty-first century

To further our understanding of how the complex challenges we are facing today impact human development over time, a new study presents four quantified scenarios of the long-term future. These scenarios model the implications on development, climate change and geopolitics of varying levels of technological advancement, resource utilization, and economic and geopolitical cooperation.

Here we take a journey through these four transitional pathways, with each scenario reflecting unique challenges and opportunities. Read more.

Cash plus for nutrition in Malawi: Findings from mid-term evaluations of the MAZIKO project

MAZIKO is a cash plus for nutrition project that combines maternal and child cash transfers and “plus” social and behaviour change interventions to improve nutrition and child development outcomes in two districts of Malawi. Read more.

Report cover for a policy brief featuring a group of children in a playground along with two women.

The power of play and early childhood education at schools: Insights from field research

This policy brief summarizes key findings and recommendations from the study of the power of play in early childhood education in school settings. It highlights the key messages from empirical evidence and case studies of sixteen early childhood education centers and pre-schools in Ethiopia and Ghana. The policy brief also outlines policy considerations and recommendations to promote effective, culturally sensitive, and socially inclusive play and early childhood education, care, and development practices. Read more.

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The Global Coalition to End Child Poverty is a global initiative to raise awareness about children living in poverty worldwide and support global and national action to alleviate it, as outlined by SDG Goal 1: No Poverty.

Our members work together as part of the Coalition and individually to achieve a world where all children grow up free from poverty, deprivation, and exclusion.

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