You are here
Child Poverty
Globally, around 600 million children live in extreme poverty. When families don’t have enough money they cannot invest in their children – such as buy food or clothes. Neither can they afford to take their children to see a doctor when they get sick or to keep them in school.
Furthermore, when already poor families are hit by unexpected shocks – such as drought, earthquakes, increased food prices, death of livestock, or conflict – their livelihoods suffer but it is children that suffer most as families are often forced to pull them out of school to work.
Even though it is the children who are suffering most from poverty’s effects, child poverty is often missing from overall national strategies for poverty reduction. Save the Children wants the world to put children and young people at the heart of its action to reduce poverty; to strengthen the low and insecure incomes that prevent children from surviving, learning and being protected; and thereby stop the transmission of poverty to future generations.
In 2018 the Child Poverty global theme launched three organisation wide common approaches driving forward our best work and best thinking to ensure we achieve more for children in more places across the world. Our common understanding is helping to ensure best programming for new born age upwards. We work to provide cash plus for better nutrition of children in the first 1000 days of life; we work to strengthened understanding of family economic situations to determine if households have the food and cash they need to survive and prosper; and we work to ensure young people acquire the core life skills to identify and capitalise on decent life and work opportunities in the future.
Save the Children works with partners and governments and directly with families and children to reduce the numbers of girls and boys in extreme poverty and seeks to increase young people’s hopes and skills for better lives.
-
2015 U.S. Programs: Child sponsorship
Since 1938, Save the Children U.S. Programs has worked within numerous states and with local organizations to design Sponsorship programs tailored to meet the unique and ever-changing needs of children. In 2015, the organization was working in 11 states,
-
Doing More, Doing Better: Social Protection for Adolescent Girls
This story shows the process of how to better include adolescent girls in the existing social protection framework in Bangladesh. Through evidence-based strategic advocacy, Save the Children has tried to better link with social protection systems and stru
-
More Investment in Social Protection, Briefing Paper
In June 2012, the Government of Bangladesh showed its commitment to providing social protection for its people by initiating the National Social Safety Strategy (NSSS). The NSSS proposes a life cycle approach to social protection, but does not yet clearly
-
Healthcare Through Child Sensitive Social Protection
Child Sensitive Social Protection works! This video from India presents a concrete example on how poverty, vulnerability and inequality are effectively reduced through strengthened social protection systems. The Community Health Protection Programme is a
-
Outcomes for Children from Household Economic Strengthening Interventions: A research synthesis
Traditionally, Economic Strengthening (ES) programmes have focused on the head of the household and were designed on the assumption that any benefits would trickle down to other members of the household including children. Despite this assumption, the imp
-
Toward Financially Capable Youth: Insights from YouthSave's financial education
As part of the YouthSave project, Save the Children carried out financial education activities in Colombia, Kenya, and Nepal to teach adolescent youth how to make the best use of their savings accounts and about sound personal financial management. Save t
-
How Gender Shapes Adolescence: Diverging paths and opportunities
This Young Lives policy brief emphasizes the need for a greater understanding of how gender inequalities appear and form during adolescence, and what causes inequality to shift and persist in different ways within and between countries. By using a unique
-
Young Voices- Sweden 2014
Young Voices is a survey of children’s perspectives on a range of issues that affect them. It was conducted in Sweden, 2014. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), all children are entitled to express their views on all matters that
-
Progress for Children Beyond Averages: Learning from the MDGs (No. 11)
This publication, through the use of UNICEF data, explores the progress and disparities for children after the arrival of the end date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The analysis provides a range of outcomes: although a child’s chance to sur
-
Social Protection for Children: Key policy trends and statistics
Published as an instalment of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Social Protection Policy Papers, this publication examines the case of social protection policies as an essential element of realizing children’s rights, ensuring their well-being
-
Intra-Household Inequalities in Child Rights and Wellbeing: A barrier to progress?
This paper attempts to measure the extent of inequality between boys and girls within households and its contribution to overall levels of inequality in child wellbeing. Without better knowledge of this area, our view of progress towards eliminating child
-
Mellan Stolarna, Episode 10, På Lika Villkor
On this episode of the podcast “Mellan Stolorna”, Save the Children Sweden psychologists talk about mental illness amongst children in Sweden in relation to the standard of living they have while growing up. The economic and social conditions that childre