Are countries committed to ending child poverty by 2030? A review of VNR reports from 2017 to 2021
Ending poverty in all its forms for everyone, including for children – is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015 by the global community. The SDG Agenda provides a clear framework for action: Countries must eradicate extreme child poverty by 2030 as internationally defined (PPP $1.90) and halve the number of children living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
2021 marked the opening of the Decade of Action to accelerate solutions to achieve these ambitious goals. However, the COVID-19 crisis has impacted progress in the reduction of child poverty (approximately 150 million additional children were pushed into multidimensional poverty by the end of 2020[1]), bringing to light the urgency for governments to adopt long-term policy and programmatic actions to reduce child poverty.
Governments must take concerted actions to prevent this pandemic from turning into a child poverty crisis, through strengthening social protection systems and social services.
To monitor and assess their progress on the SDGs, each year a select number of countries present their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) to the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). This process enables countries to take stock of their achievements and challenges, share lessons learned and identify actions to accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
One way to gauge progress on SDG implementation is to survey the data and the narrative content that countries present in their VNRs. This Coalition brief is the third annual analysis of the VNRs from a child poverty perspective, looking at how countries mention and discuss their efforts to end child poverty, through measurement and policies. This analysis builds upon last year’s brief[1] developed by the Coalition, which reviewed VNRs from 2017 to 2020. This year’s analysis is based on the 2021 VNRs.
Title: Are countries committed to ending child poverty by 2030? A review of VNR reports from 2017 to 2021
Author/s: Global Coalition to End Child Poverty
Publication date: October 2021
Download the briefing note and the three-pager.
[1] http://www.endchildhoodpoverty.org/publications-feed/2020/10/17/briefing-paper