The combined impacts of climate change, conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic have only exacerbated the situation. As we face crisis after crisis, child poverty can feel inevitable. But it is not, we just need decisive efforts to address it.

At UNICEF, the focus is on understanding which children and families live in poverty, promoting their right to social protection, and ensuring that adequately financed social services reach them – particularly the most marginalized, girls, children with disabilities, or living in humanitarian contexts. How governments choose to allocate resources shapes how children get what they need to survive and thrive.

Across the world, children are more likely to live in poverty than adults. They are also more vulnerable to its effects. Social protection programmes – like cash transfers, health insurance and education subsidies – help give every child an equitable chance in life. They improve children's access to good nutrition, health care and education, and reduce the lifelong consequences of poverty.

But global coverage is low: For almost three out of every four children, social protection remains out of grasp.