As the world marks 25 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, The State of the World’s Children calls for brave and fresh thinking to address age-old problems that still affect the most disadvantaged children.
The report calls for innovation and for the best and brightest solutions coming from communities to be taken to scale to benefit every child. It highlights how new ways of solving problems – often emerging from local communities and young people themselves – can help us overcome age-old inequities that prevent millions of children from surviving, thriving and making the most of their potential.
Key findings:
- The magnitude of change and the scope of new ideas witnessed today are remarkable – but they also often represent extreme disparity. Many children born today will enjoy vast opportunities unavailable 25 years ago. But not all will have an equal chance to grow up healthy, educated and able to fulfil their potential and become fully participating citizens, as envisioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- The safety of a child’s arrival in this world remains subject to the lottery of where she was born and whether her family is well off – and the inequity extends throughout childhood and beyond. The world’s low-income countries remain home to concentrations of poverty and disadvantage, but many impoverished children live in middle-income countries – countries plagued with large income inequalities.
- Innovation for equity. For all children to have an equal chance to make the most of their potential, innovation must not only benefit those who can afford it the most. It must also meet the needs and advance the rights of those who have the least.
- Engaging youth. Young people are finding new ways to participate and claim their rights. They are using the internet and mobile technologies to track issues they are concerned about and speak directly to decision makers. Children living and working on the streets are finding resources to help themselves plan for the future.
- Sparking creativity. Young people need support and quality education to foster their potential as innovators. Expanding access to quality education equips them with concrete knowledge and skills in disciplines like science and engineering, which are in demand in this technologically driven world. Around the world, innovators are trying out unconventional approaches to education – like using simple toys to illustrate principles of science, or setting up innovation labs to give children a space in which to tinker with models and machines.
- Working with communities. Inclusive and sustainable solutions, by and for local people, are emerging. A variety of innovative projects are achieving results by putting local participation and agency at the centre.
- Adapting solutions. Innovators around the world are closing gaps and crafting solutions tailored to local needs. As much as innovation is about breaking boundaries and reimagining the possibilities around us, it is also about solving problems within the constraints of the local context. Constrained circumstances can inspire ingenious solutions.
- Reaching all children. Reorienting innovation towards greater equality and the needs of the poorest takes deliberate effort. Some say the benefits of innovation will eventually trickle down, but this is not a foregone conclusion. Reorienting innovation towards greater equality and the needs of the poorest takes deliberate effort.
- Rethinking structures. Innovation is about more than just new technologies. However ground breaking, new technologies won’t change the lives of the world’s poorest children, families and communities on their own. Putting innovation to work for a fairer world involves dealing with laws, infrastructure, institutions, cultural values, social norms, markets, money and people – and it often means challenging the status quo.
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