The Global Coalition to End Child Poverty hosts a UN side event with Member States to discuss the inclusion of child poverty in the SDGs, and how the new targets and indicators can help catalyze action at the national level to end child poverty.
NEW YORK, 19 November 2015 – The Permanent Mission of Luxembourg to the UN, Permanent Mission of Mexico to the UN, and the Global Coalition Against Child Poverty hosted a side event at the United Nations in New York to discuss how to end child poverty as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
For the first time, the global community has recognized the centrality of children to address global poverty. As part of the new SDGs proposed to end poverty, the new agenda aims to ‘reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all dimensions according to national definitions’ by 2030’.
The event was hosted as part of the celebrations for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17th, and provided a unique opportunity to highlight the central role that children can play in ending poverty, and highlight the experience of countries in measuring and addressing child poverty at the national level in relation to the new SDGs.
The side event brought together a diverse range of speakers from UN missions, representing countries at all levels of development, together with representatives from civil society, academia and international organizations. The event was chaired by Dr. Agnes Akosua Aidoo, a member of the Board of Trustees of the African Child Policy Forum, who has worked extensively in human rights and child poverty.
The event provided a unique opportunity to highlight child poverty as a universal issue, affecting children in richer and poorer countries. Panelist included H. E. Ambassador Ms Sylvie Lucas, Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the United Nations; Dr. John Scott Andretta, Researcher at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) and member of the Board of CONEVAL in Mexico.
Ted Chaiban, Director of Programmes at UNICEF, and Richard Morgan, Director of the Child Poverty Global Initiative at Save the Children, spoke on behalf of the new Global Coalition to End Child Poverty. At the meeting, members of the Global Coalition presented a joint statement stressing the urgency of the situation affecting our children, and some of the ways we can globally address child poverty.