Newsletter

June 2025

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What works to reduce child poverty? Insights from across the globe

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Child poverty remains one of the most pressing challenges of our time. A new report from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty reveals that nearly 900 million children are estimated to be living in multidimensional poverty.

To meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets of halving multidimensional child poverty and ending extreme monetary poverty among children by 2030, bold, coordinated action is essential.

This latest analysis spotlights successful strategies from seven countries—Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, Poland, Senegal, and Tanzania—showcasing impactful policies and programmes that have made a real difference. It also uncovers key global trends in child poverty reduction.

Explore the full report, the accompanying blog post and content from the launch webinar for more insights.

Leveling the playing field to invest in Africa’s future

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Africa is the world’s second most unequal and the youngest region, with the highest rate of extreme poverty; challenges that are deeply interconnected. A recent event co-hosted by the World Bank, UNICEF, and the African Economic Research Consortium spotlighted new research and expert insights on how to tackle structural inequality and improve social spending.

The World Bank’s report, Leveling the Playing Field, outlines policy pathways to unlock opportunities in education, employment, and equitable public finance. Meanwhile, UNICEF’s Fit for the Future report reveals critical imbalances in social spending that could undermine Africa’s demographic dividend. Together, these findings underscore the urgent need for smarter, fairer investments in human capital to secure the continent’s future.

What can Slovenia teach the world about child poverty?

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There is a deep commitment to eradicating child poverty in Slovenia. The country has a national action plan for children across all kinds of metrics: affordable early years care; educational inclusivity, particularly for Roma children; protective measures on mental health; and access to housing. Social protection policy provides strong support to families and children.

To see how Slovenia is tackling child poverty through thoughtful, inclusive policies, check out this article in The Guardian.

News highlights and events

National child poverty analysis

Measuring child poverty is essential to understanding its scope, depth, and impact and to designing policies that truly make a difference. Accurate data helps track progress and improve interventions aimed at ending child poverty.

The Global Coalition to End Child Poverty is spotlighting several new national reports on its website, offering valuable insights into how children are affected by poverty across different countries:

- Afghanistan: Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) report

- Brazil: Pobreza Multidimensional na Infância e Adolescência no Brasil – 2017 a 2023 in Portuguese 

- Uruguay: Índice de Pobreza Multidimensional (in Spanish)

- Yemen: Analysis of Multidimensional Poverty among Households and the Overlapping Dimensions of Deprivation in Children in Yemen 2024

Updates to the global poverty lines

The World Bank has updated its poverty lines several times to reflect rising living costs, better data on household spending, and shifts in national benchmarks. At the heart of these updates are Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs); tools that adjust for price differences between countries, allowing for fair comparisons of income and poverty across borders.

This latest 2025 update uses new PPP data from the International Comparison Program and reflects changes in national poverty lines, especially for extreme poverty. Here are the new poverty lines (per person per day):

- Low-income countries: $3 (up from $2.15)

- Lower middle-income countries: $4.20 (up from $3.65)

- Upper middle-income countries: $8.30 (up from $6.85)

These changes help ensure poverty measurement keeps pace with real-world conditions and that global efforts to reduce poverty remain grounded in accurate, up-to-date data. 

Learn more.

New Poverty Unpacked podcast episode 

Episode 45 of Poverty Unpacked dives into two new reports from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty. The episode offers in-depth reflections on the Voluntary National Review (VNR) report and gives a sneak peek at the upcoming discussion on the "What Works to End Child Poverty" report.

Listen now

Regional conference highlights pathways to poverty reduction and climate resilience

In June 2025, CPAN and its partners held a Regional Conference on Poverty Reduction and Climate Resilience in Lusaka. The event brought together a vibrant community of researchers and policymakers, featuring over 60 research papers across nine thematic areas, including human development, health, and nutrition, focused on Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The conference included five plenary sessions, opened by Zambia’s Vice-President, and saw strong engagement from multiple government ministries. It concluded with a synthesis of key policy implications, which will be available on the CPAN website. 

Read more

Eurochild podcast: Shrinking funds for nonprofits

The fourth episode of the Eurochild podcast delves into Eurochild's flagship report, Children's Realities in Europe: Progress & Gaps. This episode explores insights from 57 members across 31 European countries, examining how poverty impacts all other rights and questioning whether current policies and promises across Europe are genuinely improving children's lives.

Listen to the episode and discover more about the challenges and progress in children's wellbeing across Europe.

Tune in

Symposium on climate-conflict nexus and its impact on children’s lives in the Sahel

On 16 –17 June 2025, a cross-country symposium took place in Chad, bringing together experts and policymakers from eight member states of the Sahel region to explore the intersection of climate change, conflict, and child well-being. The event was co-hosted by the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) and the Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN-SAD).

The symposium aimed to foster learning and the exchange of experiences, lessons, and best practices, focusing on child- and conflict-sensitive climate policies and actions. Find out more from the declaration of the symposium and read ACPF’s new publication to discover how regional collaboration is shaping more resilient futures for children in the Sahel.

Read more

New research hub on climate change and environmental shocks

On 6 June, Young Lives launched their new research hub, as part of the University of Oxford's three-day Right Here Right Now Global Climate Summit, hosted in partnership with UN Human Rights and the International Universities Climate Alliance.

The Hub will link Young Lives' longitudinal cohort data set with climate and environmental data to deliver ground-breaking new research on how life-course exposure to climate shocks impact young people’s development and well-being in the Global South, strengthening the evidence base for informed policymaking.

Read more

Still available: Online course on the economics of child well-being

If you missed it earlier, here’s a reminder about this insightful online course that explores how to measure and understand child well-being both in monetary and multidimensional terms. It delves into key areas such as education, child labor, nutrition, and health, examining their causes and consequences.

The content of this full-semester, graduate-level course was developed by international PEP-affiliated experts with support and assistance from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty. The course videos are now available to watch for free on YouTube in English and French.

Find out more. Quiz answer  The correct answer is b. Approximately  4 out of 10 children are severely deprived, reducing their opportunities later in life, ranging from worse health outcomes to lower incomes and often perpetuating poverty to the next generation. Find out more.

Do you have ideas on what to include in the future child poverty newsletters?

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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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