Children pose for a photograph at the temporary settlement for IDPs in Idora. Image credit: Seifu Assegid / Save the Children
Globally, 4 out of 10 children live in poverty.
The poorest children are most at risk of disease, malnutrition and stunting. They’re more likely to miss school, or get a poor education. And there’s a greater chance they’ll suffer early marriage, violence or child labour.
But child poverty isn’t inevitable, as the story of Meera, below, shows.
Governments recognised this too. In 2015, over 160 national leaders signed up to 17 Sustainable Development Goals, targets that could end hunger, extreme poverty and preventable child deaths by 2030.
We're working tirelessly to make sure governments deliver.
We're also working to tackle child poverty in the UK. Child poverty isn’t just a problem in poor countries. Britain's one of the world’s richest countries, yet rates of poverty are rising, with serious implications for children's future life chances.
HOW WE'RE FIGHTING TO GIVE MEERA AN EDUCATION
Meera, 10, lives in a large marketplace in Delhi, India, with her mother and her two younger sisters. They sleep under a piece of plastic on a blanket amongst other families.
Meera has spent most of her life on the streets, begging for food.
Thanks to help from Save the Children and other local partners, she's recently been able to start going back to school after being supported by a shelter for homeless families, funded by Save the Children via local partners.
The shelter now allows Meera to go to school in the mornings and spend her afternoons playing in and around the shelter with her friends.
How serious is the problem?
- More than 850 million children experience multidimensional poverty, facing deprivations in critical areas like education, health, nutrition, and basic living conditions
- On current trends, around 750 million children are still living in multidimensional child poverty across low- and middle-income countries in 2030
- 412 million children live in families struggling to survive on less than $3 a day (also called extreme poverty)
- More than three-quarters of children in extreme poverty live in Sub-Saharan Africa
- More than half of children in fragile and conflict-affected countries live in extreme poverty
How are we helping?
Here's a few of the things we're doing:
Raising awareness and influencing decision-maker: Together with the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty, we ensure that ending child poverty remains on the forefront of policymakers’ minds worldwide.
Providing better data: Together with UNICEF, we improve how child poverty is measured across the world. The Child Atlas helps to visualise, analyse and understand children’s outcomes around the world, including on child poverty.
Campaigning for policies to reduce child poverty: We advocate to governments and international partners to prioritise investments in social sectors and inclusive social protection – proven pathways we know reduce child poverty.
Nigeria: Protecting children from extreme poverty with cash transfer and first-ever social protection policies.
Yemen: Working towards greater resilience in the face of crisis through helping families access cash support for immediate hunger, learn different livelihoods to earn more income, and make community networks stronger.
Siera Leone: Empowering families to plan for and cope with climate change by teaching farmers and fishers new practices, enhancing food value chains, promoting sustainable resource use and management, and conserving and restoring mangroves for.
Malawi: Tackling malnutrition by testing approaches to complement cash transfers, including teaching farmers new climate-resilient techniques, strengthening savings groups to ensure families have access to finance, and supporting mothers’ mental health and well-being.
Madagascar: Improving families’ income and resilience to shocks and preventing child rights’ violations in vanilla producing communities through training and systems’ strengthening. This includes supporting youth to establish small businesses and access sexual reproductive health services.
