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.
-
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
-
For every child, a fair chance: The promise of equity
UNICEF’s ’equity agenda’ proposes that the greatest hope of breaking intergenerational cycles of inequity and poverty in society is through giving all children, especially the most disadvantaged, a fair chance in life. This report outlines the milestones
-
Rio Stories
In Rio Stories you meet five young people living in the favela Maré in Rio de Janeiro. Children growing up in Maré face high levels of poverty, limited public services, social and economic exclusion and human rights abuses. Maré has suffered decades of dr
-
Using Mobile Money Payments for Cash Transfers: Save the Children and Econet
This is a webinar on Save the Children and Econet’s partnership in Zimbabwe. The aim of the programme was to distribute cash transfers electronically through mobile money services. The presentation covers each partner’s contribution, the benefits of digit
-
Child Sensitive Norms and Child Poverty: Maximising benefits, minimising harms
Child-sensitivity refers to that aspect of policies, programmes and interventions that aim to increase the benefits for children and reduce any harms, including gender discrimination. This involves assessing and monitoring both positive and negative impac
-
Child Sensitive Social Protection: Addressing child poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Child Sensitive Social Protection is an initiative that Save the Children and The Africa Platform for Social Protection (APSP) want to advance in Sub-Saharan Africa with the aim to reduce vulnerability and poverty among children by ensuring that social pr
-
The Ghana Experiment: Overview of the findings
The Ghana Experiment in YouthSave is a large-scale, rigorous test of the impacts of youth savings accounts (YSAs) on savings performance and developmental outcomes for youth and their households. The Center for Social Development (CSD), in partnership wit
-
Assessment of Save the Children's 'Child Sensitive Social Protection' Approach in South Asia
The Child Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) programme supported by Save the Children Finland in India, Bangladesh and Nepal aims to reduce vulnerability and poverty of children by ensuring that social protection measures lead to meaningful investment in
-
Rethinking Parenting for Economic Migrants in East Africa: Corporate social responsibility perspectives
Economic migration, migration on the grounds of employment or financial stability, continues to play a key role for households in East Africa. With a specific focus on the private sector in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda this report focuses on four issues: the
-
Impact of Cash and Asset Transfers on Child and Forced Marriage
This rapid review research report examines the impacts of cash and asset transfers on child and forced marriage. It identifies literature on the impacts of cash and asset transfer programmes on child and forced marriage. It attempts to identify key actors